Metagender: Difference between revisions

The term was coined again by 1997 by Rook Thomas Hine,<ref name=":14">{{cite web|url=http://www.liminalityland.com/metagender.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040726170300/http://www.liminalityland.com/metagender.htm|archive-date=26 July 2004|title=Metagender|last=Bernhardt-House|first=Phillip|date=|access-date=|website=}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> an identity Hine characterized as being a "conscientious objector" in "the war of the sexes."<ref name=":6">{{cite book|last=Bernhardt-House|first=Phillip|chapter=So, which one is the opposite sex?: the sometimes spiritual journey of a metagender|editors=O'Keefe, Tracie & Fox, Katrina |publisher=Jossey-Bass|title=Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity|year=2003|page=76|url=https://archive.org/details/findingrealmetru00trac/page/76/mode/2up}}</ref> This concept of metagender was further developed by Phillip Andrew Bernhardt-House. E defined the term in a 2003 anthology as a spiritual identity that was a "'wholly other' third/fourth/eighty-seventh"<ref name=":6" /> gender category that was not derived from any combination of [[woman]], [[man]], [[feminine]], [[masculine]], [[neuter]], or [[androgyne]]. E described being "a metagender" as similar to being a [[third gender]] with a spiritual component while being in a culture that lacked this concept.<ref name=":6" /> Metagender developed into a discrete identity as a spiritual functionary inside [[Pagan|neopaganism]], combining social gender and sexuality (latter being similar to [[pansexual]]), which it has remained since 2008 as described by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://psufenasviriuslupus.wordpress.com/home/metagender/|title=Metagender|date=14 December 2016|website=P. SUFENAS VIRIUS LUPUS|language=en|access-date=24 December 2020|last=Lupus|first=P. Sufenas Virius|archive-url=|archive-date=|publisher=Wordpress}}</ref>  

Author Maxfield Sparrow, who has spoken about coming out as metagender in 1992,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/FTMOver30/comments/d98wwv/tell_me_about_your_nonbinary_transition/f1nlfli|title=r/FTMOver30 - Comment by u/MaxfieldSparrow on ”Tell me about your "non-binary transition"?”|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=27 September 2019|website=reddit|language=en-US|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=24 December 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Maxfield Sparrow on Twitter|url=https://twitter.com/UnstrangeMind/status/1337887769511612417|website=Twitter|access-date=24 December 2020|language=en-US|date=12 December 2020|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|archive-url=|archive-date=|quote=It's great that people decided there should be a word for those who aren't cis and aren't trans but I wish they had not chosen the word [metagender] I've been using since 1992 and defined me out of my own identity and then told me I don't matter because I'm old and my identity is only history}}</ref> wrote about being metagender on various channels across the 2010s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/UnstrangeMind/posts/735759669859809|title=Unstrange Mind (comment)|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=22 August 2016|website=Facebook|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=28 December 2020|quote=I am female but not a woman because I'm also male (and not a man). I'm an epicene. I'm metagender. I'm transmasculine.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sashacagen.com/quirky-alone/quirkyalone-day-cards-from-readers/#comment-350978|title=Comment on 'Happy Quirkyalone Day 2019! Here are some hand-drawn cards from readers'|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=14 February 2019|website=Sasha Cagen, Quirkyalone + To-Do List Author + Coach|language=en-US|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=28 December 2020|quote=I’m performing the poem “Reclaiming Cunt” as an affirmation and validation of my gender and how I express it, as a metagender person with a masculine body presentation.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite tweet|number=973524929856573440|user=UnstrangeMind|title=Thank you. I think words are changing a lot these days. Non-binary didn’t exist when I first started identifying as metagender. And I went 26 years not realizing I was Trans until I felt the need to transition. I’m glad the Trans umbrella is opening up now & more inclusive.|author=Sparrow, Maxfield.|date=13 March 2018}}</ref><ref name=":15">{{Cite web|url=https://transtistic.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/what-is-gendervague/|title=What is Gendervague?|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield. [unstrangemind]|date=17 July 2017|website=Transtistic|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=28 December 2020|quote=I referred to myself as metagender for many years}}</ref> In Sparrow's 2017 blog essay "What is Metagender," Sparrow described the difficulty of defining the identity, describing its similarity to [[gendervague]].<ref name=":20">{{Cite web|url=https://transtistic.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/what-is-metagender/|title=What is Metagender?|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield. [unstrangemind]|date=11 July 2017|website=Transtistic|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=21 January 2021|user=|publisher=Wordpress}}</ref> Sparrow expanded on their metagender identity in a 2018 anthology, writing that metagender "expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Challenging genders: non-binary experiences of those assigned female at birth|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2018|publisher=Boundless Endeavors, Inc|year=|isbn=978-0-9968309-6-6|editor-last=Brown|editor-first=Michael Eric|location=Miami, AZ|pages=|quote="I didn't begin identifying as metagender until my 30s. Metagender means that I don't feel like a woman and I don't feel like a man. I don't feel like a gender at all. But I don't feel 'genderless,' either. Metagender is a word that expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender...I am metagender because I don't grasp gender at all."}}</ref>