Bigender

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    Revision as of 22:40, 29 April 2020 by imported>TXJ
    Bigender
    Bigender.png
    Meaning
    - Pink: Woman
    - Blue: Man
    - Purple: Androgyne/mix of woman and man
    - White: agender.
    Related identities androgyne, trigender, multigender
    Click here to see alternative flags!

    Bigender, or bi-gender, is a gender identity under the multigender, nonbinary, and transgender umbrella terms. Bigender people have two distinct gender identities, either at the same time, or at different times. The latter is a form of genderfluid identity, and may involve only two distinct genders, or it may involve "shades of gray between the two."[1] The two genders of a bigender person can be the two binary genders, female and male. This is what people usually assume bigender means. However, some people who identify as bigender have a different pair of genders. For example, their two genders might be female and neutrois. Or the two genders might be both nonbinary, such as agender and aporagender. Bigender is recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a subset of the transgender group.[2]

    History

    A 1997 paper concerning the "gender continuum" in International Journal of Transgenderism noted that "a person who feels or acts as both a woman and a man may identify as bi-gendered." The paper also described individuals who were "genderblended", being both binary genders but either "more man than woman" or "more woman than man".[3]

    A 1999 survey conducted by the San Francisco Department of Public Health observed that, among the transgender community, less than 3% of those who were assigned male at birth and less than 8% of those who were assigned female at birth identified as bigender.[4]

    In 2012, Case and Ramachandran gave a report on the results of a survey of genderfluid people who call themselves bigender who experience involuntary alternation between female and male states. Case and Ramachandran gave this condition the name "Alternating gender incongruity (AGI)." Case and Ramachandran made the hypothesis that gender alternation may reflect an unusual degree (or depth) of hemispheric switching, and the corresponding suppression of sex appropriate body maps in the parietal cortex. They said that "we hypothesize that tracking the nasal cycle, rate of binocular rivalry, and other markers of hemispheric switching will reveal a physiological basis for AGI individuals' subjective reports of gender switches... We base our hypotheses on ancient and modern associations between the left and right hemispheres and the male and female genders."[5][6][7] These doctors think that when bigender people feel a change between their gender identities, it might have to do with a change in how they use parts of their brains. The gender change might also have to do with one of the cycles that everyone has in their body, specifically, a valve in the nose that changes sides every two days (the nasal cycle). This is only a hypothesis, meaning that it is an interesting idea that doesn't have proof for now.

    In 2014, bigender was one of the 56 genders made available on Facebook.[8]

    In 2015, an entry for "bigender" was added to Dictionary.com,[9] defined as "a person who has two gender identities or some combination of both."[10]

    In 2017, bigender was one of the 37 gender options added to the dating network Tinder.[11]

    Gender expression

    Bigender people "move between feminine and masculine gender-typed behaviour depending on context. Some bigendered individuals express a distinctly ‘en femme’ persona and a distinctly ‘en homme’ persona […] others have shades of grey between the two."[12]

    Notable bigender people

    See main article: Notable nonbinary people

    There are many more notable people who have a gender identity outside of the binary. The following are only some of those notable people who specifically use the word "bigender" for themselves.

    Bigender characters in fiction

    See main article: Nonbinary gender in fiction

    There are many more nonbinary characters in fiction who have a gender identity outside of the binary. The following are only some of those characters who are specifically called by the word "bigender," either in their canon, or by their creators.

    • But I'm A Cat Person by Erin Ptah - Urban fantasy webcomic featuring a bigender character - Timothy/Camellia Mattei - as well as numerous 'Beings' who are able to take on both male and female forms. Also features various LGB characters. Updates three times a week.

    See also

    External links

    References

    1. Schneider, M., et al. APA Task Force on Gender Identity, Gender Variance, and Intersex Conditions, 2008 http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/transgender.pdf (PDF)
    2. Schneider, M., et al. APA Task Force on Gender Identity, Gender Variance, and Intersex Conditions, 2008 http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/transgender.pdf (PDF)
    3. Eyler, A.E.; Wright, K. (1997). "Gender Identification and Sexual Orientation Among Genetic Females with Gender-Blended Self-Perception in Childhood and Adolescence". International Journal of Transgenderism.
    4. Clements, K. "The Transgender Community Health Project." San Francisco Department of Public Health. 1999. http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=cftg-02-02
    5. Case, L. K.; Ramachandran, V. S. (2012). "Alternating gender incongruity: A new neuropsychiatric syndrome providing insight into the dynamic plasticity of brain-sex". Medical Hypotheses 78 (5): 626–631. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2012.01.041. PMID 22364652. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22364652
    6. "Bigender - Boy Today, Girl Tomorrow?". Neuroskeptic. April 8, 2012. http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/04/bigender-boy-today-girl-tomorrow.html
    7. Stix, Gary (2012-04-20). "'Alternating Gender Incongruity' Causes Rapid Shifts Of Gender, Scientist Claims". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/19/alternating-gender-incongruity_n_1438911.html
    8. Eve Shapiro, Gender circuits: Bodies and identities in a technological age. Unpaged.
    9. "New words added to Dictionary.com." May 6, 2015. http://blog.dictionary.com/2015-new-words/
    10. "Bigender." Dictionary.com. Retrieved May 18, 2015. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bigender
    11. Mallenbaum, Carly (15 November 2016). "What you need to know about Tinder's new gender identity terms". USA TODAY. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
    12. Schneider, M., et al. APA Task Force on Gender Identity, Gender Variance, and Intersex Conditions, 2008 http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/transgender.pdf (PDF)
    13. Facebook post, June 6 2015
    14. http://rblemberg.net/?page_id=16
    15. Tweet on July 25, 2018