Metagender

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Metagender is a term that has been coined multiple times with varying definitions, including as multiple nonbinary gender identities, a sexual orientation, a gender modality, and a description for gender-nonconforming behavior. Different definitions have been used as a self-identifier or in academic settings.

History

In a 1999 interview, musician/poet/filmmaker Phoebe Legere said that she was "metagender, metasexual, not a man or a woman."

The term was coined again in the 2000s by Rook Thomas Hine. This coining's definition is given as "someone who identifies as neither male nor female, neither woman nor man, neither neuter nor feminine nor masculine. [...] A metagender is less of a 'both/and' combination, 'all of the above' or androgyne, and more of a 'wholly other' third/fourth/eighty-seventh category, or 'none of the above'." The metagender identity was further developed as "a social gender that comes into play in a spiritual and religious context" inside a neopagan context.

Maxfield Sparrow wrote in 2018 that metagender "expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender." Sparrow has claimed on social media to be out as metagender since 1992.

In June 2014 "metagender" was suggested as an alternative word for pangender.

"Metagender" was independently coined again in 2014 by Tumblr users keyblademastercecilpalmer, agenderchrismclean, and lordmoriarty by submission to the MOGAI-Archive blog, and the definition was: "To identify around or beyond a gender. Where your gender identity is almost that gender, but not quite, and also extends beyond that. Imagine that —- is you, and | is the gender identity (and identifying fully with a gender is —-|), then metagender is —- | —-" For example, meta-boy, meta-girl, meta-nonbinary, and so on.

In the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census, one respondent called themselves metagender. In the 2020 Worldwide Gender Census, four respondents called themselves metagender.