Metagender

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    This page quotes outdated terminology for "transgender" and "metagender," including "transgendered" and "transgenderism," as used by transgender scholars and other gender-variant people at the time.


    Metagender is a term that has been coined multiple times with varying definitions, including multiple nonbinary gender identities, spiritual identities, a combined gender identity and romantic and sexual orientation, a gender modality, a description for gender-nonconforming behavior, and a super-set for all gender possibilities. Different definitions have been used for LGBTQ+ self-identifiers, in feminist/queer theory and activism, and in academic settings, including as an academic and self-identified term for multiple third gender religious and spiritual identities.

    History and Usage

    Metagender existed as a technical term prior to its use by LGBTQIA2+ individuals, dating back at least to the 1980s, initially concerned with being outside or transcending binary gender, whether of imagery, perspectives, data, or people.[1][2][3] Its use as a technical term with various definitions has persisted into 2020.

    LGBTQIA2+ Definitions

    1990s

    Metagender's early usage by queer communities was recorded in queer and feminist publications, where its definition included post-gender concepts, gender variance, gender-bending, and being neither a man nor a woman.

    In a 1994 letter to the San Francisco Bay Times, an intersex womyn used metagender as an umbrella descriptor for gender-variant and intersex.[4]

    In a 1998 BITCH essay titled "Metagender and the Slow Decline of the Either/Or," Lisa Voldeng and Laura Kloppenberg coined "metagenderism" to "encapsulat[e] all existing, evolving, and unborn gender models: It is the unlimited superset of all possible (non)genders and gender (non)identities, of individual and cultural existence free from binaristic cat­egorization and definition." This definition was in contrast with the contemporary "transgenderism" as defined by trans woman and cultural theorist Sandy Stone. Where transgender was a category to "include everyone not covered by our culture's narrow terms man and woman," metagenderism entailed "a comprehensive reenvisioning of gender," to serve as "container for all gender identities, encompassing the two-gender system to transgender and beyond."[5]

    In a 1999 interview, musician/poet/filmmaker Phoebe Legere said that she was "metagender, metasexual, not a man or a woman."[6]

    2000s

    The term was coined again before 2002 by Rook Thomas Hine,[7][8] an identity Hine characterized as being a "conscientious objector" in "in the war of the sexes."[9] This concept of metagender was further developed by Phillip Andrew Bernhardt-House. E defined the term in a 2003 anthology 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'."[9] E also described "a spiritual dimension to being metagender," comparing the identity to other culturally-specific spiritual identities with specific cultural functions. The metagender identity was further developed into "a social gender that comes into play in a spiritual and religious context" inside neopaganism,[10] with at least two persons known to use name a spiritual metagender as their identity by 2015.[10][11]

    In a 2004 zine, Katie Cercone listed metagender as a term for "gender-bending."[12]

    In a 2006 book on transgender journeys, metagender was defined as "individuals who do not identify as either male or female."[13]

    2010s

    In 2012, metagender was defined in HaifischGeweint's Gender 101 as "a gender identity describing a person whose subjective experience of gender is not adequately described by any existing terminology (i.e., I never “met a” gender like you before)."[14]

    Metagender was proposed for three different meanings in 2014.

    1. In June, "metagender" was suggested as an alternative word for pangender.[15]
    2. In August, "metagender" was coined by Tumblr users keyblademastercecilpalmer, agenderchrismclean, and lordmoriarty by submission to the MOGAI-Archive blog. 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.[16][17]
    3. In November, "metagender" was coined by Tumblr user arquus-malvaceae as "a tangential or tenuous connection to the concept of gender.  Existing in that sort of floaty space where there is no gender, but still connecting with another label.  Identifying with as opposed to identifying as. Can be narrowed down and specified as one sees fit.  Eg, Metawoman, Metaman, Metaqueer, etc."[18]

    Author Maxfield Sparrow, who has spoken about coming out as metagender in 1992,[19][20] wrote about being metagender on various channels across the 2010s.[21][22][23][24] In Sparrow's 2017 blog essay "What is Metagender," Sparrow described the difficulty of defining the identity, describing its similarity to gendervague. Sparrow expanded on their metagender identity in a 2018 anthology, writing that metagender "expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender."[25]

    2020-present

    In July 2020, metagender was coined again by Talea Boelsems, Tenacity Granger, and Evey Winters as a gender modality for persons who are not cisgender and do not identify transgender,[26][27] similar to isogender and absgender.

    In the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census, one respondent called themselves metagender.[28] In the 2020 Worldwide Gender Census, four respondents called themselves metagender.[29] As of December 28, 2020, the "Metagender and Questioning" facebook group, founded after the gender modality coining, had 506 members, with an unknown number of members being metagender themselves.[27]

    As a Technical and Academic Term

    Metagender(ed) (sometimes meta-gender(ed) or metagenderism) has been used to describe "the academic engagement with or the theorizing of gender,"[30][31] religious identities that transcend gender,[32][33][34][35][36] systems of gender,[37][38] sets of gender,[39] being beyond binary gender categories,[40][41][1] applying regardless of gender or to all genders equally,[42][43][44] and otherwise being about gender.[45][31]

    Examples:

    "These dynamics are meta-gendered, in that they impact men and women and those who don’t identify in the binary, without particular discrimination, putting all of us at risk for weirdly pervasive and unexamined suffering."[44]

    As a Label for Spiritual Identity in Theology and Anthropology

    More relevant to non-binary history is the academic naming of religious or spiritual concepts and identities as metagender. In anthropology, spiritual third gender identities have been labeled metagender. In theology of multiple religions, spiritual identities, some divine and others obtainable by religious adherents, have been labeled meta-gender.

    For 600 years into the present day, Bugis Society recognizes four genders, plus a fifth gender, bissu.[46] Bissu, seen as a gender which combines and transcends other genders, has been labeled a "meta-gender" identity by anthropologists since 2001.[47] "Bissu embody elements of all genders within them, and thereby occupy a space outside or above any single gender identity. They are essentially beyond gender — ‘meta-gender’ or ‘gender-transcendent’ as they are sometimes described."[48]

    Metagender as a third gender also applies in pre-history. In Aegean scholarship of the genderless aspects of Minoan culture, applying meta-gender as a third gender concept "better conveys something above and beyond binary categories" than "genderless."[40]

    Meta-gender as a transcendent ideal appears in scholarship of early medieval Daoism,[49] Buddhism,[32] and the lives of medieval Catholic Saints.[33][34]

    In addition to human spiritual idenities, divine beings have been called meta-gendered–in the sense of transcending human gender categories–in religious scholarship of multiple religions. Examples include angels in Islam,[35] the Christian God,[50] and other spiritualities[51] One neopagan deity–Paneros of the Tetrad++–was "birthed" specifically as a metagendered diety.[52][53]

    Miscellaneous

    In 2010, "MetaGender" was used as an informal community-specific term to refer to the metafilter website's open text field for gender.[54] In 2017, pronouns were added as an open field, and in 2020 the gender field was deleted, citing the jokey nature of old answers that had aged badly.[55]

    References

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Annales D'archéologie Égéenne de L'Université de Liège". Aegaeum. 30: 231. 1987. We can see...what does help us to approach the door that opens onto Minoan realities is to study the meta-gender of the aniconic. We discern a cluster of symbols that were definitely greater than just female or male.
    2. ↑ Bal, Mieke (1992). Murder and difference: gender, genre, and scholarship on Sisera's death. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN 978-0-585-02512-4. OCLC 42854270. Just as with disciplinary codes, notably the theological and liteary codes, the meta-gender code adopted by the interpreter in search of difference ought to be distinguished, first, from the personal gender code he or she has also adopted, most implicitly, by virtue of membership in a particular sexual group, and second, from the gender code he or she assumes the other has adopted...I will confront the possible contribution of a meta-gender code to the personal gender code, which, as we will see in the sample interpretations, remains implicit.
    3. ↑ Costello, Bonnie (1989). "Domestic Mysticism". Partisan Review. 56 (4): 671. ISSN 0031-2525 – via Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. One challenge for contemporary women poets is to decide just how far they wish 'womanhood' to define the terms of their awareness. It is a good sign, I think, that 'the soul' has returned with a fresh, contemporary aura, not genderless, but metagendered. The metaphysical impulse arising in, altered and constrained by biology, runs through many of our best women-poets.
    4. ↑ Jones, Billie Jean. Hernandez, Michael M. (1994). GenderFlex. 4(23). p 13. Retrieved at https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/gx41mh96x "There was an interesting letter in the S.F. Bay Times (August 25, 1994) from a person born intersexed who identified as a feminist member of the womyn's community. This person was highly critical of " ... this newly expanded, all-inclusive 'transgendered' category" and resented being lumped into said category. This person does not openly identify as a TS "...increasingly because of the new tendency to lump all metagender situations together to include men who play at drag." Railing against the " ... insulting-to-womyn draggy/tv posturing", the writer also omitted any mention of FTMs.
    5. ↑ Kloppenberg, Laura. Voldeng, Lisa. (1998). "Metagender & the Slow Decline of the Either/Or." BITCH, 3(1), p 33-34.
    6. ↑ "Mighty Aphrodite". Femme Fatales. 8 (4): 40-41. September 10, 1999.
    7. ↑ Bernhardt-House, Phillip. "Metagender". Archived from the original on 26 July 2004. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    8. ↑ "Quod Est Hoc Doctor?". web.archive.org. 2004-09-06. Archived from the original on |archive-url= requires |archive-date= (help). Retrieved 2020-12-29. Meeting Kate... in August of 2001 was amazing. This was the near-endpoint of the crystallization of my concept of “metagender.” Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Bernhardt-House, Phillip (2003). "So, which one is the opposite sex?: the sometimes spiritual journey of a metagender". Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity. Jossey-Bass. p. 76. Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (help)
    10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Metagender". P. SUFENAS VIRIUS LUPUS. 2016-12-14. Retrieved 2020-12-24.
    11. ↑ Bee, Jaina (2015-05-10). "Blessed Bee: What is Metagender?". Blessed Bee. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
    12. ↑ Cercone, Katie. (2004). Ms. Direction #6. p. 4. Retrieved at https://archive.qzap.org/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/300
    13. ↑ Kane-Demaios, J. Ari; Bullough, Vern L., eds. (2006). Crossing sexual boundaries: transgender journeys, uncharted paths. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-388-3. OCLC 61309341.
    14. ↑ "#Gender101". HaifischGeweint. 2012-04-22. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
    15. ↑ "Pangender Without the 'Pan'". 23 June 2014.
    16. ↑ http://mogai-archive.tumblr.com/post/91734862699/metagender [Dead link]
    17. ↑ http://www.mogaipedia.org/wiki:metagender#toc0
    18. ↑ arquus-malvaceae (2014-11-21). "Metagender: A tangential or tenuous connection to..." Cupcakes – tumblr. Archived from the original on 2020-12-28. Retrieved 2020-12-28. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    19. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield (2019-09-27). "r/FTMOver30 - Comment by u/MaxfieldSparrow on "Tell me about your "non-binary transition"?"". reddit. Retrieved 2020-12-24. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    20. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield (2020-12-12). "Maxfield Sparrow on Twitter". twitter. Retrieved 2020-12-24. 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 Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    21. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield (2016-08-22). "Unstrange Mind (comment)". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-12-28. 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. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    22. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield (2019-02-14). "Comment on 'Happy Quirkyalone Day 2019! Here are some hand-drawn cards from readers'". Sasha Cagen, Quirkyalone + To-Do List Author + Coach. Retrieved 2020-12-28. 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. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    23. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield. [@UnstrangeMind] (2018-03-13). "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" – via Twitter.
    24. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield. [unstrangemind] (2017-06-17). "What is Gendervague?". Transtistic. Retrieved 2020-12-28. I referred to myself as metagender for many years Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    25. ↑ Sparrow, Maxfield (2018). Brown, Michael Eric (ed.). Challenging genders: non-binary experiences of those assigned female at birth. Miami, AZ: Boundless Endeavors, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9968309-6-6. 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.
    26. ↑ https://soundsliketransedu.com/metagender/
    27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "Facebook Groups: Metagender and Questioning 🖤💚💛🤍💛💚🖤". Facebook. Archived from the original on 2020-12-28. Retrieved 2020-12-28. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    28. ↑ "Gender Census 2019: Worldwide Summary". Gender Census. 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2020-12-24.
    29. ↑ "Gender Census 2020: Worldwide Summary". Gender Census. 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2020-12-24. "metagender: 2; metagender!: 1; meta-girl: 1"
    30. ↑ Cole, Catherine M.; Manuh, Takyiwaa; Miescher, Stephan, eds. (2007). Africa after gender?. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. pp. 287, 289. ISBN 978-0-253-34816-6.
    31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Boyce, Paul; Gonzalez-Polledo, E. J; Posocco, Silvia (2020). Queering knowledge: analytics, devices and investments after Marilyn Strathern. pp. Note 20. ISBN 978-1-138-23098-9. OCLC 1137077647. Note 20.
    32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Scherer, Burkhard. (2006). ‘Gender Transformed and Meta-gendered Enlightenment: Reading Buddhist Narratives as Paradigms of Inclusiveness’ Revista de Estudos da Religião – REVER 6(3), pp. 65-76.
    33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Szarmach, Paul (2019). Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England. ISBN 978-1-4426-6457-9. OCLC 1091659301.
    34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 McDaniel, Rhonda L. (2018). The third gender and Ælfric's Lives of saints. Richard Rawlinson Center series. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University. ISBN 978-1-58044-309-8.
    35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 al-Khawaldeh, Samira (2015-05-06). ""The One Raised in Ornament?" Gendering Issues in the Qurʾan". Hawwa. 13 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1163/15692086-12341271. ISSN 1569-2078.
    36. ↑ Dess, Nancy Kimberly; Marecek, Jeanne; Bell, Leslie C (2018). Gender, sex, and sexualities: psychological perspectives. ISBN 978-0-19-065855-7. OCLC 1018308022.
    37. ↑ Beckett, Clare; Heathcote, Owen; Macey, Marie (2009). Negotiating Boundaries? Identities, Sexualities, Diversities. ISBN 978-1-4438-1092-0. OCLC 953860344.
    38. ↑ Queering Paradigms II. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-0343-0295-1.
    39. ↑ Chen, Boyu; Jin, Hao; Yang, Zhiwen; Qu, Yingying; Weng, Heng; Hao, Tianyong (2019-04-09). "An approach for transgender population information extraction and summarization from clinical trial text". BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. 19 (2): 62. doi:10.1186/s12911-019-0768-1. ISSN 1472-6947. PMC 6454593. PMID 30961595.CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
    40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Hitchcock, Louise; Nikolaidou, Marianna (2012). A Companion to Gender Prehistory. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. pp. 502–525. doi:10.1002/9781118294291.ch24. ISBN 978-1-118-29429-1. Applying the concept of a third gender is rare in Aegean scholarship... Cadogan observes that the genderless aspects of Minoan culture... are understudied. He believes that the term 'meta-gender' better conveys something above and beyond binary categories.
    41. ↑ Valente, Joseph (1995). James Joyce and the problem of justice: negotiating sexual and colonial difference. Cambridge [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47369-9.
    42. ↑ Kolin, Philip C (2017). Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism (1991): an Annotated Bibliography and Commentary. ISBN 978-1-351-98403-4. OCLC 1052448663.
    43. ↑ Ackerly, Brooke A; True, Jacqui (2010). Doing feminist research in political and social science. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-05442-5. OCLC 1203336058.
    44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 Hase, Craig; Hase, Devon (2020). How not to be a hot mess: a semi-Buddhist guide for surviving modern life. ISBN 978-0-8348-4269-4. OCLC 1151626639.
    45. ↑ Devlin-Glass, Frances (1998). "'Teasing the audience with the play': feminism and Shakespeare at the Melbourne Theatre Company, 1984-93". Australasian Drama Studies (33): 21–39. ISSN 0810-4123 – via https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=200000904;res=IELAPA.
    46. ↑ Ibrahim, Farid (2019-02-26). "This Indonesian community has five genders — one of them is under threat of dying out". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 2020-12-29. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    47. ↑ Viloria, Hida; Law, Alex; Nieto, María; ProQuest (Firme) (2020). The spectrum of sex: the science of male, female, and intersex. London and Philadelphia. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-78775-265-8. OCLC 1149536934.
    48. ↑ Mark Anderson (2016-08-15). "Beyond Binary: Five genders of the Bugis". Akkadium College. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
    49. ↑ Komjathy, Louis (2015-03-24). "Gendering Chinese Religion: Subject, Identity, and Body, edited by Jinhua Jia, Xiaofei Kang, and Ping Yao, 2014". Nan Nü. 17 (2): 360–364. doi:10.1163/15685268-00172p17. ISSN 1387-6805. Raz be-lieves that androgyny or meta-gender is the ideal in his materials.
    50. ↑ Reforming worship: English reformed principles and practice. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 2012. ISBN 978-1-61097-320-5. OCLC 801440436.
    51. ↑ Domínguez, Ivo (2008). Spirit speak: knowing and understanding spirit guides, ancestors, ghosts, angels, and the divine. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books. ISBN 978-1-60163-002-5.
    52. ↑ Lupus, P. Sufenas Virius (2016). All-soul, all-body, all-love, all-power a transmythology. ISBN 978-1-4750-2528-6. OCLC 946958644.
    53. ↑ "Paneros of the Tetrad++". P. SUFENAS VIRIUS LUPUS. 2019-01-28. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
    54. ↑ oneswellfoop. "Gender (Go nuts). Somebody did". metatalk.metafilter.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29. Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
    55. ↑ "about the gender and pronouns field on the profile page | MetaFilter FAQ". faq.metafilter.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
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