Genderfluid
 Meaning Pink: femininity; White: all genders; Purple: combination of masculinity and femininity; Black: lack of gender; Blue: masculinity | |
| Related identities | Genderflux, Fluidflux, and Demifluid |
|---|---|
| Under the umbrella term | Nonbinary |
| Frequency | 21% |
| Click here to see alternative flags! | |
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Genderfluid aka Gender-fluid, Gender Fluid, or Fluid Gender, is an identity under the multigender, nonbinary, and transgender umbrellas. Genderfluid individuals have different gender identities at different times. A genderfluid individual's gender identity could be multiple genders at once and then switch to none at all, or move between single gender identities, or some other combination therein. For some genderfluid people, these changes happen as often as several times a day and for others, monthly, or less often. Some genderfluid people regularly move between only a few specific genders, perhaps as few as two (which could also fit under the label bigender), whereas other genderfluid people never know what they'll feel like next.
To be easy to read, this article uses the word "genderfluid" for all people who experience fluid gender. Some people who experience fluid gender don't use the word "genderfluid" for themselves. Some people with fluid genders use other labels such as genderqueer, bigender, multigender, genderfae, polygender, etc. It's important to understand that each person has the right to decide what to call their gender identity.
History
Kate Bornstein mentioned gender fluidity in 1994, in the book Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, "and then I found that gender can have fluidity, which is quite different from ambiguity. If ambiguity is a refusal to fall within a prescribed gender code, then fluidity is the refusal to remain one gender or another. Gender fluidity is the ability to freely and knowingly become one or many of a limitless number of genders, for any length of time, at any rate of change. Gender fluidity recognizes no borders or rules of gender."[2]
The word "genderfluid" has been in use since at least the 1990s, albeit with a somewhat different meaning. Transgender advocate Michael M. Hernandez wrote in 1996:
| « | Gender-fluid means that their gender identity and/or expression encompass both masculine and feminine. Gender fluidity is becoming commonly known as transgenderism: the ability to transcend gender, whether biological, emotional, political, or otherwise; truly mixing male and female.[3] | » |
In the 1990s and 2000s, it might have been more common for genderfluid people to call themselves bigender or genderqueer. Earlier than that, they may have called themselves cross-dressers.
The earliest extant entry for "gender fluid" in the Urban Dictionary was added in 2007.[4]
In 2010, the Gender-Fluid community was created on LiveJournal.[5]
In 2012, JJ Poole (tumblr user thoughtstoberemembered) created what would become the most widely-used genderfluid flag.[6][7]
In 2014, "Gender Fluid" was one of the 56 genders made available on Facebook.[8]
In 2015, Dictionary.com added an entry for "gender-fluid,"[9] which it defined as an adjective meaning "noting or relating to a person whose gender identity or gender expression is not fixed and shifts over time or depending on the situation." It listed as synonyms genderfluid, gender fluid, and gender-flexible.[10]
In 2018, Washington state began to allow "X" gender markers on official documents[11], with the law stating that
| « | "X" means a gender that is not exclusively male or female, including, but not limited to, intersex, agender, amalgagender, androgynous, bigender, demigender, female-to-male, genderfluid, genderqueer, male-to-female, neutrois, nonbinary, pangender, third sex, transgender, transsexual, Two Spirit, and unspecified.[12] | » |
Influences on gender fluidity
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Usually, gender fluidity happens by itself, so that a person feels like, say, a girl at a certain time, rather than choosing to be a girl at a certain time.[13] Some genderfluid people find that no outside or inside things tend to influence their gender identity to change. They find that their gender fluidity is unpredictable and happens randomly. Other genderfluid people find that their gender changes depending on the situation and is influenced by inside or outside sources. Some move from one gender to the next on a regular cycle, resembling a lunar cycle, or synchronizing with their menstrual cycle. Other genderfluid people are sometimes able to use their willpower to guide their gender to change in a way and/or at the time that they want it to.
Menstrual cycle and its effect on gender fluidity
While it is still unclear, changes in gender that correlate with the menstrual cycle could be caused by how hormone levels naturally rise and fall during menstruation. However, it's also possible to mistakenly believe that gender identity moves with the menstrual cycle, and the only way to be sure is to keep a daily journal. Such a journal could look like this:
| Date | Gender identity on that day | Day in menstrual cycle |
|---|---|---|
| 2013-03-09 | Male (all day) | 14 |
| 2013-03-10 | Male, then female | 15 |
After enough data is collected, any patterns that exist should become visible. These patterns could include feeling like a certain gender during a certain day in the cycle or feeling like a certain gender at times when a certain hormone, such as estrogen, is highest/lowest. Similar tables can be used to track if gender identity is connected to a different cycle.
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 "hypothesize[d] 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."[14][15][16] Case and Ramachandran believe that when bigender people feel a change between their gender identities, it may have to do with a change in how they use parts of their brains. The gender change might also have to do with a natural body cycle, specifically, a valve in the nose that changes sides every two days (the nasal cycle). However, th