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, Transgender, Genderqueer |
| Frequency | 25.5% |
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Genderfluid, also known as 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[edit | edit source]
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.
Linguistic research by Zimman and Hayworth suggests that the term "genderfluid" appeared the discourse of gender-related Livejournal communities in the '00s. The term "genderfluid" was present in entries and comments from the "ftm" and "genderqueer" communities, though it was less common than "genderqueer" or "genderfuck".[4][5]
The earliest extant entry for "gender fluid" in the Urban Dictionary was added in 2007.[6]
Also in 2007, the first issue of the Masculine Femininities zine series featured some contributors who described a fluid sense of gender identity and/or expression, such as Sabri Clay Sky and Jin Haritaworn.[7]
In 2010, the Gender-Fluid community was created on LiveJournal.[8]
In 2012, JJ Poole (tumblr user thoughtstoberemembered) created what would become the most widely-used genderfluid flag.[9][10]
In 2014, "Gender Fluid" was one of the 56 genders made available on Facebook.[11]
In 2015, Dictionary.com added an entry for "gender-fluid,"[12] 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.[13]
In 2018, Washington state began to allow "X" gender markers on official documents[14], 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.[15] | » |
Influences on gender fluidity[edit | edit source]
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