Metagender: Difference between revisions

'''Metagender''' is a term that has been coined multiple times with varying definitions, including multiple [[nonbinary]] [[Gender identity|gender identities]], spiritual identities, a combined gender identity and [[Orientation|romantic and sexual orientation]], a [[Gender Modality|gender modality]], a description for [[Gender nonconformity|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.  

In a 1994 letter to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Times San Francisco Bay Times], an intersex womyn used metagender as an umbrella descriptor for [[Gender variant|gender-variant]] and [[intersex]].<ref>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.</ref>

In a 1998 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch_(magazine) 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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Stone_(artist) 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."<ref>Kloppenberg, Laura. Voldeng, Lisa. (1998). "Metagender  & the  Slow  Decline  of  the  Either/Or." ''BITCH'',  3(1), p 33-34.</ref>

The term was coined again in 1997 by Rook Thomas Hine,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.liminalityland.com/metagender.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040726170300/http://www.liminalityland.com/metagender.htm|archive-date=26 July 2004|title=Metagender|last=Bernhardt-House|first=Phillip|date=|access-date=|website=|dead-url=}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> an identity Hine characterized as being a "conscientious objector" in "in the war of the sexes."<ref name=":6">{{cite book|last=Bernhardt-House|first=Phillip|chapter=So, which one is the opposite sex?: the sometimes spiritual journey of a metagender|editors=O'Keefe, Tracie & Fox, Katrina |publisher=Jossey-Bass|title=Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity|year=2003|page=76|url=https://archive.org/details/findingrealmetru00trac/page/76/mode/2up}}</ref> This concept of metagender was further developed by Phillip Andrew Bernhardt-House. E defined the term in a 2003 anthology as a spiritual identity that was a "wholly other' third/fourth/eighty-seventh"<ref name=":6" /> gender category that was not derived from any combination of [[woman]], [[man]], [[feminine]], [[masculine]], [[neuter]], or [[androgyne]]. E describing being "a metagender" as similar to being a [[third gender]] with a spiritual component while being in a culture that lacked this concept.<ref name=":6" /> Metagender developed into a discrete identity as a spiritual functionary inside neopaganism, combining social gender and sexuality (latter being similar to [[pansexual]]), which it has remained since 2008 as described by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://psufenasviriuslupus.wordpress.com/home/metagender/|title=Metagender|date=2016-12-14|website=P. SUFENAS VIRIUS LUPUS|language=en|access-date=2020-12-24}}</ref> By 2015, at least two persons wrote about their metagender role in neopagan communities .<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151122015818/http://paradoxmysteryandawe.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-is-metagender.html|title=Blessed Bee: What is Metagender?|last=Bee|first=Jaina|date=2015-05-10|website=Blessed Bee|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref>  

Author Maxfield Sparrow, who has spoken about coming out as metagender in 1992,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/FTMOver30/comments/d98wwv/tell_me_about_your_nonbinary_transition/f1nlfli|title=r/FTMOver30 - Comment by u/MaxfieldSparrow on ”Tell me about your "non-binary transition"?”|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2019-09-27|website=reddit|language=en-US|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Maxfield Sparrow on Twitter|url=https://twitter.com/UnstrangeMind/status/1337887769511612417|website=twitter|access-date=2020-12-24|language=en-US|date=2020-12-12|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|quote=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}}</ref> wrote about being metagender on various channels across the 2010s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/UnstrangeMind/posts/735759669859809|title=Unstrange Mind (comment)|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2016-08-22|website=www.facebook.com|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28|quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sashacagen.com/quirky-alone/quirkyalone-day-cards-from-readers/#comment-350978|title=Comment on 'Happy Quirkyalone Day 2019! Here are some hand-drawn cards from readers'|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2019-02-14|website=Sasha Cagen, Quirkyalone + To-Do List Author + Coach|language=en-US|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28|quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite tweet|number=973524929856573440|user=UnstrangeMind|title=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.|author=Sparrow, Maxfield.|date=2018-03-13}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://transtistic.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/what-is-gendervague/|title=What is Gendervague?|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield. [unstrangemind]|date=2017-06-17|website=Transtistic|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28|quote=I referred to myself as metagender for many years}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Challenging genders: non-binary experiences of those assigned female at birth|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2018|publisher=Boundless Endeavors, Inc|year=|isbn=978-0-9968309-6-6|editor-last=Brown|editor-first=Michael Eric|location=Miami, AZ|pages=|quote="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."}}</ref>  

In July 2020, metagender was coined again by Talea Boelsems, Tenacity Granger, and Evey Winters as a [[Gender Modality|gender modality]] for persons who are not [[cisgender]] and do not identify as [[transgender]],<ref>https://soundsliketransedu.com/metagender/</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/groups/281615473111127/|title=Facebook Groups: Metagender and Questioning 🖤💚💛🤍💛💚🖤|last=|first=|date=|website=Facebook|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201228200140if_/https://www.facebook.com/groups/281615473111127/|archive-date=2020-12-28|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28}}</ref> similar to [[List of uncommon nonbinary identities#Isogender|isogender]] and [https://gender-resource.tumblr.com/post/624951702581362688/absgender-a-genderedness-that-is-between-beyond absgender].