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 [[LGBT]] self-identifiers, in [[Feminism|feminist]]/[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory 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 LGBT individuals, dating back at least to the 1980s, initially concerned with being outside or transcending binary gender, whether of imagery, perspectives, data, or people.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/murderdifference0000balm/page/110/mode/2up?q=%22meta+gender%22|title=Murder and difference: gender, genre, and scholarship on Sisera's death|last=Bal|first=Mieke|date=1992|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=|isbn=978-0-585-02512-4|location=Bloomington|pages=111-112|language=English|oclc=42854270|quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Costello|first=Bonnie|date=1989|title=Domestic Mysticism|url=http://archives.bu.edu/collections/partisan-review/search/detail?id=331558|journal=Partisan Review|volume=56|issue=4|pages=671|doi=|issn=0031-2525|quote=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.|via=Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center}}</ref> Its use as a technical term with various definitions has [[Metagender#As a Technical and Academic Term|persisted into 2020]].

===LGBT Definitions===

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 name=":12">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 name=":13">Kloppenberg, Laura. Voldeng, Lisa. (1998). "Metagender  & the  Slow  Decline  of  the  Either/Or." ''BITCH'',  3(1), p 33-34.</ref>

In a 1999 interview, musician/poet/filmmaker [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Legere Phoebe Legere] said that she was "metagender, metasexual, not a man or a woman."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://archive.org/details/Femme_Fatales_v08n04/page/n39/mode/2up| p=40-41|journal=Femme Fatales|volume=8|number=4|date=September 10, 1999| title=Mighty Aphrodite}}</ref>

====2000s ====

The term was coined again in 1997 by Rook Thomas Hine,<ref name=":14">{{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>  

In a 2006 book on transgender journeys, metagender was defined as "individuals who do not identify as either male or female."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/crossingsexualbo00jari/page/364/mode/2up?q=phillip|title=Crossing sexual boundaries: transgender journeys, uncharted paths|last=|first=|date=2006|publisher=Prometheus Books|year=|isbn=978-1-59102-388-3|editor-last=Kane-Demaios|editor-first=J. Ari|location=Amherst, N.Y|pages=|oclc=ocm61309341|editor-last2=Bullough|editor-first2=Vern L.}}</ref>

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)."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://haifischgeweint.wordpress.com/gender-101/|title=#Gender101|date=2012-04-22|website=HaifischGeweint|language=en|access-date=2020-12-28}}</ref>

Metagender was proposed for three different meanings in 2014.  

#In June, "metagender" was suggested as an alternative word for [[pangender]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Pangender Without the 'Pan'|date=23 June 2014|url=https://collectivetey.tumblr.com/post/89664280616/pangender-without-the-pan}}</ref>

#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.<ref name="metagender2014">http://mogai-archive.tumblr.com/post/91734862699/metagender {{dead link}}</ref><ref>http://www.mogaipedia.org/wiki:metagender#toc0</ref>

#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."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://arquus-malvaceae.tumblr.com/post/103240804765/metagender-a-tangential-or-tenuous-connection-to|title=Metagender: A tangential or tenuous connection to...|last=arquus-malvaceae|first=|date=2014-11-21|website=Cupcakes – tumblr|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201228210047/https://arquus-malvaceae.tumblr.com/post/103240804765/metagender-a-tangential-or-tenuous-connection-to|archive-date=2020-12-28|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28}}</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 name=":15">{{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]].<ref name=":15" /> 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 name=":16">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].

In the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census, one respondent called themselves metagender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gendercensus.com/results/2019-worldwide-summary/|title=Gender Census 2019: Worldwide Summary|date=2020-11-11|website=Gender Census|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-12-24}}</ref> In the 2020 Worldwide Gender Census, four respondents called themselves metagender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gendercensus.com/results/2020-worldwide-summary/|title=Gender Census 2020: Worldwide Summary|date=2020-11-11|website=Gender Census|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-12-24}} "metagender: 2; metagender!: 1; meta-girl: 1"</ref> 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.<ref name=":2" />

Metagender(ed) (sometimes meta-gender(ed) or metagenderism) has been used to describe "the academic engagement with or the theorizing of gender,"<ref>{{Cite book|title=Africa after gender?|publisher=Indiana University Press|date=2007|location=Bloomington, IN|isbn=978-0-253-34816-6|editor-first=Catherine M.|editor-last=Cole|editor-first2=Takyiwaa|editor-last2=Manuh|editor-first3=Stephan|editor-last3=Miescher|last=|first=|year=|pages=287, 289}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/mediawiki/oclc/1137077647|title=Queering knowledge: analytics, devices and investments after Marilyn Strathern|last=Boyce|first=Paul|last2=Gonzalez-Polledo|first2=E. J|last3=Posocco|first3=Silvia|date=2020|publisher=|year=|isbn=978-1-138-23098-9|location=|pages=Note 20|language=English|oclc=1137077647}} Note 20.</ref> religious identities that transcend gender,<ref name=":7">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.</ref><ref name=":8">{{Cite book|url=https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442664579|title=Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England|last=Szarmach|first=Paul|date=2019|isbn=978-1-4426-6457-9|oclc=1091659301}}</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite book|title=The third gender and Ælfric's Lives of saints|last=McDaniel|first=Rhonda L.|date=2018|publisher=Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University|isbn=978-1-58044-309-8|series=Richard Rawlinson Center series|location=Kalamazoo}}</ref><ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=al-Khawaldeh|first=Samira|date=2015-05-06|title=“The One Raised in Ornament?” Gendering Issues in the Qurʾan|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/haww/13/1/article-p1_1.xml|journal=Hawwa|volume=13|issue=1|pages=1–24|doi=10.1163/15692086-12341271|issn=1569-2078}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=5213031|title=Gender, sex, and sexualities: psychological perspectives|last=Dess|first=Nancy Kimberly|last2=Marecek|first2=Jeanne|last3=Bell|first3=Leslie C|date=2018|isbn=978-0-19-065855-7|language=English|oclc=1018308022}}</ref> systems of gender,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/mediawiki/oclc/953860344|title=Negotiating Boundaries? Identities, Sexualities, Diversities|last=Beckett|first=Clare|last2=Heathcote|first2=Owen|last3=Macey|first3=Marie|date=2009|isbn=978-1-4438-1092-0|language=English|oclc=953860344}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0353-0144-1/2|title=Queering Paradigms II|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-0343-0295-1}}</ref> sets of gender,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Chen|first=Boyu|last2=Jin|first2=Hao|last3=Yang|first3=Zhiwen|last4=Qu|first4=Yingying|last5=Weng|first5=Heng|last6=Hao|first6=Tianyong|date=2019-04-09|title=An approach for transgender population information extraction and summarization from clinical trial text|url=https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-019-0768-1|journal=BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making|volume=19|issue=2|pages=62|doi=10.1186/s12911-019-0768-1|issn=1472-6947|pmc=PMC6454593|pmid=30961595}}</ref> being beyond binary gender categories,<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118294291.ch24|title=A Companion to Gender Prehistory|last=Hitchcock|first=Louise|last2=Nikolaidou|first2=Marianna|date=2012|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|isbn=978-1-118-29429-1|pages=502–525|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781118294291.ch24|year=|location=|quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/jamesjoyceproble0000vale/page/136/mode/2up?q=metagender|title=James Joyce and the problem of justice: negotiating sexual and colonial difference|last=Valente|first=Joseph|date=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=|isbn=978-0-521-47369-9|location=Cambridge [England] ; New York|pages=}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=1987|title=Annales D'archéologie Égéenne de L'Université de Liège|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=f1fFPmPBAYcC|journal=Aegaeum|volume=30|pages=231|quote=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.|via=}}</ref> applying regardless of gender or to all genders equally,<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781351984041|title=Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism (1991): an Annotated Bibliography and Commentary|last=Kolin|first=Philip C|date=2017|isbn=978-1-351-98403-4|language=English|oclc=1052448663}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=Edinburgh&isbn=9781137054425|title=Doing feminist research in political and social science|last=Ackerly|first=Brooke A|last2=True|first2=Jacqui|date=2010|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-05442-5|location=Basingstoke; New York|language=English|oclc=1203336058}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> and otherwise being about gender.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Devlin-Glass|first=Frances|date=1998|title='Teasing the audience with the play': feminism and Shakespeare at the Melbourne Theatre Company, 1984-93|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2870817|journal=Australasian Drama Studies|volume=|issue=33|pages=21-39|doi=|issn=0810-4123|via=https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=200000904;res=IELAPA}}</ref><ref name=":0" />   

"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."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=How not to be a hot mess: a semi-Buddhist guide for surviving modern life|url=https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=BFBB0679-884D-4AB3-9A4B-8E9F89EA5615|date=2020|isbn=978-0-8348-4269-4|oclc=1151626639|language=English|first=Craig|last=Hase|first2=Devon|last2=Hase}}</ref>

 

====As a Label for Spiritual Identity in Theology and Anthropology====

More relevant to nonbinary 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.  

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."<ref name=":4" />

Meta-gender as a transcendent ideal appears in scholarship of early medieval Daoism,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Komjathy|first=Louis|date=2015-03-24|title=Gendering Chinese Religion: Subject, Identity, and Body, edited by Jinhua Jia, Xiaofei Kang, and Ping Yao, 2014|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/nanu/17/2/article-p360_17.xml|journal=Nan Nü|volume=17|issue=2|pages=360–364|doi=10.1163/15685268-00172p17|issn=1387-6805|quote=Raz  be-lieves that androgyny or meta-gender is the ideal in his materials.|via=}}</ref> Buddhism,<ref name=":7" /> and the lives of medieval Catholic Saints.<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":9" />

In addition to human spiritual idenities, divine beings have been called meta-gendered–in the sense of transcending human gender categories–in religious scholarship and education of multiple religions. Examples include angels in Islam,<ref name=":10" /> the Christian God,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=KUdgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&dq=%22meta-gender%22+OR+%22meta-gendered%22+OR+%22metagenderism%22+OR+%22metagender%22+OR+%22metagendered%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwii4fLGj_TtAhXCuaQKHailDPkQ6AEwBnoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=%22meta-gender%22%20OR%20%22meta-gendered%22%20OR%20%22metagenderism%22%20OR%20%22metagender%22%20OR%20%22metagendered%22&f=false|title=Reforming worship: English reformed principles and practice|last=|first=|date=2012|publisher=Wipf & Stock Publishers|year=|isbn=978-1-61097-320-5|location=Eugene, Or.|pages=|language=English|oclc=801440436}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gender-curricula.com/en/curriculum/theologie-katholisch|title=Gender Curricula für Bachelor- und Masterstudiengänge: Curriculum Catholic Theology|website=www.gender-curricula.com|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref> and other spiritualities<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=JS1xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT115&dq=%22meta-gender%22+OR+%22meta-gendered%22+OR+%22metagenderism%22+OR+%22metagender%22+OR+%22metagendered%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWzPWWj_TtAhWICOwKHZh8AWEQ6AEwA3oECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=%22meta-gender%22%20OR%20%20%22meta-gendered%22%20OR%20%22metagenderism%22%20OR%20%22metagender%22%20OR%20%22metagendered%22&f=false|title=Spirit speak: knowing and understanding spirit guides, ancestors, ghosts, angels, and the divine|last=Domínguez|first=Ivo|date=2008|publisher=New Page Books|year=|isbn=978-1-60163-002-5|location=Franklin Lakes, NJ|pages=}}</ref> One neopagan deity–Paneros of the Tetrad++–was "birthed" specifically as a metagendered diety.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/mediawiki/oclc/946958644|title=All-soul, all-body, all-love, all-power a transmythology|last=Lupus|first=P. Sufenas Virius|date=2016|isbn=978-1-4750-2528-6|language=English|oclc=946958644}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://psufenasviriuslupus.wordpress.com/pantheons/the-antinoan-pantheon/paneros-of-the-tetrad/|title=Paneros of the Tetrad++|date=2019-01-28|website=P. SUFENAS VIRIUS LUPUS|language=en|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref>

===Miscellaneous===

In 2010, "MetaGender" was used as an informal community-specific term to refer to the metafilter website's open text field for gender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://metatalk.metafilter.com/20050/Gender-Go-nuts-Somebody-did|title=Gender (Go nuts). Somebody did.|last=oneswellfoop|first=|date=|website=metatalk.metafilter.com|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://faq.metafilter.com/332/profile-page-gender-pronouns-field|title=about the gender and pronouns field on the profile page {{!}} MetaFilter FAQ|website=faq.metafilter.com|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref>

Metagender's relationship with [[transgender]] has changed over the decades as both terms became more refined in LGBT usage. Both terms have developed less expansive forms since their inception and different connotations. Both terms have served as umbrellas for the other and in different contrasts to one another depending on definition.

Transgender once included gender non-conforming people who would now be considered [[cisgender]],<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":17">{{Cite web|url=https://www.lavenderhat.org/2019/03/17/gender-isnt-ternary-either/|title=Gender Isn’t Ternary Either|last=lavenderhat|date=2019-03-17|website=Lavender Hat|language=en-US|access-date=2020-12-30}}</ref> with metagender being alternatively a set containing gender behavior and sexes outside [[binarism]] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronormativity heteronormativity]<ref name=":12" /> or a super-set containing all means of conceptualizing gender or lack thereof, including transgender definitions.<ref name=":13" /> Complaints arose about transgender's inclusiveness while retaining metagender's expansiveness as early as 1994.<ref name=":12" /> Metagender was described as a more expansive approach to gender outside strict cis binaries than transgender without being mutually exclusive, meant to show the limitations of a dichotomy to contain all gender experiences.<ref name=":13" />

Transgender became the preferred term over [[transsexual]], the latter referring to binary trans persons who had undergone or sought medical transition. In subsuming transsexual identities, conflicts over who transgender should include arose as it became more associated with binary trans individuals and binary gender roles, with [[Transmedicalism|transmedicalists]] resisting the inclusion of nonbinary people even if they sought medical transition. As transgender became more associated with transitioning away from a gender, cisgender gender non-conforming people were defined as outside the transgender umbrella. Nonbinary people are considered under the trans umbrella into the present day, but not all nonbinary people consider themselves trans.<ref name=":17" />

Metagender developed several niche definitions that some metagender people put under the expansive "transgressively-gendered" transgender umbrella<ref name=":14" /> as well as a more restricted trans-umbrella. As a gender identity, some metagender people described themselves as technically transgender without identifying as transgender themselves–even if they received medical transition–because they were not changing their gender.<ref name=":15" /> Others saw their gender identity as complementary to transgender definitions.<ref name=":3" />

Metagender's re-coining as a gender modality that by definition is for people who are neither cis nor trans (or are not cisgender but do not consider themselves trans) is a stricter contrast than other definitions, but as with early definitions of metagender highlights the weakness of a dichotomy to contain all experiences of (non)gender.<ref name=":16" /><ref name=":13" />