TrAnZgender Identities: An A to Z
December in the UK, is noted for specials of television series, I still remember when young in the seventies, on Christmas Day there was, “The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show”, it was a big event with audience figures that modern day channel controllers can only dream of.
Also magazine publications produce jumbo crosswords, quizzes, top tens of this, top twenties of that, and another staple is an A to Z, so with not too much originality, I thought for this December episode, why not an A to Z of gender identities.
I have decided to limit this A to Z to earth based and human gender identities, so no, stargender, xenogender and Leogender,
And to add a quiz element to it, before you listen, perhaps you might like to, see, how many gender identities you know, and if you are more ambitious who coined them, and also when they were coined.
So if you want to play, grab a sheet of paper and pen, and give yourself one point for the gender identity, one for who coined it; person, organisation or culture, and one for the year, or decade, so making a possible total of three points.
However for the correct month and year, award yourself two points, and for the exact date, three points, therefore for some terms there is a maximum of five points, so for the players, please hit pause, now.
And welcome back the quizzers, written down all your answers?
Lets see how well you have done.
Welcome to “Trans Wise Trans Strong”, I am Carolyne O’Reilly.
Episode fourteen, “TrAnZgender Identities: An A to Z”
A is for
Abinary, which was coined by the Tumblr user “nothorses”, and first appeared in a discussion on Tumblr on the 24th of October 2016, and is any gender that is completely unrelated to maleness, masculinity, femaleness, or femininity, and is nowhere in between, while not necessarily being genderless.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
Achillegender which is a gender identity in which an individual only experiences maleness through their attraction to men and male-aligned genders, and was coined on the 5th of March 2019, by Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
Agender was used by “man_in_black529”, on a Usenet forum in 2000, and is a person who does not identify as any particular gender or are gender neutral, and first appeared in print in 1996.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =2
Agenderfluid is a term for an individual who although is mostly agender, does experience fluid, shifting, and changing feelings towards other gender feelings, and was coined by the Tumblr user "pleurocarpous", on or before the 8th of August 2014.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
Agenderflux is a term for an individual who although is mostly agender, experiences fluctuating levels of femininity and/or masculinity, and was coined by Tumblr user “perfectlybrokenbones” on or before the 27th of September 2014.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
Ambigender is an individual who experiences two genders simultaneously that are static, and was coined by “sorcerykid” a Reddit user in 1999.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
Androgyne has its root in ancient Greek and is a combination of andro for man, gynē for woman, and refers to a person who combines masculine and feminine characteristics, and the first recorded instance of the term being used in English as a specific gender identity was in 1918, in Jennie June's book “Autobiography of an Androgyne”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
Aporagender was coined in the mid 2014s, on the Tumblr blog “Aporagender”, and is a nonbinary gender identity and an umbrella term for a gender separate from male, female, and anything in between.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =2
Autigender is a gender identity that is inextricably linked and influenced by being on the autistic spectrum, and was coined by Tumblr users "autismgender" and "esperancegirl", on the 25th of August 2014, and as two people coined Autigender, there is one point for each person.
Term=1 Coiner=2 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =6
Next B is for
Bakla which is from the Tagalog language of the Philippines, and is a term for a person assigned male at birth, but whose identity is or presents a gender expression, that is culturally associated with femininity.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total =2
Bigender has its first recorded instances of usage from a trans organization called the Human Outreach and Achievement Institute in the 1980s, and describes an individual with two distinct genders, and can be experienced simultaneously or at different times and they do not have to be the binary "male" and "female", but can include any combination of binary or non-binary identities.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
Bissu is a gender term of the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, one of five gender identities, for a person considered neither male nor female but representative of the totality of the gender spectrum, and many are born with an intersex/DSD condition.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total =2
Then C is for
Calabai which is another gender term of the Bugis people, for a person assigned male at birth, but who embody feminine social roles, and whose gender expression is female.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total =2
Calalia is also a Bugis gender term for a person assigned female at birth, but who embody masculine social roles, and whose gender expression is male.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total =2
Cisgender was a term created by the biologist “Dana Leland Defosse”, and first appeared in 1994 in a Usenet post, as a counterpart to "transgender," “cis” being from the Latin, "on this side of”, and is a person whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned with at birth.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
Colorgender is an individual whose gender identity is associated with one or more colours and the feelings, hues, emotions, and/or objects associated with that colour, and was coined by an anonymous user to the MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments, and Intersex)-archive, on or before the 29th of October 2014.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
Crossdresser was first recorded being used in1975, and is a person who sometimes wears clothes usually worn by a different gender.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =2
Crystagender is defined as a gender identity where an individual's gender changes randomly, and switches between multiple different genders, and was coined by an “anonymous” Tumblr user in 2014.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
And after C, D is for
Demiflux which is a gender identity where one part is static, the other part or parts fluctuates in intensity, coined in 2014 by a Tumblr user “Aflutteringlaney”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
Demigender first made its appearance in August 2010 in a forum of the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) and is a nonbinary identity where an individual feels partially, but not fully, to a specific gender.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month=2 Date=) Total =4
Demiboy is an individual whose gender is partially, but not fully, a boy or man, and was coined by a AVEN forum user, “Bad Patient” in August 2010
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month=2 Date=) Total =4
Demigirl is an individual whose gender is partially, but not fully, a girl or woman, and was also coined by a AVEN forum user “bristrek87” on the 11th of December 2010.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
And for our second vowel with come to E, with a single entry
Egogender was coined by the Tumblr user, "queerspike” on the 25th of August 2014, and is a gender identity that is so very personal and unique that no two egogender individuals will share the exact same gender experience, “ego” being from the Latin meaning “I”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total =5
F is another single entry for
Faʻafafine which means, "in the manner of a woman", and are individuals in Samoan culture, who were assigned male at birth but embody a third gender or feminine gender role, and has its origin in ancient Polynesian practices where some males are raised to embody feminine roles.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total =2
G is for
Genderfae, which is a variant of genderfluidity that never encompasses male or masculine genders, and was coined in 2014, by an “anonymous” user of the MOGAI-archive.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Genderfaun was coined in May 2017, by Tumblr and DeviantArt user “shadowofthedude”, as a complement to genderfae, and is a gender identity that never encompasses female or feminine genders.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month=2 Date=) Total=4
Genderfluid means not having only one gender, or moving freely between genders, and an early appearance was in Kate Bornstein’s 1994 book, “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Genderflux is a gender identity that varies in intensity over time, and this can be gradually, rapidly, or any speed in-between depending on the person, and first appeared in the Queer Pagans Newsletter in 1994.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Genderless is not distinguishable or marked as male or female, sexless, without masculine or feminine characteristics, and became a synonym for agender or non-binary identities in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=2
Gender-Nonconforming first appeared in the writing of A. P. Bel in 1983, and is an individual whose gender expression does not fit into a binary, female or male gender role.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total =3
Genderpunk is an individual who does not feel constrained by the gender binary and are open and vocal about challenging the expectations of society in respect of gender, and who coined the term and when, is not known.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=0 Month= Date=) Total =1
Genderqueer is a gender identity that is not simply male or female, and such an individual experiences gender in a way that is different from the way society expects, and first appeared in independent queer publications in the 1980’s.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=2
Greygender describes an individual who feels an ambivalence towards their gender, and feels a weak connection to gender in general, and was coined on the 20th March 2014 by the Tumblr user “invernom”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
H is for
Hijra which is a gender identity of South Asia, and India in particular, and is an individual who is usually assigned male at birth, but whose gender expression is traditionally female, and are thought of as a third gender.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
Vowel number three and I is for
Intergender which is a gender identity somewhere in between male and female, or a mix of both, and was coined around October 1998 on the Usenet newsgroup “alt.support.intergendered”, by “Donna Lynn Matthews”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month=2 Date=) Total=4
And with J we are into double figures and
Juxera which is a gender identity for someone who feels a strong connection to femininity but experiences it differently, separately and entirely on its own, compared with how a cisgender woman experiences femininity, and was created by Tumblr user “wulfgendeur”, also known as “Ren”, on the 2nd of July 2014. Two points if you knew both their names
Term=1 Coiner=2 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=6
K is for
Kathoey which is a gender role in Thai culture which usually describes a feminine person who was assigned male at birth, although some have an intersex/DSD condition, and may be referred to as a third gender.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
L was a no show for a distinct gender identity.
And so to M where we reach the half way point and
Māhū which, in Native Hawaiian and Tahitian cultures, are individuals who embody both masculine and feminine qualities.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
Makkunrai is a gender term of the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia for a person who was assigned female at birth and whose gender identity is female, and is equivalent to cisgender female.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date= ) Total=2
Maverique is a gender experience entirely independent of the gender binary and is an internal conviction of gender that is distinct from masculinity, femininity, and neutrality, and was coined on the 31st of May 2014 by the Tumblr user “Vesper H”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=5) Total=5
Metagender was coined by “Rook Thomas Hine” in 1997, as a term for being a "conscientious objector" "in the war of the sexes", and was expanded by their colleague “Phillip Andrew Bernhardt-House” in 2003 as a spiritual third-gender category.
Term=1 Coiner=2 (Year/Decade=2 Month= Date=) Total=5
Monogender is a person who experiences only one single gender identity, and is in a sense the opposite of "multigender”, and was coined on the 16th January 2018, by Tumblr user “thesagasaurus”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
Multigender is a person who experiences more than one gender identity and can be used as a gender identity in its own right, or can be an umbrella term for other identities which fit this description, and was coined on the 15th of August 2019 by the Tumblr user “mogai-on-the-internet”
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
Muxe is a person from the Zapotec communities of southern Mexico, who was assigned male at birth, but whose identity is or presents a gender expression, that is culturally associated with femininity.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
And for N
Neutrois which is a non-binary identity representing gender absence or neutrality and was coined by Holly A. Burnham in 1995.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Non-Binary are people whose gender identity does not fit within the traditional male/female binary and was coined by “Riki Wilchins” in US queer zines in the late 80s/early 90s.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Non-Gendered is a person who does not identify with any gender, and non might apply to who coined the term and when, as there does not seem to be any single creator.
Term=1 Coiner= (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=1
For vowel number four we come to O for
Omnigender which is similar to pangender and is a gender identity that experiences almost all genders, or experiences all genders, but treats them all as one gender, or as "building blocks" to one whole gender, and was coined by Tumblr user” victomofrebellion”, possibly before or around 2018.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Oroané is a gender term of the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia for a person who was assigned male at birth and whose gender identity is male, and is equivalent to cisgender male.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
Outherine is a gender identity that is not male, female, or androgynous, but separate from binary and androgynous identities, and was coined on the 12th of January 2019, by the Tumblr user “Oltiel”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
P is for
Pangender which first appeared in the preface to Lynn Wilson’s 1992 novel “The Flock” and has evolved to describe a gender identity that encompasses multiple genders.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Polygender is an umbrella term for gender identities that do not fit into the binary and are individuals who experiences multiple gender identities, either simultaneously or varying between them, and could be male, female or non-binary identities. It not is known who coined the term but it was used in an online transgender community called Sphere in 1998, as an umbrella term.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=2
Proxvir is a gender that is strongly connected to masculinity but differs from how cisgender men experiences masculinity, and is a gender identity that is something separate and entirely on its own, and was coined in July 2014, by the Tumblr user “wulfgendur”, also known as “Ren”. And if you have got both of their names, please give yourself two points for the coiner
Term=1 Coiner=2 (Year/Decade= Month=2 Date=) Total=5
Q is for
Queer which describes having or relating to a gender identity that does not fit society's traditional ideas about gender, and it was in the 1980’s, that queer began to be taken back and to be used as a neutral or even as a positive word, and a notable use was by the organisation, “Queer Nation”, who circulated a flier at the New York Gay Pride Parade in June 1990, titled "Queers Read This".
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade= Month=2 Date=) Total=3
Quoigender was coined by the Tumblr user “epochryphal” in 2014, as a gender identity and umbrella term for those who do not fully understand, or want to define their gender.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
R is another no show for a gender identity.
But with S we have
Sapphogender which is a gender identity in which an individual only experiences femaleness through their attraction to women and female-aligned genders, and was coined on the 5th of March 2019, by Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
Sekhet is a term for a third gender, which was inscribed on pottery shards found near Thebes and dating to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, 2000–1800 BCE, which lists three human genders: male, sekhet and female
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=0) Total=2
And with T we are into the twenties
Third Gender are people who do not identify themselves as male or female, but rather as neither, as both, or as a combination of male and female genders. It was during the 1860s that Karl Heinrich Ulrichs described a person of a "third sex", as someone who was a "female psyche in a male body" or vice-versa, and then in the 1890’s to 1910s, Dr Magnus Hirschfeld popularised the term.
Term=1 Coiner=2 (Year/Decade=2 Month= Date=) Total=5
Toric is a non-binary person, exclusively or not, attracted to Men and was coined on a Discord server on the 20th of July 2017 by Tumblr user "bigendering".
Term=1 Coiner1= (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
Transgender often abbreviated as trans, was derived from the term "transgenderism", coined by Dr John F. Oliven, in 1965, in their reference work, “Sexual Hygiene and Pathology”, and is an individual whose gender identity differs from the sex they where registered with, based upon the appearance of their genitals. Trans being a Latin word that means, “on the other side of”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Trans Man is a man who was assigned female at birth, but whose gender identity is male, however it is not known by who or when it was coined.
Term=1 Coiner= (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=1
Transsexual is a term for a person who has had surgery to align their body with their gender identity, and it is not in common usage now, and some people now consider it to be an offensive term. Transsexual was used in a 1949 essay by Dr David Oliver Cauldwell, “Psychopathia Transexualis”, however I believe this was derived from a German word coined by Dr Magnus Hirschfeld in 1923, "Transsexualismus".
Term=1 Coiner=2 (Year/Decade=2 Month= Date=) Total=5
Transvestite Is now considered an offensive word for a person who sometimes wears the clothing usually worn by people of a different gender, and was another term coined by Dr Hirschfeld, from their book published in 1910, whose English title is, “Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
Trans Woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth, but whose gender identity is female, however it is not known by who or when it was coined.
Term=1 Coiner= (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=1
Travesti is a term used in Latin American countries, especially South America, and although originally a pejorative term, it has like queer been reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community, and is a person who was assigned male at birth, but develops a gender identity that expresses different aspects of femininity. Although there is no single coiner of the term, it was used in the theatre of the 19th century.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=2
Trigender is a non-binary gender identity and describes an individual who experiences three distinct gender identities, which can be binary or non-binary, however its origin is not known, but there is mention of the word in 1998.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=2
Trixic is a compliment to Toric, and is a non-binary person, exclusively or not, attracted to women, and like Toric was coined on a Discord server on the 20th of July 2017 by Tumblr user "bigendering".
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=3) Total=5
Two-Spirit was coined during the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American/First Nations Gay and Lesbian Conference in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1990, and was created by Indigenous LGBTQIA+ leaders.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=3
And for the last vowel, U is for
Unigender which is a gender identity that may have the characteristics of both sexes or no characteristics of either sex, and therefore is unique to the individual, it is not clear who by or when the term was coined.
Term=1 Coiner= (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=1
V is for and deep beath
Vakasalewalewa is an iTaukei, Fijian word for a traditional third gender, and has its origin in pre-colonial Fijian culture.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
W is for
Waria which is an Indonesian word for a person whose identity is female but was assigned male at birth and represents a distinct third gender in Indonesian culture, the word is a combination of “wanita” the Indonesian word for "woman", and “pria” the Indonesian word for "man”.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
Winkte is from the Lakota culture and is a traditionally respected gender for a person who although assigned male at birth, embodies female traits and clothing, and is often seen as a "third gender" or a "two-spirit" person.
Term=1 Coiner=1 (Year/Decade= Month= Date=) Total=2
Finally we come to X as Y and Z are no shows also for a gender identity
X-Gender which is a Japanese transgender identity that is used to describe somebody that identifies as neither male or female, and is used exclusively in Japan, for individuals that may identify as genderqueer and nonbinary. It emerged during the later 1990s and was popularised by queer organizations in the Kansai region, especially in Osaka and Kyoto.
Term=1 Coiner=0 (Year/Decade=1 Month= Date=) Total=2
So how did you do, there were 73 gender identities and if I have counted correctly a possible total of 233 points, and hopefully you enjoyed this bit of Christmas fun.
This episode was written and presented by me, Carolyne O’Reilly, thank you for listening.
Next Time “Kestral Gaian - The Interview”