Gender fluidity

Last updated
Genderfluid
Genderfluidity Pride-Flag.svg
The gender-fluid pride flag
Classification Gender identity
AbbreviationsGF
Parent category Non-binary

Genderfluidity is a non-fixed gender identity that shifts over time or depending on the situation. These fluctuations can occur at the level of gender identity or gender expression. A genderfluid person may fluctuate among different gender expressions over their lifetime, or express multiple aspects of various gender markers simultaneously. [1] [2] Genderfluid individuals may identify as non-binary or transgender, or cisgender, which means they identify with the gender(s) associated with their sex assigned at birth. [3] [4]

Contents

Genderfluidity is different from gender-questioning, a process in which people explore their gender(s) in order to find their true gender identity and adjust their gender expression accordingly. [5] Genderfluidity continues throughout lives of genderfluid people. [6]

History

Transgender people (including non-binary and third gender people) have existed in cultures worldwide since ancient times. The modern terms and meanings of "transgender", "gender", "gender identity", and "gender role" only emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. [7] [8] [9] As a result, opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities, including genderfluid individuals.

The 1928 novel Virginia Woolf novel Orlando: A Biography features a main character who changes gender several times, and considers gender fluidity:

In every human being, a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above. [10]

The first known mention of the term gender fluidity was in gender theorist Kate Bornstein's 1994 book Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us. [11] It was later used again in the 1996 book The Second Coming: A Leatherdyke Reader. [12]

In February 2014, Facebook included "Gender Fluid" as one of the 50 identity options available. [13]

In May 2015, Dictionary.com added an entry for genderfluid. [14]

Symbols

The genderfluid pride flag was designed by JJ Poole in 2012. The pink stripe of the flag represents femininity, the white represents lack of gender, purple represents androgyny, black represents all other genders, and blue represents masculinity. [15] [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bi-curious</span> Person who is attracted to experiencing bisexuality

Bi-curious is a term for a person, usually someone who is a self-identified heterosexual, who is curious or open about engaging in sexual activity with a person whose sex differs from that of their usual sexual partners. The term is sometimes used to describe a broad continuum of sexual orientation between heterosexuality and bisexuality. Such continuums include mostly heterosexual or mostly homosexual, but these can be self-identified without identifying as bisexual. The terms heteroflexible and homoflexible are mainly applied to bi-curious people, though some authors distinguish heteroflexibility and homoflexibility as lacking the "wish to experiment with sexuality" implied by the bi-curious label. It is important when discussing this continuum to conclude that bisexuality is distinct from heterosexuality and homosexuality rather than simply an extension of said sexualities like the labels heteroflexibility and homoflexibility would imply, due to the prominent erasure and assimilation of bisexuality into other identity groups. To sum it up, the difference between bisexual and bicurious is that bisexual people know that they are sexually attracted to both genders based on personal experience. Bicurious people are still maneuvering their way through their sexuality.

The word cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinsey scale</span> Scale for measuring sexual orientation

The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale, is used in research to describe a person's sexual orientation based on one's experience or response at a given time. The scale typically ranges from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to a 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. In both the male and female volumes of the Kinsey Reports, an additional grade, listed as "X", indicated "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions" (asexuality). The reports were first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and others, and were also prominent in the complementary work Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by the controversial psychologist John Money.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pansexuality</span> Sexual attraction to people regardless of sex or gender identity

Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people might refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others.

Femme is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. While commonly viewed as a lesbian term, alternate meanings of the word also exist with some non-lesbian individuals using the word, notably some gay men and bisexuals. Some non-binary and transgender individuals also identify as lesbians using this term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Non-binary gender</span> Gender identities other than male or female

Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or female. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gender that is different from the sex assigned to them at birth, though some non-binary people do not consider themselves transgender.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transgender topics.

Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-binary, or they may be cisgender. In the case of transgender people, they may be perceived, or perceive themselves as, gender-nonconforming before transitioning, but might not be perceived as such after transitioning. Transgender adults who appear gender-nonconforming after transition are more likely to experience discrimination.

While in ordinary speech, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably, in contemporary academic literature the terms often have distinct meanings, especially when referring to people. Sex generally refers to an organism's biological sex, while gender usually refers to either social roles typically associated with the sex of a person or personal identification of one's own gender based on an internal awareness. Most contemporary social scientists, behavioral scientists and biologists, many legal systems and government bodies, and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO make a distinction between gender and sex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Questioning (sexuality and gender)</span> Process of self-exploration

The questioning of one's sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, or all three is a process of exploration by people who may be unsure, still exploring, or concerned about applying a social label to themselves for various reasons. The letter "Q" is sometimes added to the end of the acronym LGBT ; the "Q" can refer to either queer or questioning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender</span> Gender identity other than sex assigned at birth

A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Some transgender people who desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another identify as transsexual. Transgender is also an umbrella term; in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex, it may also include people who are non-binary or genderqueer. Other definitions of transgender also include people who belong to a third gender, or else conceptualize transgender people as a third gender. The term may also include cross-dressers or drag kings and drag queens in some contexts. The term transgender does not have a universally accepted definition, including among researchers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transsexual</span> People experiencing a gender identity inconsistent with their assigned sex

A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.

Sexual fluidity is one or more changes in sexuality or sexual identity. Sexual orientation is stable and unchanging for the vast majority of people, but some research indicates that some people may experience change in their sexual orientation, and this is slightly more likely for women than for men. There is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed through psychotherapy. Sexual identity can change throughout an individual's life, and does not have to align with biological sex, sexual behavior, or actual sexual orientation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of LGBT topics</span> Overview of and topical guide to LGBT topics

The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics.

Gender and sexual diversity (GSD), or simply sexual diversity, refers to all the diversities of sex characteristics, sexual orientations and gender identities, without the need to specify each of the identities, behaviors, or characteristics that form this plurality.

<i>Femboy</i> Slang term for an effeminate boy

Femboy ( ), also spelled femboi, is a slang term for a male or non-binary individual who expresses themselves with traditionally feminine behaviours. As an internet aesthetic, this may be through the use of jewellery, wearing feminine clothing and makeup, or expressing feminine behavioural qualities. Femboy can be used as both a sexual and non-sexual term; it does not denote a specific sexual orientation or gender role, but instead marks a form of gender variance.

Cisnormativity or cissexual assumption is the assumption that everyone is, or ought to be, cisgender. The term can further refer to a wider range of presumptions about gender assignment, such as the presumption of a gender binary, or expectations of conformity to gender roles even when transgender identities are otherwise acknowledged. Cisnormativity is a form of cisgenderism, an ideology which promotes various normative ideas about gender, to the invalidation of individuals' own gender identities, analogous to heterosexism or ableism.

References

  1. Cronn-Mills, Kirstin (2015). Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Twenty-First Century Books. p. 24. ISBN   978-0-7613-9022-0.
  2. McGuire, Peter (9 November 2015). "Beyond the binary: what does it mean to be genderfluid?". The Irish Times . Archived from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  3. Bosson, Jennifer K.; Vandello, Joseph A.; Buckner, Camille E. (2018). The Psychology of Sex and Gender. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. p. 54. ISBN   978-1-5063-3134-8. OCLC   1038755742. Archived from the original on 28 May 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  4. Whyte, Stephen; Brooks, Robert C.; Torgler, Benno (25 September 2018). "Man, Woman, "Other": Factors Associated with Nonbinary Gender Identification". Archives of Sexual Behavior . 47 (8). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer Science+Business Media: 2397–2406. doi:10.1007/s10508-018-1307-3. PMID   30255409. S2CID   52823167. 2 out of 7479 (0.03 percent) of respondents to the Australian Sex Survey, a 2016 online research survey, self-identified as trigender.
  5. Katz-Wise, Sabra (December 3, 2020). "Gender fluidity: What it means and why support matters". Harvard Health Publishing. Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  6. Jolly, Divya; Boskey, Elizabeth R.; Thomson, Katharine A.; Tabaac, Ariella R.; Burns, Maureen T.S.; Katz-Wise, Sabra L. (2021-03-12). "Why Are You Asking? Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Assessment in Clinical Care". Journal of Adolescent Health. 69 (6): 891–893. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.08.015 . ISSN   1054-139X. PMID   34629230. S2CID   238580640.
  7. Oliven, John F. (1965). Sexual Hygiene and Pathology: A Manual for the Physician and the Professions. Lippincott.
  8. Janssen, Diederik F. (April 21, 2020). "Transgenderism Before Gender: Nosology from the Sixteenth Through Mid-Twentieth Century". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 49 (5): 1415–1425. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01715-w. ISSN   0004-0002. PMID   32319033. S2CID   216073926.
  9. Mesch, Rachel (May 12, 2020). Before trans : three gender stories from nineteenth-century France. Stanford, California. ISBN   978-1-5036-1235-8. OCLC   1119978342.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. "Thousands of U.S. copyrighted works from 1928 are entering the public domain". Archived from the original on 2024-01-13. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
  11. Bornstein, Kate (2016). Gender Outlaw On Men, Women and the Rest of Us. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN   978-1-101-97461-2. OCLC   1155971422. Archived from the original on 2022-01-10. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
  12. Hernandez, Michael M. (1996). "Boundaries: Gender and Transgenderism". The Second Coming: A Leatherdyke Reader. Alyson. OCLC   757653724.
  13. Sparkes, Matthew (2014-02-14). "Facebook sex changes: which one of 50 genders are you?". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235. Archived from the original on 2018-05-21. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  14. "gender-fluid Meaning | Gender & Sexuality". Dictionary.com. 12 March 2018. Archived from the original on 2023-02-13. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
  15. "Flags and Symbols" (PDF). Amherst, Massachusetts: Amherst College. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
  16. "Gender-fluid added to the Oxford English Dictionary". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 25 October 2016. Retrieved 2016-12-20.

Further reading

Bibliography