#agener

Agingender: umbrella term for all genders agender/agenine in nature. Also a term to refer to a gender that isn’t fully null, or a genderlessness in which ageninity is its defining feature. May simply be used as “agin”, ie. “my gender is agin”.

You may say this is basically the agender flag, but it’s on -ingender flag format. Reminder just because a label is suffixed with -gender doesn’t mean it’s comgender. Not to be confused with aingender (apora in nature) or nulltrois.

Ageninity or Agenderishness: relating to qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of agender. Interchangeable with agenderinity, agenrinity and agenerinity.

An agender person in someone who does not identify  as having a particular gender. They do not think of themselves, or feel like, male or female. 

This is not the same as being asexual. Agender is about gender identity, asexual is about sexuality and sexual desire. An asexual is someone who is normally not sexually attracted to anyone.

Patricia Silva 

Photographer, video director and arts worker Patricia Silva recently told PinkNews what their agender gender identity means to them, and why everyone’s experiences are different.

“Being agender means that I’m not limiting myself,” they said. “What I focus on is really staying true to myself.”

“What I love about being agender is always finding potential, more and more potential to self-actualise. That is an amazing feeling for me. I do often out myself verbally as agender, and also through presentation as agender. Some people get it, some people don’t.”

Silva says their advice for allies is to always be affirming, especially in the face of those who could be less than understanding. This makes sense to me: All gender variant people should respect and support each other.

Different shades of nonbinary

One more thing: There seems to be some confusion as regards the overlap between terms like agender, neutrois and nonbinary. As such terms are mostly created by LGBTQA people themselves, you have to expect different interpretations, and that is OK.

These are my interpretations:

AGENDER: A lack of gender identity, although an agender person may explore masculine and feminine gender expressions. Alternative terms are  genderblank, genderfree, genderless or non-gendered.

NONBINARY: May have a gender identity, but it is not exclusively male or female. The term is also often used as an umbrella term for  gender identities that are neither traditional male nor traditional female. 

NEUTROIS: Having a gender identity that is neither male nor female

GENDERQUEER: This is a variant of nonbinary, although the focus might be more on transcending transcending gender roles and gender expressions.

GENDERFLUID: Nonbinary people whose gender identity may change over time. Their gender identity is fluctuating.

ANDROGYNOUS is more about expression than identity. They may blend masculine, feminine and other expressions, which often gives them a neutral or or non-gender-specific look. 

Please let me know if you think of any of  these terms in different ways.

Tagging my communities/identities.