Androgyne is a gender identity that combines masculine and feminine at once, rather than sitting at either pole. Androgyny is a gender expression that blends masculine and feminine presentation.
Definition
The first is about who someone is. The second is about how someone looks. They are frequently confused and they are not the same thing.
Androgyne is a noun and an identity. An androgyne person experiences their gender as both masculine and feminine simultaneously, or as a genuine combination of the two, without identifying fully with either binary gender alone. It generally sits under the non-binary umbrella, though not every androgyne uses that word.
Androgyny is a quality of presentation. Someone with an androgynous appearance blends masculine and feminine signals in how they dress, cut their hair, move or speak. Androgyny says nothing about a person's gender identity or their sexual orientation. Cisgender men, cisgender women, trans people and non-binary people are all androgynous in large numbers, for reasons ranging from deep identity to liking the clothes.
The practical rule: you can observe androgyny. You cannot observe whether someone is an androgyne.
From the Greek andros, man, and gyne, woman. The compound has been in use in medicine, philosophy and literature since antiquity, long predating any modern identity vocabulary, which is why it turns up in contexts that have nothing to do with gender identity at all.
History
Figures combining masculine and feminine appear across mythology and religious iconography worldwide, from Hermaphroditus in Greek myth to Ardhanarishvara in Hindu iconography, though reading modern identity into any of them is a stretch and we would not.
In the twentieth century, androgyny became a visible aesthetic and political position: in 1920s and 1930s European cabaret and art scenes, in the glam rock of the early 1970s, and in the 1980s through performers whose whole presentation refused to resolve. David Bowie is the reference point most people reach for, alongside Grace Jones and, later, Tilda Swinton. Androgyne as a stated gender identity, rather than a look, became common in genderqueer and non-binary community writing from the 1990s onwards.
Common myths
Myth: androgynous people are just trying to look gender-neutral
Androgyny and neutrality are different targets. Many androgynes describe themselves as actively both, not as an absence or a midpoint. Neutrois and agender are the words for the absence.
Myth: androgyny is a modern trend
It is documented across thousands of years of art, religion and dress. What changes is which combination reads as androgynous, because that depends on which signals a given society has gendered.
Myth: androgyny means looking thin, white and masculine
Worth naming, because fashion imagery has narrowed androgyny to one body type and one direction of blend. Feminine androgyny is androgyny. So is androgyny on a body that is not slim.
Notable people
David Bowie (1947–2016) - British musician; Ziggy Stardust and other androgynous personas brought androgyny to mass cultural visibility
Grace Jones (1948–) - Jamaican-American model, singer, and actress; iconic androgynous presentation
Tilda Swinton (1960–) - British actor; widely recognized for androgynous appearance and roles
