Genderqueer

A gender identity (and umbrella term) for people who reject or blur traditional gender categories.

Definition

A gender identity (and umbrella term) for people who reject or blur traditional gender categories. Carries deliberate political and anti-assimilationist dimensions - rejecting not just the binary but the entire social system of binary gender enforcement.

Flag

Genderqueer flag · Designer: Marilyn Roxie · June 2011 (colour update 2012)

Lavender, white, and chartreuse green horizontal stripes.

Colour codes: Genderqueer flag
Stripe	HEX	RGB	CMYK	Pantone	Meaning
1	`#B57EDC`	181,126,220	C:18 M:43 Y:0 K:14	n/a	Androgyny; blend of blue and pink
2	`#FFFFFF`	255,255,255	C:0 M:0 Y:0 K:0	n/a	Agender identity
3	`#4A8123`	74,129,35	C:43 M:0 Y:73 K:49	n/a	Identities outside and beyond the binary

Full flag history →

Etymology

Gender + queer (reclaimed from a slur). Emerged in queer zines of the 1980s-1990s.

History

Predates "non-binary" and carries specific political history. Riki Anne Wilchins popularized it in a 1995 newsletter to describe people "whose gender expressions are so complex they haven't even been named yet." Wilchins' 2002 anthology GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary was a landmark. Today some use genderqueer and non-binary interchangeably; others distinguish them - genderqueer carrying more political connotation.

Notable people

Riki Anne Wilchins (1952-) - Popularized "genderqueer"
Judith Butler (1956 to present) - Philosopher; Gender Trouble (1990) reshaped how gender is theorised. Butler uses they/them pronouns and has said they see themselves within the non-binary category.