Gendervague

A neurogender identity in which a person's gender cannot be separated from, or described independently of, their neurodivergence. A gendervague person experiences their gender as undefinable in ordinary terms precisely because of how their neurodivergent mind processes identity. Being neurodivergent does not cause the gender, but the two are inextricably linked in how the person understands themselves.

Gender + vague. A neurogender term, meant to be used only as a self-identity label by neurodivergent people.

Gendervague came out of the "neurodivergentkin" network on Tumblr in mid-2014. Community archives of that period preserve an explicit credit line reading that the term was coined by the neurodivergentkin network around August 2014, and that the Tumblr user gcdzilla, also known as Cryptomegha, designed the flag. Another community reference credits Cryptomegha with the term itself, together with the network. The original 2014 post could not be opened when this page was written, so treat the 2014 origin as well attested and the individual coiner as unsettled.

The word reached a wide audience through "Gendervague: At the Intersection of Autistic and Trans Experiences", an essay by the autistic disability-justice advocate Lydia X. Z. Brown, published on the National LGBTQ Task Force blog on 22 June 2016. Brown is very often credited with coining it. They have said plainly that this is wrong: "I am not the person who came up with the word 'gendervague.' I don't know who did, but I've seen sources around the internet attributing it to me, which is incorrect." Even in the 2016 essay Brown called it "a term coined within the autistic community."

The term is for neurodivergent people generally, not for autistic people only, and that restriction is part of the original 2014 definition rather than something added later. Brown's essay is what tied it specifically to autistic experience, and is why most readers meet the word in an autism context. Part of the broader neurogender vocabulary.

• "Gendervague is just agender with extra steps." Agender is the absence of gender; gendervague is a gender that exists but is inseparable from neurodivergence and therefore resists ordinary description.
• "Linking gender to neurodivergence is offensive." The term was coined by and for neurodivergent people to describe a genuine, frequently reported experience.
• "Lydia X. Z. Brown coined gendervague." Brown's 2016 essay is how most people found the word, but Brown has stated directly that they did not coin it and do not know who did.