Demigender

Demigender describes a partial connection to a gender. Someone demigender feels some link to being a man, a woman, or another gender, without that link being the whole of it. The prefix is the same demi as in demisexual: half, in the sense of partial rather than exactly fifty per cent.

Demiboy and demigirl are the two common forms, and each has its own entry. The remainder is not necessarily another gender: it can be nothing, or something that does not have a name, or a part that simply does not engage with the question.

It is a nonbinary identity, and the partial connection is what distinguishes it from being binary. A demigirl is not a woman who is slightly unsure; she is someone for whom womanhood is one real part of a larger picture.

It travels well with other words, because the partial connection is the only claim it makes. Demigirl and genderfluid, demiboy and agender, demigender and questioning are all ordinary combinations.

The frequent objection is that this is just a woman who does not perform femininity, or a man who is sensitive. That reading substitutes gender expression for gender identity, which is precisely the swap the two terms exist to prevent.

Demigender is not half of a binary gender

The word demi suggests arithmetic, and people reach for a fifty-fifty split. That is not what anyone using it describes. The connection is partial in the sense of incomplete, not in the sense of measurable.

The other half, if there is one, does not have to be the opposite gender or any gender at all. For many demigender people the rest is simply absence, which is why agender turns up so often alongside it.

Saying it well