Genderfaun
Fluid across genders, but never toward femininity.
Genderfaun describes someone whose gender moves, like genderfluid, but never lands on anything feminine. The movement happens across masculine, neutral and unaligned genders, with the feminine part of the range simply not in play.
It is the counterpart of genderfae, which is fluid in the same way but never toward masculinity. The two words were coined together and are almost always explained as a pair.
They come from the same family as genderfluid and share its central feature: the change is not a decision, and it usually does not announce itself. Someone genderfaun may find that this week nothing about masculinity fits and neutral does, without anything having happened to cause it.
The name comes from fauns in the sense the internet uses it, and both words emerged from Tumblr's gender vocabulary in the mid-2010s. That origin is sometimes used to dismiss them, which is a bad argument: nearly every word in this glossary was coined somewhere by someone, and recency is not a defect.
Practically, it is most useful to say once. It tells someone that your gender moves and it tells them which direction it does not move in, which saves a conversation later.
Genderfaun is not genderfluid with extra steps
The objection is that genderfluid already covers it, and that the extra word is decoration. It covers the fluidity and says nothing about the range, which is the part genderfaun adds.
That is not a small addition for the person using it. Being told your gender moves invites the assumption that it moves everywhere, and for genderfaun people that assumption is wrong in a specific and repeated way.
Saying it well
Say this
- I am genderfaun.
- My gender moves, but never toward feminine.
- Genderfaun, so some days it is masculine and some days it is nothing.
- Genderfaun and genderfae are a pair.
Not this
- So you are just genderfluid
- That is a made-up Tumblr word
- So you are secretly a man
- Pick a day and stick to it
Questions people actually ask
What does genderfaun mean?
Having a gender that moves between masculine, neutral and unaligned, but never toward feminine.
What is the difference between genderfaun and genderfae?
Direction. Genderfaun never moves toward feminine, genderfae never toward masculine.
Is genderfaun the same as genderfluid?
It is a kind of genderfluid, with the range specified. Genderfluid alone says nothing about which genders are in play.
Where does the word come from?
From Tumblr's gender vocabulary in the mid-2010s, coined alongside genderfae.
Are genderfaun people nonbinary?
Yes, in the general sense: a gender that moves is not a binary gender.