Genderqueer
A gender outside the binary: the older, more political word for it.
Genderqueer means having a gender that does not fit the binary, and it is the oldest of the words currently in use for that. It predates nonbinary by roughly a decade.
The word appeared in queer zines in the mid 1990s, at a point when the available options were transsexual, transvestite, or nothing. Genderqueer was built to hold everyone the medical vocabulary had no room for, and it carried a deliberate political charge from the start.
That charge is the main difference from nonbinary. Nonbinary states a fact: not one of two. Genderqueer states a position: the categories themselves are the problem. People who choose it today usually mean both, and the second part is why they chose it.
It reclaims queer, which is still a slur in living memory for many. Some older people who lived through that use genderqueer precisely because of the sting. Others avoid it for the same reason, and both responses are ordinary.
In practice it covers the same ground as nonbinary: agender, bigender, genderfluid, and a great many people who have simply never found the question useful. Someone can hold both words at once and often does.
Its use has declined as nonbinary became the standard term on forms and in journalism, and there is something lost in that. Nonbinary is easier to explain to an employer. Genderqueer was never trying to be.
Genderqueer is not an outdated word for nonbinary
It is treated as the version people used before the better word arrived, which gets both the history and the meaning wrong. Genderqueer is older, and it says something nonbinary does not: it names a stance toward the categories, not just a position outside them.
The other confusion is with genderfluid, helped along by the shared prefix. Genderfluid means a gender that moves over time. Genderqueer means a gender that sits outside the binary, whether or not it moves at all. A genderqueer person can be entirely stable.
Saying it well
Say this
- I am genderqueer.
- Genderqueer and nonbinary, depending on who is asking.
- I use genderqueer because the politics are the point.
- Genderqueer, and my pronouns are they/them.
Not this
- Using genderqueer about someone who has not used it themselves
- Is that not the old word for nonbinary?
- So your gender changes all the time?
- Calling anyone queer who has not claimed the word
Questions people actually ask
What does genderqueer mean?
Having a gender outside the binary of man and woman. It covers the same ground as nonbinary and adds a political stance toward the categories themselves.
Is genderqueer the same as nonbinary?
Nearly, in what it describes. Genderqueer is older and carries a deliberate challenge to the categories, where nonbinary simply states a position outside them. Many people use both.
Is genderqueer an outdated term?
It is used less than it was, mostly because nonbinary became the standard word on forms and in the press. It is not outdated, and plenty of people still prefer it.
Is genderqueer offensive?
Not to those who use it, but it contains a reclaimed slur. Use it about someone only once they have used it about themselves.
What is the difference between genderqueer and genderfluid?
Genderfluid means a gender that shifts over time. Genderqueer means a gender outside the binary, which may be completely stable.