Maybe i'm being a bit of a fool here, but what is the difference between androgyne and pangender?

They seem kind of the same thing to me. Well, what little i know about being pangender seems to be really pretty much the same as i thought androgyne was.

How can i tell if i'm androgyne or pangender? And is the difference really important? They seem like the same thing anyway.

I got my info about pangender at wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangender

Hmm, to me it mostly seems an act of copy-paste-rewording wiki/Androgyne. However, there does seem to be more of an emphasis on neutrois in the Pangender article;

QuoteIn some cases, pangender individuals are able to live with the majority of the physical characteristics they were born with but frequently display the outward appearance, behavior and/or clothing of the opposite gender.

Additionally, what's rather important about this Wiki is the following:

QuoteThis article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since January 2006.

I definitely agree with the latter statement; the article needs a clean-up. However, to answer your question I'll have to point out the different Androgyne classes (it is a broad sphere grasshopper), and in essence the Pangender article convinces of the exact same although it is (in my opinion) reworded rather incorrectly and completely irrelevant to be brought forth as an alternate gender identity.

Therefore, the question is; how do you know if you are Androgyne?... To which I reply with: How do you know you are not?

The prefix "pan-" usually makes reference to people or objects as a group, not as individuals. Pangender = all genders or all sexes, genders, gender presentations, and orientations. Pangender refers to social roles, not an individual's gender identity.

That term "pangender" is easily confused with and misunderstood to mean "pansexual".  Thus, "pangender" is usually shunned by Androgynes for the same reasons "->-bleeped-<-" is shunned by Crossdressers. Both terms are mistakenly thought to include a sexual or fetishistic motivation. As you can see from the posts on this website, Androgynes tend to be rather sexually conservative.

-Emerald 

*sigh* Why do we need all these new words? What in the Sam Hill is wrong is with just sticking with male, female, and androgyne? Or hetero, homo, and bi? And recognizing that not all males, females, androgynes, heteros, homos, and bisexuals feel the exact same way about everything?
Ok. I'm no longer a Caucasian American. I'm a Slavic-Caucasian-Palefaced-Blonde American.
Or a woman is no longer simply 'woman', she now must have the distinction of being a Caucasian-White-Hetero-Blonde-Blue-eyed-Christian-Conservative Woman.

*shrug* People like different words for the same thing. Language is diverse, as diverse as gender identity. No person identifies exactly the same way, comes to understand it the same way, has the same experiences, and thus, different names occur.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Quote*sigh* Why do we need all these new words? What in the Sam Hill is wrong is with just sticking with male, female, and androgyne?

Because Androgyne is an umbrella term of sorts ... Like the term "Transgendered"   ...  An MtF and a FtM and an Androgyne are all 'transgendered' yet they are VERY different...  someone who is intergendered, ambigendered, bigendered, neutrois, are all under the "androgyne" umbrella yet they are very -very- different...

Quote from: Alison on September 14, 2007, 08:53:16 PM

Quote*sigh* Why do we need all these new words? What in the Sam Hill is wrong is with just sticking with male, female, and androgyne?

Because Androgyne is an umbrella term of sorts ... Like the term "Transgendered"   ...  An MtF and a FtM and an Androgyne are all 'transgendered' yet they are VERY different...  someone who is intergendered, ambigendered, bigendered, neutrois, are all under the "androgyne" umbrella yet they are very -very- different...

Very yes.

Quote from: Nero on September 14, 2007, 08:08:08 PM
*sigh* Why do we need all these new words?

I just met someone recently who calls herself genderqueer and had never heard the term androgyne, but when she described herself, she was just like me...I'm androgyne and she's genderqueer, but we're exactly the same.  I suppose it's just a matter of personal tastes.  (Although as a language geek, I do find the word origins of all the different terms pretty fascinating...really, I should just tattoo "NERD" across my forehead )

It would be nice if we could get everyone who defined themselves as androgyne, pangendered, genderqueer, etc. together and just pick one.    

On the other hand, that doesn't mean we would all identify in exactly the same way.

Quote from: Kaimialana on September 17, 2007, 12:55:06 PM
On the other hand, that doesn't mean we would all identify in exactly the same way.

true, but that's the same for any gender identity...we could give ourselves headaches trying to figure it all out.    

Quote from: Jaimey on September 17, 2007, 03:34:42 PM

Quote from: Kaimialana on September 17, 2007, 12:55:06 PM
On the other hand, that doesn't mean we would all identify in exactly the same way.

true, but that's the same for any gender identity...we could give ourselves headaches trying to figure it all out.    

...as many identifications as there are people....

Quote from: Kaimialana on September 17, 2007, 07:19:28 PM

Quote from: Jaimey on September 17, 2007, 03:34:42 PM

Quote from: Kaimialana on September 17, 2007, 12:55:06 PM
On the other hand, that doesn't mean we would all identify in exactly the same way.

true, but that's the same for any gender identity...we could give ourselves headaches trying to figure it all out.    

...as many identifications as there are people....

Indeed...  Not all androgynes, genderqueer, etc all feel the same way about themselves and where they fit within the gender forum...

Does it get confusing?  hell yes.... But.. otherwise people are left out and are basically told "you don't exist, now go sit in that box over there"