Proposed first paragraph of a revised wikipedia androgyne entry. Please add, takeaway tidy up and criticise. Definitely please find some citations or ways of making what we have discussed look 'dead proper'.

Hi Pica Pica
I am not certain what the definition for androgyne is. But the not feeling or identifying as either gender I am familiar with. Actually not even thinking about whatsoever from my early childhood  until I began to have these urges again, urges to be a girl came back when I was 47. I continued repressing and denying it until when I was 50 where it came to the point of do or die.

I am not certain if this experience has any bearing on being androgyne let alone if it could be classified as such. I just know that for many years sex or the action of having sex with the opposite gender and which one would that be if I did? Mostly it never even crossed my mind. I am now as normal a woman  as I can be and finally feel comfortable in my skin. Sex with either gender is still not the biggest issue in my life.

Cindy 

There is a diversity of ways that an androgyne can feel outside of the binary gender model.  Some feel like no gender, some feel like both, while others feel like something else.  Some are a blur of gender and some feel they have distinct masculinity and femininity.  Some androgynes have a single gender identity; for others gender identity drifts like a mood between masculine and feminine; yet others shift from one distinct identity to another.  A change in gender identity may or may not be associated with a change in personality or personal identity.

I wish we had some references.

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 09, 2007, 08:46:56 PM
Proposed first paragraph of a revised wikipedia androgyne entry. Please add, takeaway tidy up and criticise. Definitely please find some citations or ways of making what we have discussed look 'dead proper'.

Androgyne serves as a blanket term for those individuals who feel that their gender identity does not cleanly fit within the binary gender model. This feeling can be characterised and expressed in a number of different ways. This lack of identification with male or female links it to the concept of genderqueer, although genderqueer is a politicised concept, more often used by those with a wish to destroy the current conception of two genders. Androgyne is simply a term of self-reference from which other notions can follow.

Woah woah. Slow down there. First, you put out some pretty strong words on genderqueers, and I can tell you right now that not all genderqueers are activists seeking to destroy all traces of anything binary about gender. I'm certainly not. Its a nice umbrella term through which people can connect through, just like androgyne for that matter.

Secondly, any person who falls outside the binary is eroding the socially constructed idea of binary gender, whether you are active about it or not. Think about it.

Hi Simon, well personally your description comes close to the way I felt about genders.

QuoteThere is a diversity of ways that an androgyne can feel outside of the binary gender model.  Some feel like no gender, some feel like both, while others feel like something else.  Some are a blur of gender and some feel they have distinct masculinity and femininity.  Some androgynes have a single gender identity; for others gender identity drifts like a mood between masculine and feminine; yet others shift from one distinct identity to another.  A change in gender identity may or may not be associated with a change in personality or personal identity.

I wish we had some references. Undecided

I have never heard of the term genderqueer so I am not qualified to quote on that concept.

Cindy

I always though genderqueer was the militant term.

I don't want to disturb the waters here but I do not know if it sounds militant Pica Pica. Or more like using a gender with a dysphoric term together that sounds negative.

Cindy

Wikipedia has a genderqueer entry that is not a subsection and which begins thus:

QuoteGenderqueer or intergender is a gender identity of both, neither or some combination of "man" and/or "woman". In relation to the gender binary (the view that there are only two genders), genderqueer people generally identify as more "both/and" or "neither/nor," rather than "either/or."

It doesn't seem to emphasize the political aspect, though I did not read every word.  It says this about related gender terminology

Quote
Androgyne, Intergender, Bigender, Multigender, Third gender, Neuter/Neutrois/Agender, Gender Fluid may also be used to describe where one lies on a gender spectrum or in gender spheres (outside the normal binary genders).

We should make sure that genderqueer is or is not another word for androgyne.  I mean, I tend to think of it with a political association, but as pointed out by Kaimialana, it may be better to wipe that connotation from our minds.

Neutrois is just sitting there on the genderqueer page waiting for someone to create an entry for it.

It's probably a personal bit of prejudice. The self proclaimed genderqueers I've personally met were weird abrasive and irritating, self concious subverters of gender, where I always thought of androgyne as something gentler and more personal....seems that conception was just mine though.

Don't get me wrong, there are militant genderqueers, just like there are militant aspects of any culture. And then there are just pollitically active genderqueers. And then there are really shy genderqueers, like myself, who agree that there should be activism (as thats about the only way anyone in the GLBT movements have gotten any sway whatsoever) but don't take part because we are either not good at it, or we feel uncomfortable doing it. In general, the militant aspects can be scary, just like the militant aspects of feminism, for example, or religion.

A term that gets thrown around alot to describe people who are actively working to screw with gender by screwing with peoples concepts of gender is gender->-bleeped-<-. Maybe thats what you were thinking of?

I see androgyne and genderqueer as synonyms, personally.



Okay, on the other hand, I can see your point. However, you are not only generalizing a large group of people, but you are also assuming that any sort of gender subversion is militant, and I get the feeling that you think any sort of binary subversion is wrong, which it certainly isn't.

i am an androgyne, i do not feel that the gender binary is true, but i do believe there is a bodysex binary.
i feel that a lot of those gender-screwers are actually not trying to play with the concepts of gender, which seem to flow fairly easily in the background anyway, but in the binary of bodysex and issues of presentation...I suppose the real point I wish to make is that androgyne is a personal conception and as such does not have to impinge on presentation. It is a personal not public realisation, and gender-screwing, and what i saw as genderqueer were public manifestations of the private realisations. That an androgyne doesn't have to be a genderqueer. 

Well, if you need a citation...(Pica Pica, 2007).

You could probably take the bit about genderqueer out entirely and it would not change the point of the paragraph.

but it's an enlightening discussion.

Quote from: Kaimialana on November 11, 2007, 01:04:06 PM
I see androgyne and genderqueer as synonyms, personally.

Mm, yes, I guess. On the other hand, genderqueer sounds like the opposite of a hypothetical genderstraight: it presupposes that the binary genders are the norm, so that anything besides the two main genders is non-normal enough to be labelled as queer. Now, English is not my native language, so take this with an appropriate grain of salt, but to me androgyne is more on equal terms with male and female.

  Nfr

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 11, 2007, 02:10:58 PM
i am an androgyne, i do not feel that the gender binary is true, but i do believe there is a bodysex binary.
i feel that a lot of those gender-screwers are actually not trying to play with the concepts of gender, which seem to flow fairly easily in the background anyway, but in the binary of bodysex and issues of presentation...I suppose the real point I wish to make is that androgyne is a personal conception and as such does not have to impinge on presentation. It is a personal not public realisation, and gender-screwing, and what i saw as genderqueer were public manifestations of the private realisations. That an androgyne doesn't have to be a genderqueer. 

I just caught this, after a night of being away. Okay, if you propose there is a bodysex binary, then where, in your opinion,

do the intersex fit in?

And you are making assumptions again, that people who are genderqueer all walk around genderforking all the time, or even have a presentation that is noticable. Until you can admit you shouldn't be making assumptions on people based upon a few experiences, I am done with this discussion.

Posted on: November 12, 2007, 10:53:23 AM

---

Actually, NO, I'm not done yet. I'm pretty angry at this point, because I expected better, I made the assumption (which I won't do again) that all Androgynes, Genderqueers, Mixedgenders, Genderforks, or WHATEVER you want to call yourselves, were unjudgemental, understanding and slow to make assumptions of people based on identification labels. I thought such an identification would  mark a person who doesn't just ASSUME that, because one person or a couple people or ever EVERY SINGLE PERSON who uses that identification label except ONE, that everyone under that label identifies and behaves and presents and feels the same way about it.

But then, I was right about assuming, because you can't even assume that.

Now I'm done.

You done? 

Talk bit more after work.

I'm an androgyne and I guess in some ways that means I am gender queer (having a gender that is unusual/uncommon). I'm not sure if that means I am also genderqueer. Certainly the description of genderqueer in wikipedia sounds very similar to androgyne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer
"The term genderqueer is also sometimes used in a broader context as an adjective to refer to any person who challenges gender roles and binary notions of gender."

Also from the wikipedia about genderqueer (not that this is a mark of authority or anything but...) "However, this term can be used to refer to anyone who identifies as transgender, or even someone who identifies as cisgender but whose behavior falls outside the average standard gender norms."

I think genderqueer is a broader term than androgyne. I have also read before that it is a politicised term. It seems to come with a little baggage, but I suppose I fall within the realms of the genderqueer.

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 11, 2007, 02:10:58 PM
i am an androgyne, i do not feel that the gender binary is true, but i do believe there is a bodysex binary.
i feel that a lot of those gender-screwers are actually not trying to play with the concepts of gender, which seem to flow fairly easily in the background anyway, but in the binary of bodysex and issues of presentation...I suppose the real point I wish to make is that androgyne is a personal conception and as such does not have to impinge on presentation. It is a personal not public realisation, and gender-screwing, and what i saw as genderqueer were public manifestations of the private realisations. That an androgyne doesn't have to be a genderqueer. 

As a null gender person I qualify as androgyne under the definition you used at the start of this thread...  For me my gender identity DOES impinge on presentation.  I don't feel comfortable with gendered attributes either way and find an androgynous presentation the only non-dysphoric option.  Please don't tell me there is a body sex binary because I NEED another option. 

Of all the places to be told I don't exist >.<

I think he meant there is a body sex binary, as in man or woman. There is no androgyne, or null body type as such (though something like Klienfelters syndrome probably comes close to a mixed, but somewhat dysfunctional type). Your gender identity or lack of identity as a null gendered person does not require you to look like it for it to be true. It would be true no matter what you look like, but it does make you want, or need, your external to match the internals.

Okay, kids, it seems like we've gone from a proposed wikipedia entry to an argument over semantics.  Tell you what, I'll start a thread for the genderqueer vs. androgyne discussion and then you can fire away. 

As for the proposed paragraph, for the moment, I would take out the bit about genderqueer.  As suggested in the original thread about publicizing ourselves, perhaps it could be listed as a subtopic. 

All right...I'm off to create that thread...let's get back to discussion what should be written in the entry.  (By the way, I'm in no way trying to lessen the importance of what Kaimialana is saying...I just think it needs it's own threads so that we don't get so off topic on this one)