The definition of genderqueer is people who do not fit within the traditional two-gender role of male or female. This may be someone who feels they have some of both genders, or someone who feels they have no gender.
That’s a starting point, but it is actually a fairly simplified definition. More broadly, genderqueer is a complex and encompassing analysis of gender.
Genderqueer people seek an identity that falls outside the norms of society. These are people who do not feel they fit some prescribed mold when it comes to gender identity.
Their identity could change yearly, monthly, weekly or even hourly.
Genderqueer does not necessarily mean transgendered, either. It can encompass trans people, but it doesn’t have to. Genderqueer describes gender beyond identity or labels.
Gender-bending is the practice of not conforming to labels. As described by the website genderqueerrevolution.com: “You can choose to ‘wear,’ play, or experiment with any gender configuration, revel in confusion by choice or circumstance or not.”
Genderqueer also does not conform to sexuality labels. This is not necessarily a “gay” thing or a straight thing.
Reading on this topic I am struck by the fact that this community wants so badly to not have any sort of label that they do not even definitively have terms that they are comfortable using to describe themselves. They seem to want to exist in a world beyond labels or definition. However, given that we live in a world of language where we describe people, places and things in words, the genderqueer world has a plethora of terms that they may or may not.
Some of the preferred terms are: trans (-sexual, -gender, -genderist, -sexual, -sensual,-vestite) androgyne, non-conforming, bigender, boygirl, girlboy, gender fabulous, girlfag, guydyke, transguy, transdyke … the list goes on, forever changing but never fixed or definitive.
The world of genderqueer is fairly new and counterculture. It’s quite possibly on the forefront of how human beings are evolving.
Even mainstream media has touched on subjects relating to how we as a culture are less about strict divisions between two genders. I remember years ago reading an article that said how the young hot actors of the day were so much less masculine in a pure masculine sense. That there was an element of androgyny in our culture that was never there before and it was evidenced in our popular culture.
This new movement seems to be a progression of that increased androgyny, only taken further.
There does seem to be a movement not only in the genderqueer community, but also in the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered community in general, where people are less eager to put a label on themselves.
I often hear people simply identifying as ‘queer’ as opposed to saying lesbian, gay or even bisexual.
People are eschewing the identity for the greater freedom in existing in a place that requires no definition. Maybe that ultimately is the definition of freedom.
