Metagender

Metagender is a term that has been coined multiple times with varying definitions, including as multiple non-binary gender identities, a sexual orientation, spiritual identities, a gender modality, a description for gender-nonconforming behavior, and a super-set for all gender possibilities. Different definitions have been used by LGBTQIA2+ people and in academic settings, including self-identified and anthropological descriptions of multiple third-gender spiritual and religious identities.

History and Uses
Metagender existed as a technical term prior to its use by LGBTQIA2+ individuals, dating back at least to the 1980s, initially concerned with being outside or transcending binary gender, whether of imagery, perspectives, data, or people.

Among LBGTQIA2+ People
Metagender's early usage by queer communities was recorded in queer and feminist publications, where its definition included post-gender concepts, gender-bending, gender variance, and being neither a man nor a woman.

In a 1994 letter to the San Francisco Bay Times, an intersex womyn used metagender as an umbrella descriptor for gender-variant and intersex.

In a 1998 BITCH essay titled "Metagender and the Slow Decline of the Either/Or," Lisa Voldeng and Laura Kloppenberg coined "metagenderism" to "encapsulat[e] all existing, evolving, and unborn gender models: It is the unlimited superset of all possible (non)genders and gender (non)identities, of individual and cultural existence free from binaristic cat­egorization and definition." This definition was in contrast with the contemporary "transgenderism" as defined by trans woman and cultural theorist Sandy Stone. Where transgender was a category to "include everyone not covered by our culture's narrow terms man and woman," metagenderism entailed "a comprehensive reenvisioning of gender," to serve as "container for all gender identities, encompassing the two-gender system to transgender and beyond."

In a 1999 interview, musician/poet/filmmaker Phoebe Legere said that she was "metagender, metasexual, not a man or a woman."

In 2004, another zine listed metagender as a term for "gender-bending."

The term was coined again in the 2000s by Rook Thomas Hine. This coining's definition is given as "someone who identifies as neither male nor female, neither woman nor man, neither neuter nor feminine nor masculine. [...] A metagender is less of a 'both/and' combination, 'all of the above' or androgyne, and more of a 'wholly other' third/fourth/eighty-seventh category, or 'none of the above'." The metagender identity was further developed as "a social gender that comes into play in a spiritual and religious context" inside a neopagan context.

Maxfield Sparrow, who came out as metagender in 1992, wrote in 2018 that metagender "expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender."

In June 2014 "metagender" was suggested as an alternative word for pangender.

In 2014, metagender was re-coined as a gender identity for identifying around a gender aesthetically or emotionally, where your gender identity is almost that gender, but not quite, and also extends beyond that. In that sense, it is most commonly used by non-binary people or genderfluid people.

In November 2014, "metagender" was coined by Tumblr user arquus-malvaceae as "a tangential or tenuous connection to the concept of gender.  Existing in that sort of floaty space where there is no gender, but still connecting with another label.  Identifying with as opposed to identifying as. Can be narrowed down and specified as one sees fit.  Eg, Metawoman, Metaman, Metaqueer, etc."

In 2017, metagender was used by a troll as "gender inside a gender inside a gender, either to infinity or untill you wind up just being a single gender".

In July 2020, metagender was coined as a gender modality for being neither transgender nor cisgender, similar to isogender and absgender.

In all senses, it is most commonly used by people who are non-binary, agender, genderfluid, or similar.

In Academia and Gender Analysis
Metagender(ed) (sometimes meta-gender(ed) or metagenderism) has been used to describe "the academic engagement with or the theorizing of gender," spiritual identities that transcend gender,   systems of gender,  applying regardless of gender or to all genders equally,  and otherwise being about gender.

Examples:

"These dynamics are meta-gendered, in that they impact men and women and those who don’t identify in the binary, without particular discrimination, putting all of us at risk for weirdly pervasive and unexamined suffering."

Bugis Society recognizes four genders, plus a fifth gender, bissu, which is seen to combine and transcend the four others. "Bissu embody elements of all genders within them, and thereby occupy a space outside or above any single gender identity. They are essentially beyond gender — ‘meta-gender’ or ‘gender-transcendent’ as they are sometimes described."



Flags
The Metagender flag was made by Tumblr user imoga-pride. They gave it no defined meaning.