Neutral or Gender Neutral refers to the act of having or showing qualities that are not associated with masculinity or femininity, or anything in between- a set of behaviors, presentations, and roles which were/are not strongly culturally associated with being a man or a woman. Neutral can be used to describe one's gender, one's gender presentation, or both.
As a description of a gender, neutral typically refers to genders that are not male or masculine, not female or feminine, and are not anything in between or derived from these. It is often used interchangeably with unaligned or abinary. It is sometimes used interchangeably with epicene. Genders that are associated with neutrality include: neutrois, stellarian, and agender, among others. Neutral is sometimes also interpreted as a gender quality in which masculinity, femininity, positivity, negativity, and all other genders qualities balance each other out or neutralize each other.
As a gender presentation, neutral describes a presentation that is not strongly indicative of men or women. It typically involves displaying traits that commonly found in men and women. Not all people with neutral genders will present as gender neutral, and not all people who present as gender neutral have a neutral gender. People of any gender or sexual orientation can present as gender neutral. People who have a neutral gender or neutral gender presentation may be called transneutral.
The exact qualities associated with neutrality are different based on the culture and time period. Qualities that are typically associated with neutrality in western society include:
- A gender expression which includes wearing clothes that a commonly worn by men and women.
- A gender expression which includes using they/them pronouns or possibly neopronouns.
In addition to being a description of gender and presentation, "gender neutral" is often used as an adjective to mean "without regard to gender" or "inclusive of any gender"; for example "Alex is a gender neutral name" or "We have a gender neutral restroom". The term "unisex" is also used in this regard.
Neutral is often confused with androgynous possibly due to the terms being used interchangably in society. Where neutral is a term describing being neither masculine or feminine, androgynous is a mixture of both masculine and feminine.