Xenogenders are non-binary gender identities that "cannot be contained by human understandings of gender". People who identify as a xenogender gender may call themselves xenic. Xenic individuals may feel like their gender is unrelated to human gender alignments, such as masculine or feminine, and may feel more aligned towards things that most people don't think of as having to do with gender such as animals, plants, things, or concepts. When xenic people talk about their gender experiences they often find that there aren't any words for their experiences, this is called a lexical gap. In order to fill that gap the term xenogender is used as an umbrella term for for any non-binary gender that are defined by characteristics with no relation to female, male, or other terms for traditionally human genders. When described xenogenders often fall into one of three categories: 1) Nouns and archetypes, where instead of saying how their gender relates to masculinity and femininity, they say their gender is, or is like, a kind of animal, an imaginary being, a part of nature, an abstract concept, or a symbol. These types of genders are sometimes called noungenders. 2) Synaesthetic perceptions, when a gender is described using things like texture, size, shape, time, light, sound, or other sensory characteristics. 3) Neurodiversity, when one's mental illnesses, neurological conditions, or neurodivergence influence, or are an inseparable part of, their gender identity. These are called neurogenders.
History
The term xenogender was coined by Tumblr user Baaphomett in 2014[1].
Flag
The xenogender flag was created on January 15, 2017 by DeviantArt user Pastelmemer. The central symbol is the astronomical sign for the asteroid Iris, a Greek goddess of rainbows. The colors chosen are common colors present in iris flowers. The central stripe is yellow, a common nonbinary color. It is opposed to purple, which usually stands for androgynous non-binary genders which have some combination of male and female identities, yellow is often used to symbolize genders which have nothing to do with the binary in any way- including xenogenders.
Etymology
The prefix xeno- indicates some having to do with aliens, which is appropriate as xenogender are unrelated to human genders.