How much do you really know about the history of the word "agender"?
Find out on this episode of InQueery, hosted by artist and musician Shamir.
InQueery is the series that takes a deeper look at the meaning, context, and history of LGBTQ+ vocabulary and culture.
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- Welcome to Inqueery.The series where we take a mini deep diveinto the history of LGBTQ plus vocabulary.So, how much do you reallyknow about the historyin the word agender?Find out in this episode of Inqueery.(upbeat music)Before I tell you more about that,a quick refresher on the basic rulesof gender using dessert.Gender is like ice cream.There are many, many flavors.You can mix and matchor you can decide not to haveany, if it's not for you.Being agender, which literallytranslates to without gender,is most often used to mean decidingnot to go for the ice cream.According to the OxfordEnglish Dictionary,agender refers to people whodon't identify themselveswith any particular gender.This can mean beinggenderless, lacking gender,or having a null gender.However, people also useagender to mean identifyingas gender neutral or havingan undefinable gender.Like many words we use to describe gender,agender is a relatively new word.Of course that doesn't meanthat the identity is newor that agender people didn't existbefore we had the languagewe do now to identify them.The first documenteduse of the word agenderwas actually on the internet.It was born in the year 2000when the internet formed called UseNet.In a chat room discussiontitled alt.messianica user posted the following.God is amorphoric, agender,so image cannot be a physicalgender or sexual thing.It's true.Many religions consider God to be agender.Including the one I grew up in,Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism.But there are plenty of regularflesh and blood human beingswho fit this description too.The next time the wordagender was used again,according to our friends, the OED,was in 2005.Also on UseNet.But this time the word was clearlyused in reference to people.Although it was in anotherdiscussion about faith.In the Alt_Politics Democrats chat,someone wrote that culturescan have transgender, agender,and hypergender individuals.From there, usage of theword really took off.By 2013, the word agender wasused in the New York Timesprofile of generation LGBTQIAin which several gendernon-conforming youthwere featured discussingtheir changing understandingof themselves and their genders.They first heard theterm agender from Kate.Who found it on Tumblr.The two met at freshmanorientation in high school.In high school, Kate identified as agenderand used the singular pronoun they.They now see their genderas a amorphous blob.Go ahead, Kate.For many young people, theinternet was a formative spacefor discovering new gender language.Today agender is a recognizedand celebrated identityin queer spaces.In March, 2017 an Oregon judge granteda 27-year-old game designerfrom Portland named Patchpermission to legally identify as agender.There are plenty of role modelsin the agender community too.My friend, the rapper, Angel Haze,academics like S.J.
Miller,and writers like our very own Tyler Ford.By helping agender foldsrecognize and celebrate themselvesall while working tomake the world a betterplace for agender people everywhere.So look out, world.The agender future is arriving.