Overview
What agenderfluid means.
Genderfluid says the gender moves. Agenderfluid says where it moves back to. Most of the time there is nothing there: no gender, no signal. Then something turns up for a few hours or a few weeks — a girl, a demiboy, something with no name. It stays a while. Then it goes, and the nothing is back.
That is the whole shape. Agender is the home address; the other genders are visits. The record on the LGBTQIA+ Wiki puts it plainly: an agenderfluid person may feel other genders and may change, but always returns to agender and feels agender most of the time.
It is not agenderflux, though the two get muddled constantly. Flux changes how much gender there is, and the gender itself never changes. Agenderfluid changes which — you may genuinely be a girl on Tuesday — and the gap between a louder nothing and an actual something is the whole distinction. This is a small word. The wiki records its flags, from Tumblr in December 2018, but not who first used the term. There is no research behind it and nobody has counted its users. The experience did not wait for the label.
A fluid gender whose resting state is no gender at all.
Agenderfluid in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Agenderfluid's coiner is not recorded; the LGBTQIA+ Wiki's history for the term covers only its flags, the earliest posted on 25 December 2018 by a Tumblr user, in several versions combining the agender and genderfluid flags with agender as the base. Like most compound agender/genderfluid terms, it appears to have arisen through informal, incremental use in Tumblr's non-binary community during the mid-to-late 2010s rather than from a single coining post.
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
Most days the question "what's your gender" has no answer.
Every so often it has one, and the answer surprises you.
You tried agender and it fitted for months, then a week arrived where you were plainly a girl, or a boy, and you felt like a fraud in both directions.
You tried genderfluid and it felt too busy — it assumed there was always something there to be fluid between.
When a gender visits, you know what it is.
It is not a louder nothing. It has a name, even if only for a fortnight.
You keep a few clothes for the visits and mostly wear the ones for the blank.
The relief when it leaves is not that you disliked it.
It is that home is quiet.
Someone asked which one you really are and you said "none, usually" and watched them not hear the usually.
Pronouns
Pronouns
There is no agenderfluid pronoun. They/them is common because it fits the floor. Some switch sets when a gender visits; most keep one set and let the visits pass unannounced, because a moving pronoun costs more than it saves. A fixed set that only matches you most of the time is not a lie.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1The nothing never lifts. Not once, not faintly. That is agender, and it is next door.
- 2Something is always there and only its strength moves. That is genderflux, or agenderflux if it falls back to zero.
- 3The visits track your mood — arriving with the bad weeks and leaving with them. The wiki lists a near-synonym, cansegender, defined by exactly that link; more often it is a mood wearing a gender costume.
- 4Which gender you feel depends on who is in the room, and always lands on whichever keeps that person comfortable. Look hard at that before naming it.
Close by
Related identities
Agender
No visits. Flat nothing, for years. If nothing ever turns up, that is agender, and it is not a simpler thing than this.
ReadAgenderflux
Volume, not station. In flux the nothing gets a little louder and quieter but never becomes a girl. In agenderfluid it does. The wiki draws exactly this line.
Read
Genderfluid
The wider word, with no floor stated. A genderfluid person may pass through agender as one stop among many. Agenderfluid names the stop you always come back to.
ReadFluidflux
Fluid and flux at once: which gender changes and how much of it changes. If your visits also arrive at different strengths, that word covers both movements.
ReadBoyfluid
Same mechanism with a different home. Boyfluid returns to boy; agenderfluid returns to nothing. Which base you land on is the whole difference.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between agenderfluid and agenderflux?+
Flux changes how much; fluid changes which. An agenderflux person is agender at base and sometimes has a bit more gender — unnamed, just louder. An agenderfluid person is agender at base and sometimes is a specific other gender: a girl, a demiboy, something else, with a name on it. The wiki record states this as the defining difference. If your visits never have a name, look at agenderflux first.
Do I have to be agender most of the time for this to fit?+
That is how the record defines it: agender is the base, and you feel agender most of the time. If the other genders are where you mostly live and nothing is the occasional visitor, plain genderfluid describes it better. Nobody is measuring the split, but the word does carry a claim about which way is home.
Is there an agenderfluid flag?+
Several, according to the wiki: combinations of the agender and genderfluid flags, made on 25 December 2018 by a Tumblr user, all using the agender flag as the base because agender is the base identity. No single version has won.
The flag
Several competing designs — thelightfluxtastic posted five variants on 2018-12-25 (lgbtqia.wiki), nonbinary.wiki shows a kenochoric design and gender.fandom.com a 2015 Pride-Flags Agenderfluid/Cancegender flag; no single flag on record.
Sources
- Agenderfluid — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Definition, the distinction from agenderflux and cansegender, and the December 2018 flag history.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.