Overview
What astergender means.
Astergender is a xenogender: a gender better described by something outside man and woman than by either of them. Here the something is brightness. A celestial, radiant quality that fits you more accurately than masculine, feminine or neutral do. The record describes it as a gender that feels bright and celestial, and adds that it can be neutral, masculine or feminine. That second clause matters. Astergender does not replace a direction; it colours one. People spell that out with the sub-terms astergirl, asterboy and asterenby.
Honest scale before you go on. This is a small word with a thin trail. The original coining post is lost; the earliest surviving trace the wiki records is a list kept by a moderator of a now-defunct term archive, dated September 2014. There is no survey, no clinic that uses it, no documented community beyond the people who describe themselves this way online. This page describes a shape of experience, not a movement.
What it is not. It is not stargender or stellargender, which are about being of stars: distant, burning, old. It is not astrology; nothing about it moves with the sky. And it is not an aesthetic. Loving space imagery is a taste. Astergender is the claim that radiant is the most accurate word for what you are.
A gender best described as bright and celestial, which can be masculine, feminine or neutral underneath.
Astergender in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
No original coining post for astergender survives. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki traces the earliest recoverable evidence of the term to a list kept by a moderator of a now-defunct Tumblr-based gender-term archive, dated September 2014, placing it within the first wave of xenogender coinages that emerged on Tumblr in 2014, alongside related space words like astralgender and stargender. No individual coiner is credited.
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
Someone asks whether you are a man or a woman and you can answer, but the answer feels like naming the frame and leaving out the picture.
The word that comes to mind for your gender is bright.
Or radiant, or lit from inside. It came before you had any label for it.
Being read as masculine or feminine isn't wrong.
Being read as dim is.
You tried stargender and astralgender and neither quite landed, because they describe distance and you feel warmth.
There are days the brightness is turned down and you notice.
It feels less like a mood and more like a lamp on a low setting.
You have never said the word out loud to anyone, because you know exactly how it sounds, and you also know it is the accurate one.
You were quietly relieved the term allows a direction.
You did not want to give up being a girl, or a boy, to be this.
Pronouns
Pronouns
No pronoun set comes with this. People who use it use they/them, she/her, he/him, star-themed neopronouns, or several at once, usually following whichever direction the brightness sits on. Pronouns are a separate decision and not evidence of the gender.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1Man or woman already describes you accurately and you also love space. That is an interest, and a good one, not a xenogender.
- 2The image keeps changing. Bright this month, oceanic the next. A metaphor that rotates is describing your mood, not your gender.
- 3What you feel is absence rather than light. Agender and gendervoid describe that better and will get you more useful company.
- 4You mean it literally, that you are a celestial being. That is kin language: a different community with a different vocabulary.
Close by
Related identities
Stellargender
About being of stars: distant, burning, seen at a delay. Astergender is about brightness rather than distance. If radiant is your key word and remote is not, you are here; if it is the other way round, go there.
ReadStargender
The better-documented star word: a gender that is or is like a star. Many people use the two interchangeably. Stargender is what you say if you want a term other people have heard of.
ReadAstralgender
Space and the cosmos as a whole, not one quality of it. Wider than astergender, which names a single texture. If nebulae and the dark between them fit as well as light does, astralgender is more accurate.
ReadAesthetigender
A gender best described through an aesthetic. If the honest answer is that celestial imagery is what you love rather than what you are, this is the word, and it is not a lesser one.
ReadXenogender
The umbrella. Astergender sits under it, and xenogender or non-binary is what most people say in rooms where the specific word would not survive.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
Is astergender the same as stargender?+
Often used that way, and nobody will fine you. Where people draw a line: stargender is about being or being like a star, astergender is about the quality of brightness, and astergender explicitly allows a masculine, feminine or neutral gender underneath. If you want the word more people recognise, stargender is it.
Can I be astergender and still be a girl or a boy?+
Yes, and the term was built for that. The record lists astergirl, asterboy and asterenby as its own sub-terms. The brightness sits on top of a direction, or on top of neither.
Where does the word come from?+
Nobody can point to the original post; it is lost. The earliest surviving trace the wiki records is a list kept by a moderator of a now-defunct term archive, dated September 2014. Treat any firmer origin story you read elsewhere with suspicion.
The flag
Lgbtqia.wiki attributes the flag to an archive blog (Pride-Flags-For-Us, 2016), not a named designer, and the design is a framed emblem flag, not horizontal stripes.
Sources
- Astergender — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Fetched. Definition (bright and celestial; can be neutral, masculine or feminine), the three sub-terms, and the note that the coining post is lost with the earliest trace a September 2014 archive list.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.