Overview
What astralgender means.
Astralgender is a xenogender. That means the nearest honest word for your gender is not man, woman, or a point between them — it is something people do not usually think of as a gender at all. Here, space: stars, the dark between them, the whole thing at once.
The record on this word is thin and the page says so up front. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki describes it as a xenogender that feels connected to space, stars and the universe, lists it beside stargender and other space genders, and records that nobody knows who coined it or exactly when in 2016. There is no survey, no history, no elder generation to ask. What follows describes the shape of an experience, not a documented community.
What it is not: a love of astronomy. Plenty of people have posters of nebulae and a settled gender. Astralgender is for when the word "space" is the answer to "what is your gender", not a hobby sitting on top of one. It is also not astrology — no sun sign, no chart, no sky that changes what you are.
A xenogender felt as a connection to space, stars and the universe as a whole.
Astralgender in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Astralgender's coiner is not on record. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki dates the term only to 2016, attributing the flag to a Tumblr user (chimericalhills) 'on or before 15 July 2016' but naming no one for the word itself. It belongs to the broader 2014–2016 wave of Tumblr-coined xenogender terms describing gender through space and astronomy, alongside astergender and stargender, none of which have a documented single origin.
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 the honest answer is not "neither" — it is that the question is pointing at the ground and you are somewhere above it.
You reach for an image before you reach for a word, and the image is always the same: dark, wide, lit from far away.
"Stars" is close but too small.
What fits is the whole field, the distance included.
You tried non-binary and agender.
Neither was wrong. Neither said anything.
Words like vast, quiet, old and cold-looking-but-not-cold describe your gender better than masculine, feminine or neutral do.
You get irritated when someone assumes the space aesthetic is the gender. The posters came after, not before.
You have wondered more than once whether you are being pretentious, and the feeling did not go away when you dropped the word.
You can say "non-binary" in a meeting without flinching and cannot say this one to anyone who has not earned it.
Pronouns
Pronouns
No pronoun set comes with this. People who use space words for their gender often use they/them, and some use neopronouns — xe/xem, star/stars, it/its — or several sets at once. Pronouns and gender are separate decisions; nobody would guess this about you from your email signature, and they are not meant to.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1You love space and "woman", "man" or "non-binary" already describes you accurately. That is a person with a good interest.
- 2The image keeps swapping — ocean this month, forest next. A metaphor that moves is describing your mood, not your gender.
- 3What you feel is nothing where gender should be. Agender and gendervoid describe absence far better than a sky does.
- 4You mean it literally — that you came from elsewhere. That is kin language, a different shelf with a different vocabulary.
Close by
Related identities
Stargender
The better-documented cousin and the one with a real paper trail. Stargender is one star, or being like one. Astralgender is the whole sky. If one burning point describes you better than the field it sits in, read that page first.
ReadStellargender
Another star word, thinner on record than stargender, used by some as a synonym for it. Closer to a single object than to space as a whole.
ReadGalaxygender
Space too, but the record describes it as connection to what is in a galaxy — planets, moons, black holes — and it comes with masculine and feminine versions. Astralgender has no gendered variants on record.
ReadCosmicgender
Usually described as a gender too vast to take in at once. Astralgender is wide but knowable; you can look at it. If the defining feature is that you cannot, that is the other word.
ReadXenogender
The umbrella. Astralgender is one answer inside it. If you know your gender is not people-shaped but have not settled on the image, start with the umbrella and come back.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
What does astralgender mean?+
A xenogender best described through space — stars, the dark between them, the universe as a whole — rather than through man, woman or a midpoint. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki records it as a gender that feels connected to space, stars and the universe. There is no settled definition beyond that.
Is astralgender the same as stargender?+
Often used interchangeably, and some people say so outright. Where they are distinguished: stargender is a single star or being like one; astralgender is the wider field. Stargender is also the older and better-documented term, which is worth knowing before you build a lot on the other.
Is astralgender a real gender?+
Every gender word was made up by someone. The fair question is whether it describes something real, and the honest answer is that a small number of people report an experience it fits and there is very little written evidence beyond that. If the description matches you, the word is doing its job.
The flag
Designer (chimericalhills) recorded, but the date is hedged ('on or before 15 July 2016') and no hex values on record.
Sources
- Astralgender — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Definition (connected to space, stars and the universe), coiner unknown, dated to 2016 on the record. Fetched and read.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.