Overview
What boyflux means.
Some weeks you are entirely a boy. Some weeks you are faintly one, like a radio playing in the next room. Some weeks there is nothing there at all. Then it climbs back. That is boyflux: the gender stays male, and what moves is the volume.
It sits under genderflux, and the record on the LGBTQIA+ Wiki spells out the range — from no gender at all, through slightly male, half male and mostly male, to fully a man — with some people sliding smoothly between settings and others jumping. Girlflux is the same dial with a girl on it; enbyflux is the same dial with a non-binary gender.
It is not genderfluid. Fluid changes which gender; flux changes how much. A boyflux person does not become a girl on the quiet weeks. He becomes less of a boy, or none of one. And it is not a trans man whose dysphoria has good months and bad ones — there the gender holds and only the pain moves. The record credits the word to a Tumblr user in August 2015. There is no research behind it and nobody has counted who uses it. Neither fact makes the dial less real.
A male gender that changes in intensity rather than in kind.
Boyflux in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Boyflux is credited by the LGBTQIA+ Wiki to a Tumblr user, kitsuneshay, who coined the term and posted its original flag on 19 August 2015, as part of the broader genderflux family of words describing a gender whose intensity rather than identity fluctuates. The more widely circulated flag design followed in 2017, posted to DeviantArt by the Pride-Flags account, though its exact designer is disputed between sources.
- Coined by
- Tumblr user kitsuneshay
- First recorded
- 2015
- Where
- Tumblr
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
You were sure you were a trans man in March.
By June you were not sure you were anything, and you have never worked out what changed.
Boy is the only gender that ever turns up.
It just does not always turn up.
The binder you could not leave the house without last month has sat in the drawer for a fortnight, and it is not that you have given up.
He/him lands like heat on a loud week and like nothing at all on a quiet one. Same word, same person saying it.
You have delayed telling someone, or booking something permanent, because you did not trust which version of you was asking.
You tried agender and it fitted for about ten days.
You keep a note somewhere — a calendar mark, an app — that is not really about mood.
People who met you at full volume think that one is the real you and the rest is a phase. People who met you at zero think the opposite.
Pronouns
Pronouns
He/him is the most common, and plenty of boyflux people keep it at every setting, including zero. Some run he/they and lean on whichever fits the week. Some switch to they/them on the flat weeks and tell two or three people who can keep up. None of these is more boyflux than another.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1The gender holds and only the dysphoria moves. Most trans men have loud months and quiet ones. That is a man with weather, not a dial.
- 2Girl turns up on the quiet weeks. That is fluid, not flux. Look at genderfluid, or at boyfluid if boy is the base you return to.
- 3You have sat at "partly a boy" for years without moving. Demiboy describes a dial that is not turning.
- 4The flat weeks flatten everything else too — food, friends, music. That may be depression or dissociation borrowing this shape, and it deserves its own attention.
Close by
Related identities
Genderflux
The umbrella. Same dial, no anchor named. If you always know it is boy-ness that is getting louder and quieter, boyflux is the tighter word; the site's genderflux page says the same.
ReadGirlflux
The mirror. A girl at changing strengths instead of a boy. Identical mechanism, different gender on the dial.
Read
Demiboy
Partly a boy, and steadily so — a fixed position at forty per cent. Boyflux passes through forty per cent on the way somewhere else. If you have sat at partial for years, demiboy is the better fit.
ReadGenderfluid
Changes which gender, not how much. A genderfluid person may be a boy this week and a girl next. Boyflux is only ever boy, at different strengths, and the wiki is explicit that the two terms are not interchangeable.
Read
Transgender Male
A trans man whose dysphoria spikes and settles is a man the whole time. If the gender holds and only the discomfort moves, that is not flux, and it is far more common than flux.
ReadBoyflux, side by side
Questions people ask
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between boyflux and genderflux?+
Precision. Genderflux says the intensity of your gender moves. Boyflux says which gender is doing the moving: a boy, or a man, at anything from full strength to none. The record lists the stops a boyflux person may pass through — demiboy, libramasculine, paraboy, man — all of them male at different strengths. If you never know which gender is getting louder, stay with genderflux.
Can I take testosterone if my gender changes strength?+
People in this position do. The question most find useful is not what do I want at full volume, but what would I still be glad of at zero — aiming at the whole range rather than the best week. Some go low dose, some go slowly, some decide against. Take the decision on an ordinary day, not on a peak or a crash. Some clinicians still expect an unchanging story and treat fluctuation as doubt; that is a problem with the service, not with you.
Is there a boyflux flag?+
More than one. The wiki records the original from August 2015 by the user who coined the word, with three blue stripes for feeling mostly male at fluctuating intensity and five small stripes for other genders. The most common version was posted by the Pride-Flags account on DeviantArt by February 2017 and later edited: shades of blue for the fluctuations in boy-ness, green for a mix of boy and non-binary. Several alternates circulate. Check the source before trusting a repost's colours.
The flag
Several competing designs with muddled attribution — kitsuneshay's 2015-08-19 original has a split top stripe with vertical bars and survives only as a JPEG; the 'most common' 2017 flag is credited to Pride-Flags/nbandproud by lgbtqia.wiki but to Mod Hermy by pride-color-schemes.
Sources
- Boyflux — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Definition, the range of intensities, alternative names, the August 2015 coinage and the flag history.
- Genderflux — LGBTQIA+ Wiki The umbrella definition and the statement that genderflux and genderfluid are not interchangeable.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.