Overview
What subgender means.
Start with the honest part. Subgender is a small word with a thin record. The wiki that keeps it says it has existed since 2015, coined by nobody it can name, with flags whose colours have no known meaning. There's no research and no history. What there is, is a description, and it's a precise one.
The description: you are mostly without gender, the community shorthand says about three-quarters, and the rest is another gender. Which gender can be named with a prefix: subboy, subgirl. Minumegender is the same word under a different name, and minumeboy and minumegirl the same prefixes.
What it is not: it isn't agender, because there's a remainder. It isn't demigender, because demi usually means a substantial part of you is a gender, and here the gendered part is the smaller share. It sits next to libragender, which describes the same shape, mostly nothing with a thread of something, and people argue about whether the two are different at all. The fraction is shorthand, not a measurement. Nobody can percentage a feeling.
Around three-quarters agender, the remainder another gender; a sibling of libragender with the proportion stated.
Subgender in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Subgender has no documented coiner. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki dates it only to "existed since 2015," with a flag posted to DeviantArt user Pride-Flags on 28 August 2015, and states plainly that the flag's colours have no recorded meaning. There is no essay or founding post behind it, only the flag and the definition.
It sits alongside libragender as one of several mid-2010s words describing a gender that is mostly absent with a smaller, nameable remainder, part of a broader trend of MOGAI communities building fine-grained fractional vocabulary (demi-, para-, sub-, libra-) rather than settling for agender alone.
- First recorded
- 2015
- Where
- Tumblr / DeviantArt
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
You have called yourself agender out loud and wanted to add 'mostly', then swallowed it because it sounded like hedging.
You might have a fraction in your head when you think about your gender, and be slightly embarrassed that it's a number.
Gendered words slide off, all except one, which lands lightly and briefly and then is gone.
You might read the demiboy or demigirl page and think: right idea, wrong proportions. That's too much gender for me.
You do not want to change much about your body, but there is one narrow thing you think about more than you say.
You might have sat at the same low setting for years.
No crisis, no shift. A steady, small remainder.
Pronouns
Pronouns
No pronoun comes with this. They/them is common because it asks nothing of the remainder. Plenty of people keep he or she: the small part is there, it doesn't chafe, and correcting the world is expensive. Some use it/its on purpose. If your remainder is a boy or a girl, you may find the matching pronoun lands warm for a second and then nothing. That's the shape.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1There's nothing left over. That's agender, plainly, and it fits better than this.
- 2The gendered part is a real chunk of you, not a remainder. Look at demiboy and demigirl.
- 3It moves. Strong some weeks, gone others. That's agenderflux, and the difference is motion, not proportion.
- 4You reached for 'mostly agender' because 'agender' felt like too big a claim to make out loud. Fear of overclaiming is not the same as a description fitting.
Close by
Related identities
Libragender
The same shape, mostly agender with a thread of something, and the nearest neighbour by a long way. The wiki record for subgender calls it 'similar to libragender'. Many people can't tell them apart and use whichever they'd rather say out loud.
ReadAgender
Nothing, with no remainder. If you go looking for the other quarter and can't find it, agender is the plainer word and you lose nothing by taking it.
Read
Demiboy
Partly a boy, with the boy part substantial. Subboy is the same idea with the proportions reversed: mostly nothing, a little boy.
ReadDemigirl
Partly a girl, with the girl part substantial. Subgirl is mostly nothing, a little girl. Same shape, different fraction.
ReadAgenderflux
Agender baseline with the volume moving. Subgender sits still: the remainder is a fixed share, not a tide.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
Is subgender the same as libragender?+
Nearly. Both mean mostly agender with a thread of another gender, and the wiki record for subgender defines it by pointing at libragender. Subgender states the proportion, around three-quarters, and libragender leaves it vaguer. If both fit, take the one you'd rather explain.
Does 'sub' mean anything else here?+
It's a prefix meaning under or less than: the gendered part is under half. It has nothing to do with the other meanings the word carries online, and if that association bothers you, minumegender is the recorded alternative name for exactly the same thing.
Am I trans if I'm subgender?+
Trans, used broadly, covers anyone whose gender isn't the one assigned at birth, and mostly-agender falls inside that. Whether you use the word for yourself is your call. Plenty of people who fit this description never do, and that's a preference, not a betrayal of anyone.
The flag
Designer unknown (posted to Pride-Flags on DeviantArt 2015-08-28 by 'an unknown'); no hex values.
Sources
- Subgender — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Fetched 2026-09-03. Definition (around 3/4 agender, similar to libragender), the minumegender alias and the subboy/subgirl prefixes, the 2015 dating with unknown coiner, and the note that the flag colours have no known meaning.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.