Overview
What transneutral means.
Transneutral is transmasculine and transfeminine’s third sibling. You are trans. The direction you are moving is neither masculine nor feminine. It is neutral: unaligned, neither, off the line. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki records it as a trans person who identifies fully or partly as a neutral, abinary or unaligned gender, and as an umbrella for anyone transitioning towards neutral.
It has two uses, and the wiki keeps them apart. One is an identity: your gender is neutral and you are trans, so the word names both. The other is a description of a transition: medical or social steps that are not fully masculinising and not fully feminising, whatever the gender underneath. Someone can be transneutral in the second sense while calling their gender something else entirely. MtN and FtN, male-to-neutral and female-to-neutral, are shorthand from the first sense.
It is not a synonym for non-binary. Not every non-binary gender is neutral, and not every non-binary person is trans. And it is not the same as transandrogynous, which heads for the middle with both switched on; transneutral heads for neither. From outside, the first steps can look identical to a transmasculine or transfeminine start, which is why this site’s Transmasculine page warns about the confusion. The difference is where you stop, and why.
A trans person whose gender or transition is neutral rather than masculine or feminine; the umbrella beside transmasculine and transfeminine.
Transneutral in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
The LGBTQIA+ Wiki's own page for transneutral is flagged as having no history section, and no coiner or coining date is on record anywhere this page could verify. What is documented is the flag: the wiki credits a design to the user arco-pluris on 27 April 2018, alongside at least one later alternate design, which places the term's visible public life on Tumblr in the gender-flag boom of the late 2010s even though the word itself may be older or newer than that flag.
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
You want less body, not the other body.
Flat, quiet, gone are the words that keep surfacing; the words for the other side do nothing for you.
You looked at transmasculine or transfeminine and the first steps fitted and the destination did not.
You have a dose in mind, not a maximum, and the goal is to read as no one in particular.
Being taken for the other gender is not a win.
It is a second wrong answer.
You are calmer over text, on the phone to a stranger, in a heavy coat.
Anywhere nobody can tell.
The clinic has a masculinising pathway and a feminising one, and you have spent an appointment explaining that yours is neither.
You have said non-binary because it was the word the form knew, and felt it say too little about the direction.
The daily reminders bother you more than the label does: a bra strap, stubble, the sound of your own name.
Pronouns
Pronouns
They/them is the most common, because it is the neutral one. Some use neopronouns, some use it/its on purpose about themselves, and some keep the pronouns they were handed for safety or because pronouns carry little weight for them. In languages that gender every adjective there may be no neutral option to reach for, and people take the less bad one. Nothing about the word fixes it.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1You want to be read as the other gender, and that would be a relief. That is binary trans, with its own words and its own problems.
- 2You want both at once, mixed, on purpose. That is androgyne or transandrogynous, not neutral.
- 3Your gender is neutral and nothing about it feels like a crossing or a transition. Agender, neutrois or gender neutral may sit more easily without the trans prefix.
- 4It moves. Neutral some weeks, something else by Friday. Look at genderfluid before naming a direction.
Close by
Related identities
Transmasculine
Heading towards masculine. Some of the same early steps, a different stop. The Transmasculine page says the confusion is common at the start; the question that sorts it is whether you want to read as a bloke or as no one.
ReadTransfeminine
The mirror: heading towards feminine. If the other side is the destination, that is your page. If the other side is just as wrong as the one you left, keep reading here.
ReadTransandrogynous
Heading for the middle with both switched on. The wiki calls it the androgynous equivalent of transneutral. Test it on yourself: is the place you want full of both, or empty of both?
Read
Neutrois
The gender itself, usually with a body wish attached. Neutrois names where you are; transneutral names that you moved there. Many neutrois people sit inside transneutral, and the Neutrois page says so.
Read
Non-Binary
The umbrella, and the word most transneutral people say at work. Not a synonym: the wiki is explicit that not all non-binary genders are neutral and not all non-binary people are trans. Transneutral adds the direction.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between transneutral and non-binary?+
Non-binary says your gender is not simply man or woman. Transneutral says you are trans and moving towards neutral specifically. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki is explicit that the two are not synonyms: some non-binary genders lean masculine or feminine or are fluid, and some non-binary people do not call themselves trans at all. Transneutral is the narrower word.
Do I need medical transition to be transneutral?+
No. The wiki records that a transneutral person may do all, some or none of it, and that some cannot for medical reasons. Where medical steps happen they are often partial, aimed at reading as neutral rather than as the other sex. The word describes a direction, not a procedure list.
What do MtN and FtN mean?+
Male-to-neutral and female-to-neutral, shorthand for transneutral people by assignment at birth, on the pattern of MtF and FtM. Some people use them; many find the assignment part beside the point and just say transneutral.
The flag
Designer and date are on lgbtqia.wiki (arco-pluris, 27 Apr 2018) but the uploaded file is a tiny palette-quantised copy (Images.png, 290x174) and a dozen alternates exist, so hexes are not reliably on record.
Sources
- Transneutral — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Definition (trans person identifying fully or partly as neutral, abinary or unaligned; umbrella for transition to neutral), the second transition-only usage, MtN/FtN, the note that it is not synonymous with non-binary, the sibling terms, and the transition section. Fetched 2026-09-03.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.