Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid

Today, we’re going to examine three similar and related terms: agender, genderless, and gendervoid.

We will do so using data from the Gender Census, a global annual online survey of people who have a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

This article is part of Season 3 of LGBT by the Numbers, a series that explores LGBT identity in the United States and around the world.

We will begin by discussing where this article falls in Season 3, which explores the results of the Gender Census.

In the first half of Season 3, we discussed the identity terms in the Gender Census that received more than 20%, in any survey, from 2015 to the present.

Descriptions of the articles in the first half of Season 3, and links to those articles, can be found in the introduction to Genderfluid and Agender, which was published in April.

The most recent article in Season 3 explored the results of the 2025 Gender Census. That article focused on the statistical results of the survey, rather than defining every identity term along the way.

The Gender Census asks, “Which of the following best describes in English how you think of yourself?”

Respondents may select as many identity checkboxes as they want.

Some of the checkboxes in the survey change from year to year.

A total of 41 identity terms have been included as checkboxes in the Gender Census, in at least one survey, from 2015 to the present.

Only 11 identity terms have been chosen by more than 20% of respondents, in any survey, during this time.

Therefore, only 27% of identity terms, which have appeared in any survey since 2015, have ever been chosen by more than 20% of respondents, during that time.

Nonbinary refers to anyone who has a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

I would encourage anyone seeking to learn about nonbinary identities to begin with the most common identity terms, which have been the focus of this series, thusfar.

Once again, links to articles that discuss those terms can be found in the introduction to Genderfluid and Agender. 

 

Now, let’s shift our attention to the identity terms that have been consistently chosen by fewer than 20% of respondents.

A total of 30 identity terms, in the Gender Census, have never been chosen by more than 20% of respondents, out of the 41 checkbox terms, that have appeared in at least one survey, since 2015.

Therefore, 73% of identity terms, which have appeared in any survey since 2015, have never been chosen by more than 20% of respondents, during that time.

These less common terms will be the focus of this series, going forward.

I don’t plan to discuss every identity term that has ever appeared as a checkbox in the Gender Census.

But I do plan to discuss many of them.

 

 

Without Gender

 

Sometimes, multiple words mean the same thing, or essentially the same thing.

Among identity terms in the Gender Census, there are a few sets of synonyms and closely-related words.

Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid are synonyms.

Breaking down these words into their component parts, each refers to someone who is “without gender.”

This can sometimes be a difficult concept for people to understand.

Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid are specific nonbinary genders, used to describe someone whose internal experience of gender is that they don’t have one.

Someone with one of these identities may dress or present themselves in a way that is traditionally seen as masculine or feminine, but to them, these are simply things they do because they enjoy them, rather than because they identify as male or female.

Let's imagine someone asks, "Are you male or female?" 

If someone believes they can't honestly and accurately describe their gender with only one of these two options, they are nonbinary. 

People who identify as agender, genderless, or gendervoid would reply to the question by answering, “neither.”

Remember, someone's gender identity and biological sex aren't the same thing, and they don't always align. 

Gender identity refers to a person's internal experience of their own gender.

Biological sex refers to the physical traits, such as sex chromosomes, anatomy, and secondary sex characteristics, that are associated with the physical differences between men and women, or boys and girls.

Put simply, gender identity resides in the mind, whereas biological sex resides in the body.

Someone could identify as agender, genderless, or gendervoid, regardless of whether they are biologically female, intersex, or biologically male, and regardless of the gender they were assigned at birth.

I have shared some wonderful videos created by Chandler Wilson, an agender YouTube creator who has publicly shared their experiences.

If you would like to learn more, I recommend you watch their videos.

 

Graphs

 

Now, let’s compare how agender, genderless, and gendervoid have performed in the Gender Census.

Agender is the most common, followed by genderless, and gendervoid. 

 

You can click the images in this article to view larger versions of them. 

Agender has been included as a checkbox in the Gender Census every year, from 2015 to 2025. 

 

During that time, its minimum was 21.9% in 2020, and its maximum was 33.1% in 2017.

The average for agender, from 2015 to 2025, is 25.7%.

I first discussed the line graph for agender in “Genderfluid and Agender,” which you can read if you want a more thorough analysis.

 

Genderless has appeared as a checkbox in four surveys, from 2019 to 2022. 

 

During that time, its minimum was 13.6% in 2019, and its maximum was 16.1% in 2021.

The average for genderless is 14.8%.

Gendervoid appeared as a checkbox once, in 2022, when it received 6.8%. 

 

The following line graph shows how genderless and gendervoid performed in the Gender Census compared to other terms we will discuss later in this series. 

 

Pairing Analysis

 

The results of the Gender Census can be used to determine whether two identity terms are closely related.

More specifically, the results can be used to determine the percent of respondents who chose one identity term, who also chose another identity term.

I call this approach a “pairing analysis.”

I will reference the results of my pairing analysis for various combinations of terms throughout the rest of this series.

I will provide an overview of the methodology behind my pairing analysis in the next section of this article.

But first, let’s examine the results of the pairing analysis for agender, genderless, and gendervoid.

My pairing analysis for agender, genderless, and gendervoid uses the results of the 2022 Gender Census, which was the last time genderless appeared in the survey, and the only time gendervoid appeared in the survey.

When a majority of people who select one identity term, also select another identity term, that “majority overlap,” could show a significant relationship between those two terms, once it’s compared to other relevant statistical results from the survey.

A table listing the results of my pairing analysis for agender, genderless, and gendervoid can be found at the end of this section. 

The table also contains other relevant results from the survey for comparison.

 

62% of respondents who selected genderless, also selected agender.

For comparison, only 22% of Gender Census respondents, as a whole, selected agender.

 

 

Conversely, 44% of respondents who selected agender, also selected genderless.

For comparison, only 16% of Gender Census respondents, as a whole, selected genderless.

 

Genderless respondents were more likely to identify as agender, than agender respondents were to identify as genderless.

This is because genderless is the less popular term, and agender is the more popular term.

Within a pairing analysis of two terms, a larger proportion of respondents who selected the less common term will identify with the more common term, than the proportion of respondents who selected the more common term who identify with the less common term. 

Therefore, the most meaningful result from a pairing analysis will generally be found when comparing the proportion of respondents who selected the less common term who identify with the more common term, because this generates the larger result.

 

Now, let’s extend our pairing analysis to gendervoid.

57% of respondents who selected gendervoid, also selected Agender.

Conversely, only 17% of respondents who selected Agender, also selected gendervoid.

For comparison, about 7% of Gender Census respondents, as a whole, selected gendervoid.

There is also a majority overlap between gendervoid and genderless.

55% of respondents who selected gendervoid, also selected genderless.

Conversely, only 23% of respondents who selected genderless, also selected gendervoid.

 

  

A majority of genderless respondents identify as agender, a majority of gendervoid respondents identify as agender, and a majority of gendervoid respondents identify as genderless. 

 

The majority overlaps between agender, genderless, and gendervoid indicate that these are closely-related terms, as you would predict based on how these words are commonly used and defined.

 

Methodology

 

Now, let’s walk through the methodology behind my pairing analysis.

Readers wondering how I calculated my pairing analysis results may find this walkthrough valuable.

You are welcome to use this process to double check my work.

If you find I have made a mistake, feel free to let me know.

If you are not interested in this walkthrough, you may to skip ahead to the conclusion below.

In this walkthrough, we’ll double check the results of my pairing analysis between agender and genderless from the 2022 Gender Census.

Let's begin by going to gendercensus.com. 

 

At the top of the page, click “Results”. 

 

 

Scroll down to “2022”, and click “Full report”. 

 

Once we’ve entered the full report for the 2022 Gender Census, we’ll scroll down to the bar graph for the “Most popular identity words”.

Below the graph, there’s a link to the “spreadsheet of results for the identity words question.” Click this link. 

 

Once you’ve loaded the public spreadsheet of results, select “File” and then “Make a copy” so you can create a personal copy.

  

Make sure to name the document something that will remind you that this is your personal copy that you are allowed to edit.

 

 

Using the scroll bar, scroll down to the bottom of the tab “Raw Data DO NOT EDIT”, and add 10 rows at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

 

The spreadsheet of Gender Census results is gigantic.

For the pairing analysis, we will perform a spreadsheet calculation.

For this calculation to work, you will need to delete every tab in your personal copy of the spreadsheet, other than the one that reads, “Raw Data DO NOT EDIT”.

If you don’t do this, the spreadsheet calculation either won’t work at all, or it will take an absurdly long amount of time.

 

Now, we’re almost ready to perform our spreadsheet function, which will tell us how many individual respondents in the Gender Census selected both agender and genderless in the survey.

The COUNTIFS function can be used to determine how many times multiple criteria are met across multiple ranges of cells in a spreadsheet.

Agender is located in Column C, and genderless is located in Column S.

A total of 39,764 respondents completed the Gender Census in 2022.

The cells containing the raw data of responses to the Gender Census are located in rows 5 through 39,768.

Therefore, the following function will tell us the number of responses that have a “Yes” value in both Column C and Column S.

The function is =COUNTIFS(C5:C39768, “Yes”, S5:S39768, “Yes”)

Type this function below the rows of response data, and press the enter button on your keyboard. 

 

This spreadsheet function returns a value of 3,901.

That means there are 3,901 respondents who selected both agender and genderless.

 

A total of 8,896 respondents identified as agender. 

 

 

If we divide 3,901 by 8,896, we will determine the percent of respondents who identified as agender, who selected both agender and genderless.

That means 44% of respondents who selected agender, also selected genderless.

 

 

A total of 6,291 respondents identified as genderless.

 

If we divide 3,901 by 6,291, we will determine the percent of respondents who identified as genderless, who selected both genderless and agender.

That means 62% of respondents who selected genderless, also selected agender.

This is the method I used to calculate the values cited earlier in this article.

I will reference results I obtained through the same process throughout the rest of this series.

 

 

  

Conclusion

 

Agender, genderless, and gendervoid are specific nonbinary identities that refer to someone whose internal experience of gender is that they don’t have one.

More simply, or perhaps more confusingly, these terms refer to someone whose gender is that they don’t have a gender.

These terms are synonyms. Agender is the most common, followed by genderless, and gendervoid.

A pairing analysis of the 2022 Gender Census confirms that these terms are closely related to each other.

 

Going forward, I will discuss related terms in the same article, as I did here.

That means I won’t cover terms strictly in descending order of popularity.

Instead, I will group identity terms thematically and conceptually, which I believe will make these articles both easier to understand, and more pleasant to read.

That being said, I will try to discuss the terms in roughly descending order of popularity, while still grouping them together conceptually. 

 

 

The next article in this series will discuss three current and former slurs that appear in the Gender Census: fag, dyke, and tranny.

As you can imagine, there will be a lot to cover about these terms, and the debates within the LGBT community, surrounding whether, and when, current and former slurs should be reclaimed.

 

So make sure to join me next time, as we continue to explore LGBT identity, by the numbers.