Man and Woman, Boy and Girl

 

Today, we will examine the performance of Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl in the Gender Census.

But wait!

The Gender Census is a global annual online survey of people with a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

Doesn’t that mean Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl are wrong answers?

We will begin by discussing these terms in the context of nonbinary identity, before exploring how these terms have performed in the Gender Census.

We will also use a pairing analysis to determine the other words most commonly chosen by respondents who selected these terms.

Discussion

Most people have a gender that is either exclusively male or female.

But some people have a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female, and they’re known as nonbinary.

So what are Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl doing in a survey of nonbinary genders?

While these terms aren’t inherently nonbinary genders, they can be part of someone’s larger nonbinary identity.

You may have encountered the compound terms Nonbinary Man, Nonbinary Woman, Nonbinary Trans Man, or Nonbinary Trans Woman.

One of the ways you could interpret these compound terms is that someone has a gender that’s between male and female, but closer to one side or the other.

What about demiboy and demigirl?

We will discuss those terms in the next article. We already have more than enough on our plate for today.

For reasons I will explore in this article and the next, I consider Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl to be valid choices in the Gender Census.

Examining the other words most commonly chosen by respondents who selected these terms will help determine whether or not this is true.

Whether you consider these options to be right or wrong answers, within the context of the Gender Census, could affect how you interpret the results we will discuss in this article, and the ones that follow.

While I believe they are correct answers, it might be worth keeping both possibilities in mind for now.

First, we’ll examine the performance of Woman and Girl in the Gender Census.

Next, we’ll examine the performance of Man and Boy in the survey.

Then, we’ll explore the other identities most commonly chosen by respondents who selected Woman, Girl, Man, and Boy.

Woman

The wording of the checkbox for woman has changed several times in the Gender Census.

Woman appeared as a checkbox in the Gender Census from 2015 to 2023.

In 2015, “Woman” appeared as a checkbox, and “Girl” did not.

From 2016 to 2019, the checkbox was “Woman (or girl if younger)”.

From 2020 to 2022, Woman and Girl appeared as separate checkboxes.

In 2023, “Woman” appeared as a checkbox, and “Girl” did not.

Woman has appeared in the Gender Census, in one form or another, nine times.

Its minimum was 10.6% in 2021, and its maximum was 15.6% in 2015.

Woman’s average is 12.7%, and woman’s range is 5%.

Girl

 

Girl appeared, on its own, in the Gender Census, three times, from 2020 to 2022.

In 2020, Girl received 9.1%.

In 2021, Girl received 9.7%.

In 2022, Girl received 11.1%. 

Girl’s average is 10%.

Woman and Girl

Woman performed better than girl in two of the three years when they appeared as separate checkbox options in the Gender Census.

Girl performed better than woman in one of the three years when they appeared as separate checkboxes.

In the three years girl appeared as a separate checkbox, woman was chosen by a smaller percentage of respondents than in other years.

Man

The wording of the checkbox for man has changed several times in the Gender Census.

Man appeared as a checkbox in the Gender Census from 2015 to 2023.

In 2015, “Man” appeared as a checkbox, and “Boy” did not.

From 2016 to 2019, the checkbox was “Man (or boy if younger)”.

From 2020 to 2022, Man and Boy appeared as separate checkboxes.

In 2023, “Man” appeared as a checkbox, and “Boy” did not.

Man has appeared in the Gender Census, in one form or another, nine times.

Man’s minimum was 7.6% in 2016.

Man’s maximum was 16.1% in 2023.

Man’s average is 10.5%, and Man’s range is 8.5%.

Boy

Boy appeared as a checkbox, on its own, in the Gender Census, three times, from 2020 to 2022.

In 2020, Boy received 9.5%.

In 2021, Boy received 11%.

In 2022, Boy received 14.7%.

Boy’s average is 11.7%.

Boy and Man

Boy was chosen by a larger percentage of respondents than Man in the three years the terms appeared separately in the Gender Census.

All Together Now

Now, let’s compare the performance for Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl, all on a single graph.

All four terms have consistently received between 7% and 17% in the Gender Census.

Man has both the lowest minimum and the largest maximum, among the four terms.

Boy performed better than Girl in each of the three years they appeared in the survey.

Woman outperformed Man seven times, from 2015 to 2021.

Man outperformed Woman twice, in 2022 and 2023.

Woman Pairing Analysis

Next, let’s examine the terms that were most commonly chosen by respondents who selected Woman in the 2023 Gender Census, the last time it appeared as a checkbox.

56.1% of Woman respondents identified as queer.

54.1% of Woman respondents identified as nonbinary.

Therefore, majorities of Woman respondents identified as queer and nonbinary.

44% of Woman respondents identified as, “a person / human / [my name] / ‘I’m just me.’”

43.2% of Woman respondents identified as gender non-conforming.

40.6% of Woman respondents identified as trans.

Therefore, large minorities of Woman respondents identified as “a person…”, gender non-conforming, and trans.

Woman respondents were less likely than Gender Census respondents as a whole to identify as nonbinary and trans.

Girl Pairing Analysis

Next, let’s examine the terms most commonly chosen by respondents who selected Girl in the 2022 Gender Census, the most recent survey where it appeared as a checkbox.

62% of Girl respondents identified as queer.

60.3% of Girl respondents identified as nonbinary.

Therefore, majorities of Girl respondents identified as queer and nonbinary.

47% of Girl respondents identified as women.

44.6% of Girl respondents identified as trans.

40.9% of Girl respondents identified as transgender.

40.4% of Girl respondents identified as gender non-conforming.

Therefore, large minorities of Girl respondents identified as women, trans, transgender, and gender non-conforming.

Girl respondents were significantly more likely to identify as women than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

Girl respondents were less likely to identify as nonbinary than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

Man Pairing Analysis

Now, let’s examine the terms most likely to be chosen by respondents who selected Man in the 2023 Gender Census, the most recent survey where it appeared as a checkbox.

72.6% of Man respondents identified as trans.

68.1% of Man respondents identified as transgender.

65.7% of Man respondents identified as transmasculine.

60.1% of Man respondents identified as queer.

54% of Man respondents identified as nonbinary.

Therefore, majorities of Man respondents identified as trans, transgender, transmasculine, queer, and nonbinary.

49.6% of man respondents identified as gender non-conforming.

41.5% of man respondents identified as fags.

40.4% of man respondents selected “a person / human / [my name] / ‘I’m just me.’ ”

Therefore, large minorities of man respondents identified as gender non-conforming, fags, and “a person…”

Man respondents were significantly more likely to identify as transmasculine, transgender, trans, and fags, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

Man respondents were less likely to identify as nonbinary and “a person…” than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

Boy Pairing Analysis

Now, let’s examine the terms most commonly selected by respondents who selected Boy in the 2022 Gender Census, the last survey where it appeared as a checkbox.

68.8% of Boy respondents identified as trans.

66.5% of Boy respondents identified as transmasculine.

65.8% of Boy respondents identified as queer.

65.3% of Boy respondents identified as nonbinary.

64.5% of Boy respondents identified as transgender.

51.8% of Boy respondents identified as gender non-conforming.

Therefore, majorities of Boy respondents identified as trans, transmasculine, queer, nonbinary, transgender, and gender non-conforming.

44.8% of Boy respondents identified as men.

40.8% of Boy respondents identified as genderqueer.

Therefore, large minorities of Boy respondents identified as men and genderqueer.

Boy respondents were significantly more likely to identify as transmasculine, men, trans, and transgender, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

What have we learned?

Now, let’s revisit the question we asked at the beginning of this article.

Are Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl wrong answers, for the purposes of the Gender Census?

While these terms are not, in and of themselves, nonbinary identities, I maintain that they can be part of someone’s larger nonbinary identity, when included alongside other identity terms.

In 2023, majorities of Man and Woman respondents, in the Gender Census, identified as nonbinary.

In 2022, more than 60% of Boy and Girl respondents, in the Gender Census, identified as nonbinary.

Moreover, the percent of respondents, who chose each of these four terms, who identified as nonbinary, wasn’t substantially different from the percent of Gender Census respondents, as a whole, who identified as nonbinary.

To me, this shows the people selecting these terms in the survey are not, by and large, binary men and women who are incorrectly completing a survey that is meant to answer questions about people with non-binary genders.

Nevertheless, we will revisit this question, in the next article, with additional data.

Because once again, whether you consider these to be “wrong” answers, in the context of the survey, will affect how you interpret the survey’s results.

Woman and Man, have appeared in the Gender Census, in one form or another, nine times.

Girl and Boy have appeared in the Gender Census, on their own, three times.

Woman’s average is 12.7%.

Boy’s average is 11.7%.

Man’s average is 10.5%.

Girl’s average is 10%.

This means that all four of these terms have, on average, outperformed many other terms in the Gender Census, including all of the terms shown in the graph below.

The surprising fact that Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl outperform many nonbinary identities, even among nonbinary people, is an interesting result, and not one that everyone would necessarily predict.

If you believe these results are the consequence of many people completing the survey, who were not the intended target population of the survey, then this result might not be meaningful.

But if you believe, based on the other terms selected by Man, Woman, Boy, and Girl respondents, that these are legitimate choices chosen by nonbinary people, this result is a meaningful one.

Respondents who selected Man or Boy were more likely to identify as trans, and more likely to identify as transgender, than respondents who selected Woman or Girl.

These comparisons will be the focus of a future article, which will contain similar results for demiboy and demigirl, as well.

Another future article will discuss the terms, including Man and Boy, that have a majority of respondents who selected transmasculine.

These terms are part of the Transmasculine Family Tree.

In the next article, we will examine the performance of demiboy and demigirl in the Gender Census, explore the other terms those respondents were most likely to select in the survey, and compare their performance to the terms we discussed today.

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

Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid, Reprise

We have already discussed the relationships between Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid, in the Gender Census.

But we haven’t yet examined the other terms that Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid respondents are most likely to select in the survey.

After a short recap, we'll do just that.

Agender Family Tree

The Gender Census is an annual global online survey of people who have a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid were all checkbox options in 2022.

Agender was the most common term, followed by Genderless, and Gendervoid.



Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid each refer to someone whose internal experience of gender is that they don’t have one.

A majority of Genderless respondents also selected Agender. 
A majority of Gendervoid respondents also selected Agender. 
A majority of Gendervoid respondents also selected Genderless.



Because majorities of Genderless and Gendervoid respondents identified as Agender, I consider these terms to be part of the Agender Family Tree.

You can examine the statistical relationships between these terms in the table below.

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

You can learn more about these terms, and see how I calculated these results, in Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid, which I published in November.



Now, let’s examine the other terms that Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid respondents are most likely to select in the Gender Census.

Agender Pairing Analysis

10,476 people selected Agender in the 2025 Gender Census, representing 24.3% of respondents. 

 

67.8% of Agender respondents identified as Nonbinary. 
57.3% of Agender respondents identified as Queer.

51.1% of Agender respondents selected, “a person / human / [my name] / ‘I’m just me.’ ”

Therefore, majorities of Agender respondents identified as Nonbinary, Queer, and “a person…”




43.2% of Agender respondents identified as Trans. 
 

Therefore, a large minority of Agender respondents identified as Trans. 
 

Although, Agender respondents were less likely to identify as Trans, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

 

Genderless Pairing Analysis

Genderless most recently appeared as a checkbox option in 2022.

6,291 people selected Genderless in the 2022 Gender Census, representing 15.8% of respondents.

74.7% of Genderless respondents identified as Nonbinary. 

62% of Genderless respondents identified as Agender. 
61.9% of Genderless respondents identified as Queer.



Therefore majorities of Genderless respondents identified as Nonbinary, Agender, and Queer.

Genderless respondents were significantly more likely to identify as Agender, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.




49% of Genderless respondents identified as Gender Non-Conforming. 
 

45.5% of Genderless respondents identified as Enbies. 
43.1% of Genderless respondents identified as Trans.


Therefore, large minorities of Genderless respondents identified as Gender Non-Conforming, Enbies, and Trans.

Gendervoid Pairing Analysis

Gendervoid appeared as a checkbox option in the Gender Census only once, in 2022.

2,695 people selected Gendervoid in the 2022 Gender Census, representing 6.8% of respondents.

 

71.9% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Nonbinary. 
66.9% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Queer.


57.4% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Agender. 
54.5% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Genderless. 
51.6% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Gender Non-Conforming.


Therefore, majorities of Gendervoid respondents identified as Nonbinary, Queer, Agender, Genderless, and Gender Non-Conforming.

Gendervoid respondents were significantly more likely to identify as Agender and Genderless, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.




48.1% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Enbies. 
 

47.64% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Genderqueer. 
47.61% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Trans. 
 

43.8% of Gendervoid respondents identified as Transgender.


Therefore, large minorities of Gendervoid respondents identified as Enbies, Genderqueer, Trans, and Transgender.





This article is part of Season 3 of LGBT by the Numbers, which explores the results of the Gender Census, an annual global online survey of people with a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

My most recent article examined Genderfluid, Genderflux, and Bigender, and explored the relationships between the these terms, which are part of the Genderfluid Family Tree.



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

 

 

 

 

Genderfluid, Genderflux, and Bigender

Today, we will define and discuss three related terms: genderfluid, genderflux, and bigender.

We will examine how each of these terms has performed in the Gender Census, an annual online global survey of people who have a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

We will also use a pairing analysis to learn more about these words, and how they relate to each other.

Definitions

 

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

 

Genderfluid describes someone whose gender changes over time. 

 

Some genderfluid people have a strong perception of their gender at all times. 

 

But many others do not.  

 

Many genderfluid people have a gender that changes between male and female.  

 

Others are fluid between other genders, such as female and nonbinary, or male and nonbinary.  

 

Genderfluid people can be fluid between more than two genders, as well. 

 

Meticulous Musings has featured videos where genderfluid people discuss their experiences. If you want to learn more, I encourage you to check them out.

 

Bigender refers to someone who identifies with two genders. A bigender person could experience these genders simultaneously, or be fluid between them.

Many bigender people are both male and female.

Other bigender people identify with another set of two genders, such as female and nonbinary, or male and nonbinary.




If someone doesn’t specify what their underlying genders are, I generally assume someone who is genderfluid is fluid between male and female, and someone who is bigender is both male and female.

 

 

A bigender person, who identifies as both a man and as a woman, discussed their experiences on YouTube.

They use the names Maya and Sebastian, depending on the gender they are at the time. 

 

 

 

To be clear, this is a different person than the Sebastian, who is a Trans man, who I have previously discussed on Meticulous Musings.

 

 

Genderflux refers to someone with a gender that varies in intensity over time.

Genderflux can be turned into the suffix “-flux” that can be added to create compound gender terms.




If someone has a gender that is always male, but the intensity of how strongly they experience their male gender is different at different times, they could describe their gender as boyflux or manflux.

Alternatively, they could use two words to describe their gender by saying they are male and genderflux.




If someone has a gender that is always female, but the intensity of how strongly they experience their female gender varies over time, they could describe themselves as girlflux or womanflux.

Alternatively, they could use two words to describe their gender by saying they are female and genderflux.





Some genderflux people spend part of their time feeling agender, which is to say that at those times, they feel they don’t have a gender.

But that isn’t necessarily true for everyone who is genderflux.




Some people describe themselves as both genderfluid and genderflux.

These terms can be combined together as either genderfluidflux or fluidflux.

Those who use both terms seek to convey that both their underlying gender, and the intensity of how strongly they experience their gender, changes over time. 

 

 

Xander, a trans guy who identifies as genderflux, discussed his experiences on YouTube. 

 

 

 

Graphs

 

This graph shows how genderfluid, genderflux, and bigender have performed in the Gender Census since 2015.

Genderfluid is the most common term, followed by genderflux, and bigender.

The graphs in this article were created using flourish, a website that allows users to create compelling visual aids.

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




The 2013 Gender Census had fewer respondents than any subsequent survey, and Cassian, the administrator of the Gender Census, has described the 2013 survey as, “more of a pilot survey that informed a better survey in 2015.”

This article, and most others in this series, focus on the results from 2015 to the present, although data from 2013 will be referenced when relevant.




This graph shows how genderfluid has performed in the Gender Census since 2015.

In 2015, genderfluid received 31.2%, its maximum.

Genderfluid gradually fell each year until it reached its minimum of 21% in 2019.

Genderfluid then grew until it reached 25.5% in 2023, and it has declined each year since.

In 2025, genderfluid received 24.4%.



From 2015 to 2025, genderfluid’s average has been 25.3%.



The genderfluid checkbox in the Gender Census has changed subtly over time.

In 2013, it was, “fluid gender.”

There was no Gender Census in 2014.

From 2015-17, it was, “fluid gender / genderfluid.”

From 2018- 25, it has been, “genderfluid / fluid gender.”



“Fluid gender” received 31.3% in 2013, which is only slightly more than the 31.2% its counterpart received in 2015.



This graph shows genderfluid alongside several terms that perform similarly well in the Gender Census.

 

 

This graph shows how genderflux has performed in the Gender Census.

Genderflux appeared as a checkbox in the Gender Census five times, from 2018 to 2022.

Genderflux debuted at 7.4% in 2018, before reaching its minimum of 6.2% in both 2019 and 2020.

Genderflux grew until it reached its maximum of 7.6% in 2022.

Genderflux’s average is 6.9%.




This graph shows genderflux alongside several terms that performed about as well in the Gender Census.

 

This graph shows how bigender has performed in the Gender Census.

Since 2015, bigender has appeared in the Gender Census nine times.

During that time, bigender reached its maximum of 5.7%, twice. 

 

Bigender received 5.7% in both 2015, and the last time it appeared as a checkbox, in 2024.

Bigender’s minimum was 3.7% in 2019.

Since 2015, bigender’s average has been 4.7%.



Bigender received 6.6% in 2013, more than it has received in any subsequent survey.



 

This graph shows bigender alongside terms that performed similarly well in the Gender Census.

  

 

 

 

Bigender was the fourth least popular term in the 2024 Gender Census, the most recent survey where it appeared as a checkbox. 

 

Bigender outperformed None, Cisgender, and Binary.   

 

 

 

Genderfluid Family Tree

 

Responses from the Gender Census can be used to determine the percent of respondents who chose one identity term, who also chose another identity term.

This pairing analysis can be used to better understand the relationships between identity terms in the survey.



I first discussed my pairing analysis of the Gender Census in Agender, Genderless, and Gendervoid. 

In that article, I also provided a step-by-step walkthrough of how I calculated my pairing analysis results.





In this section, we will use a pairing analysis to find terms that have a majority of respondents who identify as genderfluid.

These closely-related terms, which are majority genderfluid, are part of the genderfluid family tree.




Genderfluid, genderflux, and bigender each appeared as a checkbox in the 2022 Gender Census.

Genderflux last appeared as a checkbox in 2022, and our pairing analysis will begin there.




The following table shows the overlaps between genderfluid, genderflux, and bigender in the 2022 Gender Census.

In 2022, 61.8% of genderflux respondents identified as genderfluid.

For comparison, only 24% of Gender Census respondents, as a whole, identified as genderfluid.



In 2022, 49.7% of bigender respondents identified as genderfluid.



Therefore, in 2022, a majority of genderflux respondents identified as genderfluid, and a near-majority of bigender respondents identified as genderfluid.




Next, let’s examine the overlaps between genderfluid and bigender in 2024, the last time bigender appeared in the Gender Census.



In 2024, 50.5% of bigender respondents identified as genderfluid.

For comparison, only 24.7% of Gender Census respondents, as a whole, identified as genderfluid.


Conversely, 11.7% of Genderfluid respondents identified as bigender.



Therefore, in 2024, a slight majority of bigender respondents identified as genderfluid.




Both genderflux and bigender have had a majority of respondents who have identified as genderfluid in the Gender Census.

Therefore, I consider both genderflux and bigender to be terms that are closely related to genderfluid.

Taking these majority overlaps into account, I consider both genderflux and bigender to be part of the genderfluid family tree.

Genderfluid Pairing Analysis

 

Now, let’s examine the relationships genderfluid, genderflux, and bigender have with other terms in the Gender Census.

We’ll begin this wider pairing analysis by examining genderfluid in the 2025 Gender Census.



A total of 10,519 people selected genderfluid in 2025, representing 24.4% of Gender Census respondents.

69.8% of genderfluid respondents identified as nonbinary. 
65.5% of genderfluid respondents identified as queer.


54.3% of genderfluid respondents identified as genderqueer. 
51% of genderfluid respondents identified as gender non-conforming. 
50.7% of genderfluid respondents identified as trans.


Therefore, in 2025, majorities of genderfluid respondents identified as nonbinary, queer, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, and trans. 

45.8% of genderfluid respondents identified as transgender. 
40.1% of genderfluid respondents selected, “a person / human / [my name] / ‘I’m just me.’ ”


Therefore, large minorities of genderfluid respondents identified as transgender and “a person…”

Genderflux Pairing Analysis

Next, let’s examine genderflux in the 2022 Gender Census, the most recent survey where it appeared as a checkbox.


A total of 3,018 participants identified as genderflux in 2022, representing 7.6% of Gender Census respondents. 

71.8% of genderflux respondents identified as nonbinary. 
67.1% of genderflux respondents identified as queer. 
61.8% of genderflux respondents identified as genderfluid.


57.4% of genderflux respondents identified as genderqueer. 
54.1% of genderflux respondents identified as gender non-conforming.


Therefore, majorities of genderflux respondents identified as nonbinary, queer, genderfluid, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming.



Genderflux respondents were significantly more likely to identify as genderfluid and genderqueer, than Gender Census respondents as a whole, as you can see in the table above.



49.3% of genderflux respondents identified as enbies. 
47.9% of genderflux respondents identified as trans. 
44.7% of genderflux respondents identified as transgender.


Therefore, large minorities of genderflux respondents identified as enbies, trans, and transgender.

Bigender Pairing Analysis

Now, let’s turn to bigender in the 2024 Gender Census, the last time bigender appeared as a checkbox.

A total of 2,781 participants selected bigender in 2024, representing 5.7% of Gender Census respondents.

62% of bigender respondents identified as queer. 
60.6% of bigender respondents identified as trans.


58% of bigender respondents identified as nonbinary. 
57.2% of bigender respondents identified as transgender.


51.1% of bigender respondents identified as gender non-conforming. 

50.5% of bigender respondents identified as genderfluid. 
50.4% of bigender respondents identified as genderqueer.



Therefore, majorities of bigender respondents identified as queer, trans, nonbinary, transgender, gender non-conforming, genderfluid, and genderqueer.

 

44.4% of bigender respondents identified as transmasculine.

Therefore, a large minority of bigender respondents identified as transmasculine.



Bigender respondents were slightly less likely to identify as nonbinary, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

Bigender respondents were significantly more likely to identify as genderfluid, than Gender Census respondents as a whole.

 

 

Discussion

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

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

 

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

Genderfluid and bigender are identities held by people who would reply to the question by answering, “both.”



Although, some genderfluid people are fluid between genders other than male and female.

And some bigender people identify with another set of two genders, other than male and female.



Genderfluid has consistently received more than 20% in the Gender Census. It is currently the most common specific nonbinary identity, and the tenth most common term overall.



Neither genderflux nor bigender has ever received more than 10% in the Gender Census.

Both of these terms are relatively rare, and fairly niche.


Without data from the Gender Census, it might not be apparent just how much more common it is for people to identify as genderfluid than bigender. 




The Pairing Analysis results for genderflux are particularly interesting.

In 2022, 61.8% of genderflux respondents identified as genderfluid.

I consider any majority overlap greater than 60% to be particularly significant.

 

Online, genderflux is often discussed alongside genderfluid, as well as binary gender terms such as boy, girl, man, and woman.

Boy, girl, man, and woman, each appeared as separate checkbox options in the 2022 Gender Census.

There is quite a gap between how likely genderflux respondents are to identify as genderfluid, than as any of the binary terms, mentioned above, as we can see from a pairing analysis of the 2022 survey.

Of the binary gender terms listed above, genderflux respondents were most likely to identify as boys.

In 2022, 25.6% of genderflux respondents selected “boy” in the Gender Census.



That’s far less than the 61.8% of genderflux respondents who selected genderfluid.



The comparatively large percent of genderflux respondents who identify as genderfluid, relative to any of the binary gender terms, is unlikely to be explained simply by the fact that genderfluid performs better than any of the binary gender terms in the Gender Census as a whole, because of just how much larger that overlap is.



This would suggest that genderflux might be best understood as a term most likely to be used by a genderfluid person to signify that both their gender, and the intensity of their gender, changes over time.



That being said, someone who is female and genderflux, or male and genderflux, might not be the kind of person who is most likely to be motivated to take part in the Gender Census, in the first place.


Also, there might be many people, who identify with their birth gender, who would describe themselves as genderflux, if they were familiar with the term, but who haven’t explored specialized gender terms, because they haven’t felt the need to closely examine their gender, in the way many transgender and nonbinary people have.


 

Results from the Gender Census suggest genderflux may be most commonly used alongside genderfluid, rather than alongside binary gender terms.

But it’s still useful to know that genderflux can be paired with those genders as well.



I will also add that if a genderfluid person doesn’t specify that they are genderflux, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t experience variations in the intensity of how strongly they experience their genders.

It simply means they aren’t specifying whether or not they experience variation in how strongly they experience their genders.



Genderflux is also interesting because it’s a term that, by itself, doesn’t specify what someone’s underlying gender is.

Instead, it specifies an aspect of how they experience that underlying gender.

 

In a way, that makes it somewhat similar to trans or transgender, in that these terms, by themselves, also don’t specify what someone’s underlying gender is.

Instead, these terms represent that someone’s gender is different than the gender they were assigned at birth.

 

Likewise, autigender, a term we discussed in a previous article, doesn’t specify what someone’s underlying gender is, either.

Autigender simply means that someone’s autism influences their gender, or how they experience their gender.

Conclusion

Genderfluid describes someone whose gender changes over time.

Genderfluid people will often, but not always, be fluid between male and female.



Bigender refers to someone who identifies with two genders.

Bigender people often, but not always, identify as both male and female.

Bigender people may experience their genders simultaneously, or be fluid between them.



Genderflux refers to someone with a gender that varies in intensity over time.

Genderflux can be turned into the suffix “-flux” that can be used to create compound gender terms, such as genderfluidflux, boyflux, or girlflux.



Comparing the three terms that are the focus of this article, genderfluid is the most common in the Gender Census, followed by genderflux, and bigender.



In different surveys, majorities of both genderflux and bigender respondents have identified as genderfluid.

Therefore, these closely-related terms are part of the genderfluid family tree.



Genderflux respondents were significantly more likely to identify as genderfluid in the Gender Census than as boys, men, girls, or women.

This suggests genderflux might be best understood as a term most likely to be used by a genderfluid person to signify that both their gender, and the intensity of their gender, changes over time.



Although, this may be explained by the possibility that someone with a binary gender, who identifies as genderflux, might not be as motivated to complete the Gender Census, in the first place.

Regardless of how common certain combinations are, it’s worth knowing that genderflux can be paired with any underlying gender, because it’s a term that specifies how someone experiences an aspect of their gender, not what their underlying gender is.





I found this article to be a particularly fun and interesting set of ideas to explain and explore.

If you also found it fascinating, there will be many more fascinating topics and identities to examine in upcoming articles.

This article is part of Season 3 of LGBT by the Numbers, which explores the results of the Gender Census, an annual global online survey of people who have a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

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