Bigenderism

Understanding bigenderism may offer insight into the specific challenges faced by nonbinary people.

Bigenderism is a plague that specifically punishes gender-diverse people, but its negative effects go way beyond that. Bigenderism is a cross many children have to bear, and many don’t bear it easily. Living up to the expectations of bigenderist ideals requires a great deal of effort on the parts of young people who quake at the idea of being labeled sissy if a boy or being ostracized if a girl.

Bigenderism maintains there are only two genders, which correspond with the two sexes, male and female. Basic bigenderism requires that legal documents and public institutions designate a single invariant gender (that is, sex). Strict bigenderism applies these categories in a social context that stigmatizes "imperfect" men and women who do not reach ideals set by the bigenderist schema.

Our study casts some doubts about the existence of a moderating effect of gender transition on transphobia, it raises some issues about bigenderism as an explanatory factor for any such effect and it implies that transphobia is situational.

I find that bigenderism best describes my gender identity and pansexuality is a good descriptor for my sexual orientation.

To our knowledge, however, no scientific literature has attempted to explain or even describe bigenderism [...] This may be due to the low prevalence of bigenderism and relatively recent adoption of the term by bigender individuals.

The term "bigender" is proposed to describe people who combine male and female gender identities. Bigenderism is to be distinguished from "bisexuality" whose meaning would be limited to sexual attraction to both sexes.

A little further on we will talk a bit about little-known bigenderism and the people who alternate cycles of male and female identity, but first we should reflect—especially as we begin this chapter—on the meaning of the word "normal."