Q&A: “what does Xジェンダー mean?”
anonymous said:
Heya! Sorry to bother you, but what does Xジェンダー mean? Is it literally the Japanese translation of non-binary? Or has the same meaning? Thanks
according to 「Xジェンダーって何?」, Xジェンダー (”x gender”) is:
性自認を表す言葉の一種で、出産時に割り当てられた男性もしくは女性の性別のいずれに二分された性の自覚を持たず、自己の性別に関し、男女どちらでもない、あるいは男女どちらでもある、さらにはそれすらもどちらでもないっといった認識を自己の性に対してもっている人々のことを指す日本独自の呼称です。
a word that refers to a gender identity; a term unique to Japan to refer to people who do not identify as either of the two genders, male and female, that are assigned at birth, but rather self-identifies as neither male nor female, both male and female or as a different gender entirely.
while i don’t have any sources to link to at the moment, i’m fairly certain that Xジェンダー was coined in Japan completely independent of “non-binary” in the English language. in fact, i’m also fairly certain that it was coined before usage of “non-binary” in reference to gender in English, but again, no source links because i’m too tired to dig for them.
either way, Xジェンダー is commonly translated as “non-binary” in English and vice versa because, as the definition above shows, their meaning (and usage both as an umbrella term and as a specific identity) are notably similar.
