What does demiboy mean?

Being partly a boy or a man and partly something else, whatever the person was assigned at birth. The other part may be another gender, several, or none at all.

Where does the word demiboy come from?

From a post made on 12 August 2010 by an Asexual Visibility and Education Network user calling themselves Bad Patient, who wrote that sticking demi- in front of a word made it fit and proposed demiguy, demidude and demibloke for a masculine element too strong to call agender. Bad Patient said the suggestion was not entirely serious. Demiboy and demigirl both descend from that post, and both had reached the Genderqueerid terminology page by 2011.

What is the difference between demiboy and demiguy?

Nothing but the word. Demiguy, demiman, demimale and demidude all name the same identity, and the choice between them runs on how the word sounds to the person using it.

When does demiboy first appear in print?

In 2015, in a piece by Kerri McNair in InfUSion, a University of Georgia publication, five years after the forum post that produced the word. Two more citations follow in 2017, both from fiction and personal writing rather than from research.

Demiboy: Meaning, Origin & Who Uses It

Demiboy

Demiboy names a gender identity that is partly male and partly something else, whatever the person was assigned at birth. The remainder can be another gender, several, or no gender at all, and the word says nothing about how large the masculine part is beyond it being less than the whole.

Demiguy, demiman, demimale and demidude are the same identity under other names, and people pick between them on how the word sounds rather than on any difference in meaning. The counterpart is demigirl, and the pair descends from a single forum post.

Where demiboy was first written down

The record begins with a suggestion its author called half serious. On 12 August 2010 a user of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network posting as Bad Patient wrote that any word could be made to fit by putting demi- in front of it, and that having too much of a masculine element to call themselves Agender, they might be a demiguy, or a demidude, or a demibloke. That is the first recorded application of the prefix to gender, and both demiboy and demigirl descend from it.

Circulation followed quickly. By 2011 demiboy and demigirl had both been added to the Genderqueer Identities and Terminology page of the blog Genderqueerid, and INTO dates the settling of the definition now in use to Tumblr in 2014.

Why the printed record starts late

Wiktionary's citation file for demiboy opens in 2015, five years after the forum post, with a piece by Kerri McNair in InfUSion, a University of Georgia publication, describing somebody who identifies as a genderqueer demiboy and uses ze and hir. Two further citations follow in 2017: one from the anthology Come As Yourself, and one from L. Rowyn's novel The Sun Etherium, where a character distinguishes a demiboy, which the narrator says blends neuter with male, from a femboy, a masculine shape with feminine elements.

Nothing in the folder is academic, and the dictionary entry is the only lexicon of record. A five-year gap between a term's first use on a forum and its first appearance in print is short for this vocabulary rather than long.

How demiboy differs from a trans man

Queerty puts the difference in terms of completeness. A trans man's gender identity is male and stands in conflict with the sex he was assigned at birth; a demiboy holds part of a masculine identity, whichever assignment he started from. The two are not exclusive, and the Trans Youth Equality Foundation's terminology page, which Queerty cites, notes that transgender people may identify inside the binary, across it or outside it, so a person can be both Transgender and a demiboy.

Genderfluid is a different comparison again. A genderfluid gender changes; a demiboy gender is stably partial, and the part that is not male does not have to move at all.

What the demiboy flag encodes

There is no official flag. The version in general use was made by the Tumblr user Transrants in 2015, seven stripes in dark grey, light grey, light blue and white. Transrants published no colour meanings, and the readings in circulation come from the people flying it: blue for masculinity, grey for the partial connection, white for agender and non-binary identities.

How often demiboy is chosen

The Gender Census recorded demiboy at 7.5 per cent of gender-diverse respondents in 2022. That is a share of people who went looking for a gender survey and answered it, and it is not a share of any general population. For a term with one dictionary citation file and no academic literature, a survey figure at all is more than most of the microlabel tail has.

Common questions

Questions about Demiboy

What does demiboy mean?: Being partly a boy or a man and partly something else, whatever the person was assigned at birth. The other part may be another gender, several, or none at all.
Where does the word demiboy come from?: From a post made on 12 August 2010 by an Asexual Visibility and Education Network user calling themselves Bad Patient, who wrote that sticking demi- in front of a word made it fit and proposed demiguy, demidude and demibloke for a masculine element too strong to call agender. Bad Patient said the suggestion was not entirely serious. Demiboy and demigirl both descend from that post, and both had reached the Genderqueerid terminology page by 2011.
Is a demiboy transgender?: Sometimes, and it is the person's own call. The terminology page Queerty cites notes that transgender people may identify inside the binary, across it or outside it, so demiboy and transgender are compatible rather than competing labels.
What is the difference between demiboy and demiguy?: Nothing but the word. Demiguy, demiman, demimale and demidude all name the same identity, and the choice between them runs on how the word sounds to the person using it.
When does demiboy first appear in print?: In 2015, in a piece by Kerri McNair in InfUSion, a University of Georgia publication, five years after the forum post that produced the word. Two more citations follow in 2017, both from fiction and personal writing rather than from research.

Added 2026-08-28 · Revised 2026-08-28