What does demigirl mean?

Being partly a girl or a woman and partly something else. The other part can be any gender, several, or none, and the label is open to people of any assignment at birth.

How is demigirl different from juxera?

Demigirl takes a fraction of a familiar gender. Juxera claims a complete gender that happens to sit close to female without being it, and the word was coined in 2014 specifically to mark that difference. One answers how much, the other answers which.

When was demigirl first recorded?

On 11 December 2010, in a thread on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, where a user asking about the word was told the only description was on the forum's own wiki. Demigirl and demiguy were added to the AVEN Gender Definitions Masterlist the following day, four months after the post that produced the prefix.

Did the meaning of demigirl change?

Yes, and the change is recorded. The original wiki definition covered two specific positions: somebody assigned female at birth with the barest association with womanhood, or a transfeminine person assigned male at birth. Between October 2011 and 2014 that gave way to the broader reading in use now, somebody who is partially a woman.

Who designed the demigirl flag?

The Tumblr user Transrants, who made the demiboy flag alongside it. The date is disputed: one community wiki records a copy on or before 18 February 2014, and INTO dates the design to July 2015.

Demigirl: Meaning, Origin & Who Uses It

Demigirl

Demigirl names a gender identity that is partly a girl or a woman and partly something else, held by people of any assignment at birth. The rest can be another gender, several, or none, and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki is explicit that how much of a girl somebody feels varies from person to person and does not change whether the word applies.

The contrast with a neighbouring gender is deliberate. Juxera claims a whole gender that sits close to female without being female; a demigirl claims part of the familiar one. A fraction and a neighbour are different things, and the vocabulary keeps them apart on purpose.

Where demigirl was first recorded

The prefix arrived on 12 August 2010, when an Asexual Visibility and Education Network user posting as Bad Patient suggested that putting demi- in front of a word made it fit and floated demiguy for a masculine element too strong to call Agender. The feminine form surfaces four months later. On 11 December 2010 a user named bristrek87 asked the same forum for information about demigirl and was told the only description anywhere was on the forum's own yada wiki. The definition given back was narrower than the current one: somebody assigned female at birth who feels the barest association with womanhood, or a non-binary person assigned male at birth who is transfeminine and feels a vague association with femininity.

Demigirl and demiguy were added to the AVEN Gender Definitions Masterlist on 12 December 2010. By 14 October 2011 both sat on the Genderqueer Identities and Terminology page of the blog Genderqueerid, run by Marilyn Roxie, whose genderqueer survey that autumn offered both as options: seven respondents selected demigirl and nine selected demiboy.

How the demigirl definition shifted

The word changed meaning while nobody was watching it. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki dates the shift to an unrecorded point between October 2011 and 2014, when the two-part yada wiki definition was replaced by the flat reading now in general use, somebody who is partially a woman. The earlier version was a description of two specific positions; the later one is a general claim about degree, and it is the one every subsequent glossary carries.

Why the flag date is disputed

The designer is not in question. The Tumblr user Transrants made the flag that became standard, in pink, white and two greys, and made the matching demiboy flag at the same time. The date is another matter: the LGBTQIA+ Wiki puts the first known copy on or before 18 February 2014, while INTO dates the design to July 2015. Neither source shows the other's evidence.

Transrants published no colour meanings, so the readings in circulation are the community's own: pink for womanhood, white for agender and non-binary identities, grey for the partial connection. A separate demigirl symbol, the Venus glyph with half its extending cross removed, was made by a group of non-binary Brazilians on 2 October 2014. Later flags followed from the Twitter user PearloLesbo on 29 January 2020 and from azeythegoat on 19 October 2021.

What surveys record about demigirl

The Gender Census put demigirl at 7.7 per cent of gender-diverse respondents in 2022, and the Trevor Project found demigirl among the labels used by 10 per cent of the non-binary youth in its sample, just ahead of demiboy at 8 per cent. Both are shares of self-selected respondents rather than of any population.

Wiktionary's citation file runs from 2015, with a personal notice in the Seattle paper The Stranger, through a 2018 student-newspaper piece at Truman State University, to Ariane M. Balizet's Shakespeare and Girls' Studies in 2019. Wiktionary made demigirl its word of the day on 14 July 2026.

Common questions

Questions about Demigirl

What does demigirl mean?: Being partly a girl or a woman and partly something else. The other part can be any gender, several, or none, and the label is open to people of any assignment at birth.
How is demigirl different from juxera?: Demigirl takes a fraction of a familiar gender. Juxera claims a complete gender that happens to sit close to female without being it, and the word was coined in 2014 specifically to mark that difference. One answers how much, the other answers which.
When was demigirl first recorded?: On 11 December 2010, in a thread on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, where a user asking about the word was told the only description was on the forum's own wiki. Demigirl and demiguy were added to the AVEN Gender Definitions Masterlist the following day, four months after the post that produced the prefix.
Did the meaning of demigirl change?: Yes, and the change is recorded. The original wiki definition covered two specific positions: somebody assigned female at birth with the barest association with womanhood, or a transfeminine person assigned male at birth. Between October 2011 and 2014 that gave way to the broader reading in use now, somebody who is partially a woman.
Who designed the demigirl flag?: The Tumblr user Transrants, who made the demiboy flag alongside it. The date is disputed: one community wiki records a copy on or before 18 February 2014, and INTO dates the design to July 2015.

Added 2026-08-28 · Revised 2026-08-28