Genderfaun
Genderfaun describes a fluid gender that never includes feminine ones. The range covers masculine genders, unaligned genders such as aporagender, and genderlessness, and it stops short of anything female or female-aligned. The spelling genderfawn is also in use, and the Nonbinary Wiki records gendermars as a synonym.
The word was built as a mirror. Genderfae had already named the fluidity that never reaches the masculine, and this is the reverse of it, which is why the two are almost always defined against each other rather than against Genderfluid on its own.
Who coined genderfaun and when
The Nonbinary Wiki dates the coinage to May 2017 and names the Tumblr user shadowofthedude, citing a post of 6 May that year in which that user claimed it. The same account has shadowofthedude calling the word a synonym of gendermars, which the blog mogai-lexicon had written about on 20 February 2016 without saying whether it was new at the time. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki gives the coiner as a DeviantArt user of the same name, and the Taimi article gives an unnamed DeviantArt user, so the platform is disputed and the person is not.
Why the flag leaves out pink and red
The flag was published on 1 June 2017 by the Tumblr blog pride-color-schemes, framed there as a complement to the genderfae flag. Its seven stripes run from orange through white to lavender, and the archive states the reasoning: pinks and reds are avoided to mark the absence of femininity, which is the same argument the genderfae flag makes by leaving blue out. The design credit on the original post is anonymous, and secondary sources that turn shadowofthedude into the designer are going beyond it.
What the surveys recorded about genderfaun
Eleven respondents to the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census gave genderfaun. In 2020 the figure was 50 respondents, reported as 0.203 per cent of the total. Those are counts inside a survey of gender-diverse people, and genderfae returned almost the same numbers in the same two years, which is what a paired coinage would predict.
Where genderfaun has been written down
Wiktionary records it as both noun and adjective. Its citations include a 2022 University of Georgia dissertation quoting a speaker whose favoured nounself pronoun set is faun, a 2024 chapter on how trans and nonbinary students are changing the nature of gender, which glosses genderfaun as fluid between male and nonbinary genders, and a 2024 San Francisco Examiner report from a Texas shelter quoting a young person who used the word and explained never feeling like a girl.
Told apart
Often confused with Genderfaun
- GenderfaeThe term it was written to complement. Genderfaun never encompasses feminine genders, genderfae never encompasses masculine ones.
- GenderfluidGenderfaun is treated on the wikis as a non-feminine subset of genderfluidity, not a separate kind of movement.
- AgenderGenderlessness is inside the genderfaun range rather than outside it, so the two labels are often held together.
Common questions
Questions about Genderfaun
- What does genderfaun mean?
- It describes a gender that moves between masculine genders, unaligned genders and genderlessness, and never between feminine or female-aligned ones. The spelling genderfawn is also used, and the Nonbinary Wiki treats gendermars as a synonym on the coiner's own statement.
- Who coined the word genderfaun?
- The Tumblr user shadowofthedude, in May 2017, in a post dated 6 May that claimed the coinage directly. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki gives the same name as a DeviantArt user, so the platform is reported two ways and the person one way.
- Why does the genderfaun flag avoid pink and red?
- Because the palette is the definition. The pride-color-schemes post that published the flag in 2017 says the pinks and reds were left out to mark the absence of femininity, mirroring the genderfae flag, which leaves blue out for the same reason on the other side. The design credit on that post is anonymous.
- How many people describe themselves as genderfaun?
- Eleven respondents gave it in the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census, and 50 in 2020, or 0.203 per cent of respondents that year. Both are counts inside a survey of gender-diverse people rather than shares of a general population.
- Has genderfaun been used outside community wikis?
- Yes. Wiktionary collects a 2022 University of Georgia dissertation, a 2024 book chapter on trans and nonbinary students in higher education, and a 2024 San Francisco Examiner report in which a young person uses the word about themselves.
Added 2026-08-28 · Revised 2026-08-28
Nearby in the catalogue
Related entries
- GenderfaeA fluid gender bounded so that it never reaches the masculine, an anonymous 2014 coinage, and the community objection that produced genderdoe and genderthil.
- GenderfluidA gender that shifts rather than settles, one of the few terms here with a dictionary of record, and the one flux is confused with.
- AgenderAbsence rather than an unusual answer, dated by the OED to a 1996 newspaper article, and legally recognised once, in Oregon in 2017.
- AgenderfluidAgender as the base, with other gendered feelings coming and going around it, and a community record thin enough to carry a notability warning.