Who coined maverique and when?

Vesper H., posting on Tumblr as queerascat, in June 2014. The first surviving definition is dated 1 June and labelled a draft, and the flag followed on 15 June, published with a note calling it a rough draft and inviting comments.

What does the word maverique mean literally?

It joins the English maverick to the French ending -ique, meaning similar to. The point of the ending is that a maverique person resembles a maverick without being one: the unorthodoxy is not a chosen stance and not a political position, but a feature of the person. Maverick itself descends from Samuel A. Maverick, a Texas cattle owner who became known for leaving his herd unbranded, and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki keeps that unbranded sense deliberately in play.

How does maverique differ from aporagender?

The Nonbinary Wiki gives two differences. Aporagender is used as an umbrella term and maverique is not, and aporagender can describe a gender-neutral identity while maverique is explicitly not neutral. The two were coined within weeks of each other in 2014.

Is maverique used as a noun or an adjective?

Both, and the Nonbinary Wiki gives a worked example of each. That sets maverique apart from several neighbouring microlabels, including juxera and proxvir, which the same wikis insist work only as adjectives, in the way male and female do.

How many people identify as maverique?

A 2017 survey of 9,932 non-binary participants recorded 0.6 per cent entering the word, and the Nonbinary Wiki gives 0.3 per cent as typical. Both are shares of people who chose to answer a community survey about gender, not shares of a population.

Maverique: Meaning, Origin & Who Uses It

Maverique

Maverique describes a gender that is present and specific but takes nothing from male, female or neutral, which is the claim this whole category is built on. Its coiner set it against neutrois after that word failed to fit, and the community wikis carrying the term repeat the same wording: not an absence of gender, not apathy towards gender, and not a point between the two familiar ones.

How Vesper H. named the gender

Vesper H., posting as queerascat on Tumblr, put up a rough first definition on 1 June 2014 and tagged it a draft. A second wording followed on 15 June, the same day the flag went up at 13:28 UTC. A third came on 21 June, and a further post on 25 June expanded the reasoning behind the flag's yellow. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki dates the coinage instead to 31 May 2014, a day before the earliest surviving post, and that is the only disagreement between the sources on file.

The word is Franglais: the English maverick joined to the French ending -ique, pronounced mav-REEK to rhyme with antique. The ending means similar to rather than identical, and that is the load-bearing part of the construction. A maverique is maverick-like without being a maverick, since the wikis are firm that being maverique is not a deliberate stance against the binary but a feature of the person. The English word descends from Samuel A. Maverick, a Texas cattle owner who did not brand his herd, and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki keeps that unbranded sense deliberately in play.

Why maverique is not neutrois

Neutrois is the word Vesper H. tried first. Where neutrois means having no inner sense of gender, maverique is its opposite; where it means a present but neutral gender, maverique still refuses the neutrality. The Nonbinary Wiki draws a second boundary against aporagender, coined within weeks of maverique and covering similar ground, on the grounds that aporagender can work as an umbrella and can take in a neutral gender while maverique is one gender and is not neutral. A third boundary runs against Third gender, which the same wiki treats as a bin holding many different categories from many cultures rather than a single gender.

Grammatically maverique works as either a noun or an adjective, which sets it apart from Juxera and its counterpart, terms the same wikis insist are adjectives only.

Where the record for maverique stops

At two wikis and a dictionary site's article. Dictionary.com covered the word in a list of gender terms and quoted Vesper H.'s own definition from the maveriques Tumblr FAQ; there is no academic literature and no dictionary of record. The one figure on file comes from a 2017 survey of 9,932 non-binary participants, in which 0.6 per cent entered maverique as their identity word. Both that figure and the 0.3 per cent the Nonbinary Wiki gives as typical are shares of people who sought out a community survey about gender.

A symbol arrived later than the flag. The Tumblr user Sneer designed it in February 2017, an outer circle for the binary and a filled inner circle for standing outside it. An earlier proposal, the astrological sign for the sun, was dropped after objections that the sun reads as a binary gender in many cultures.

Common questions

Questions about Maverique

Who coined maverique and when?: Vesper H., posting on Tumblr as queerascat, in June 2014. The first surviving definition is dated 1 June and labelled a draft, and the flag followed on 15 June, published with a note calling it a rough draft and inviting comments.
What does the word maverique mean literally?: It joins the English maverick to the French ending -ique, meaning similar to. The point of the ending is that a maverique person resembles a maverick without being one: the unorthodoxy is not a chosen stance and not a political position, but a feature of the person. Maverick itself descends from Samuel A. Maverick, a Texas cattle owner who became known for leaving his herd unbranded, and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki keeps that unbranded sense deliberately in play.
How does maverique differ from aporagender?: The Nonbinary Wiki gives two differences. Aporagender is used as an umbrella term and maverique is not, and aporagender can describe a gender-neutral identity while maverique is explicitly not neutral. The two were coined within weeks of each other in 2014.
Is maverique used as a noun or an adjective?: Both, and the Nonbinary Wiki gives a worked example of each. That sets maverique apart from several neighbouring microlabels, including juxera and proxvir, which the same wikis insist work only as adjectives, in the way male and female do.
How many people identify as maverique?: A 2017 survey of 9,932 non-binary participants recorded 0.6 per cent entering the word, and the Nonbinary Wiki gives 0.3 per cent as typical. Both are shares of people who chose to answer a community survey about gender, not shares of a population.

Added 2026-08-28 · Revised 2026-08-28