Trigender
Trigender means having three gender identities, experienced together or moved between at different times. The three can be any genders at all. The Nonbinary Wiki is explicit that a trigender person's genders may be binary or nonbinary in any combination, so the prefix fixes the count and leaves the contents open.
That openness is why the word is easier to define than to picture. A trigender person may hold a masculine, a feminine and a third gender simultaneously, may move among three, or may feel the three as a single combination. The Mid-South Pride description of the trigender flag adds that the presence and intensity of each can vary from one to the next.
Where the trigender word first appears
The Nonbinary Wiki records the word in use at least before 1999 and cites Leslie Feinberg's Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue, published that year. It appears again in the 2013 textbook Sexuality and Gender for Mental Health Professionals: A Practical Guide, listed among nonbinary identities a clinician might meet. Between those two dates the folder holds nothing, and no source names a coiner.
That is a thin record by the standards of this catalogue, but not a late one. Trigender was in print before the Tumblr era that produced most of the microlabels it is now listed beside.
How trigender differs from genderfluid
Genderfluid describes movement and trigender describes a count, so the two overlap without being the same claim. A trigender person who moves among three genders is fluid as well, and the Nonbinary Wiki files that case under both words. A trigender person who holds three at once is not fluid at all.
Genderflux is a further step away. Flux is a change in how strongly a gender is felt rather than in which gender is present, so a trigender person can hold three genders steadily while any of them waxes and wanes. The same reasoning separates trigender from bigender and polygender, which differ from it only in the number and not in the arrangement.
What the trigender count leaves open
Popular explainers do not hold the count steady. A retail guide published by The Pride Shop describes trigender as three or more genders, which dissolves the distinction the prefix exists to make and would take in polygender and pangender as well. The community sources keep the count at three and send anything above it to polygender. Both readings are on the record, and the disagreement is between a shopfront glossary and the wikis rather than inside either.
The measured record is small enough to state exactly. In the 2019 Gender Census, 14 of the 11,242 respondents described themselves as trigender, about 0.1 per cent. That is a share of people who chose to answer a survey about gender diversity, not a share of any population, and at fourteen responses it sits near the floor at which a term can be counted at all.
Told apart
Often confused with Trigender
- BigenderThe same arrangement with a smaller count. Bigender is two genders together or in turn, trigender is three, and neither word says anything about how strongly each is felt.
- PolygenderPolygender is the term community sources use for counts above three, though the Nonbinary Wiki's umbrella article narrows it further to four or more. A retail glossary that defines trigender as three or more erases the line between them.
- GenderfluidGenderfluid changes which gender is present. Trigender counts three genders, whether they alternate or are held at once, so a trigender person may or may not be fluid.
- GenderfluxFlux varies intensity rather than identity. Three genders held steadily is trigender without being flux, and one gender rising and falling is flux without being trigender.
Common questions
Questions about Trigender
- Which three genders does trigender mean?
- Any three. The Nonbinary Wiki states that the genders may be binary or nonbinary in any combination, so a trigender person might hold masculine, feminine and a third gender, or three genders none of which is binary. The prefix fixes how many rather than which.
- Are the three genders held at once or in turn?
- Either. Some trigender people experience the three simultaneously, some move between them depending on mood or situation, and the Mid-South Pride flag description notes that the intensity of each can vary as well. The word covers all of those arrangements.
- Is trigender a kind of genderfluid identity?
- Only where the three genders alternate. The Nonbinary Wiki files trigender under both multigender and, in that case, genderfluid. Where the three are held together nothing is moving and the fluid label does not apply.
- How many people describe themselves as trigender?
- Fourteen of the 11,242 respondents to the 2019 Gender Census, roughly 0.1 per cent of that sample. The Gender Census is a self-selected survey of gender-diverse people rather than a population survey, so the figure is a share of respondents and nothing more. No other count exists on file.
- Who coined trigender?
- Nobody on file. The Nonbinary Wiki dates the word to before 1999 without naming a coiner, which is the ordinary position for terms that surfaced in community writing rather than in a single post.
Added 2026-08-28 · Revised 2026-08-28
Nearby in the catalogue
Related entries
- BigenderTwo gender identities held together or in turn, with a record that starts in 1990s community magazines and a Merriam-Webster entry behind it.
- PolygenderSeveral genders rather than one, though nobody agrees how many. It began in 1998 as an umbrella for everyone outside the binary and shrank from there.
- 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.
- GenderfluxIntensity rather than direction, and a 1994 newsletter attestation that makes the word two decades older than the coinage most sources give it.