Androgyne
From Wikinfo
An androgyne is a person who feels that they do not fit cleanly into society's boxes labeled masculine and feminine. An androgyne may identify with the gender identity of a combination of masculine and feminine, or as neither. They may also use the terms non-gendered or bigendered. They may experience swings between genders.
Androgyny can be either physical and/or psychological, it does not depend on birth sex per se. An androgyne may have been born with ambiguous sex organs (intersex), or for others it is not dependent on their birth sex at all.
It is a misconception that androgyny is just a fashion statement, behavior, or set of visual cues. One could say that all androgynes are psychologically androgynous, whereas not all androgynous-looking people are androgynes.
Originally, androgyne was mostly used as a synonym for hermaphrodite (a term since replaced by the term intersex).
Various alchemical, magical and metaphysical traditions had an allegorical figured named variously the Alchemical Androgyne and the Divine Androgyne. All these concepts are derived from the sense of unity that a combination of femininity and masculinity in one being implies.
A recently-coined politicized version of androgyne is genderqueer, however this term can be used to refer to anyone who identifies as differently gendered. An Androgyne may be attracted to people of any gender, though many identify as pansexual or asexual. Use of terms such as bisexual, heterosexual, and homosexual often do not apply as well, as all of these have binary gender implications.
Androgynes sometimes refer to themselves using gender-neutral pronoun such as ze, hir etc, and use a nongendered title, such as Mx, instead of Mr. or Mrs.
See also
External links
- A Different Da Vinci Code The missing pieces of Leonardo's puzzle point to plain and simple Hermeticism (altreligion.about.com article).
- Androgyne Online
- Neutrois
- Sphere
- The Two-Spirit Tradition[[et:Androg��n]]
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Androgyne" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgyne, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
