Xenogender

Xenogender is an umbrella term for nonbinary gender identities that cannot be fully captured by human ideas of "male" and "female." Instead of defining their gender in relation to that binary, someone who is xenogender describes it through other reference points, such as an animal, plant, color, texture, sound, or abstract concept that resonates with how they experience gender. The word joins the Greek "xeno," meaning foreign or other, with "gender," and it was coined in 2014 in online nonbinary communities. Because it is an umbrella, it holds many specific sub-identities, and people often pair it with other labels. Like all identity language, it is self-descriptive, offering vocabulary for an inner sense of self that ordinary gender words do not reach.