Gender modality

Gender modality is a term used to describe whether or not, and to what extent, a person's given gender when born matches what gender that person feels they are, i.e. how a person relates to their gender assigned at birth (AGAB). Sometimes this includes gender expression. The two main notable gender modalities are cisgender and transgender.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The person may be genderqueer or non-binary which are often used as an umbrella term for non-cisnormative gender identities that do not fall exclusively within one binary gender or the other.[9][10][11][12][13]

Other gender modalities besides cisgender and transgender do exist, however. Terms such as isogender and metagender have been coined to reference people who are not cisgender but do not identify as trans either, or conversely, who feel they could fit into either category albeit not exclusively. Some examples of this include genderfluid and genderflux, paragender and demigender, bigender and pangender people. Identities such as “non-binary woman” have also started to rise on social media, further blurring the distinction between binary and non-binary genders, and between cis and trans gender modalities.

Gender modality is not to be confused with gender identity. Gender modality functions as a descriptor that gives more information about a person’s gender identity. For example, for a trans man, his gender identity is ‘man’ while his gender modality is ‘trans’. It is important to note that terms like cis, trans, isogender etc are not in and of themselves genders, and are not inherently a separate gender. Trans women and cis women, for instance, both belong to the same gender identity, although they have different gender modalities. Trans women are women and trans men are men.