Wordplay and Fencing

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Wordplay and Fencing

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, as a prefix, Trans means “across, beyond, to go beyond.” Apply the prefix to a word like gender, and you get a word that literally means across genders.
Across genders is a neat idea, and certainly brings to mind the umbrella-like definition to transgender.
I think I’ve kind of internalized the definition of transgender to mean a change in gender. As if one had to transition from one gender to another.
- But this sense of the word ‘change’ is more about the destination than the process.
Saying I am transgender(ed) implies, to my mind, that I am on my way to another gender, that I’m transitioning from one gender point to some other gender location. There are days when I feel this way, that I have a specific destination for my gender in mind. But often, I’m not looking for that particular point.
Flux, however, is another word that means change. Unlike trans, its focus seems to be more on the process than on a final destination. (Let’s NOT look that one up in the OED. I’m afraid its definition is…less than savory.)
So, playing with prefixes, let’s make up a new word. Fluxgender. Saying I am fluxgender(ed) implies, rather, that my gender is in motion, and that there may not necessarily be a destination. Rather, my gender is constantly changing, and thus, is hard to pin down in any one checkbox.
I like fluxgendered. It doesn’t carry the baggage of the word transgender. It seems more accurate. It has a more playful quality to it. And looks like a dirty word when I type it.