gender-free

comparative more gender-free · superlative most gender-free · alternative genderfree

1. Of a person, agender, being neither male nor female nor any third gender; free of gender.

   I began thinking of myself as a gender-free person.

   2011, Genny Beemyn, Susan Rankin, The Lives of Transgender People

   2 more examples

   When we rendezvous shortly thereafter, I learn that the box office is being manned, if that's the right word, by an odd-looking grizzled entity unknown to my wife but whom I infer from her description (and soon after confirm) to be the genderfree or ambigendered "Ditsy" from Maintenance, [...]

   2002, John Barth, Coming Soon!!!: A Narrative, page 294

   Individuals holding these views challenge the existing Western binary and categorical sex-gender system, increasingly identifying as bigender, gender blender, or gender-free.

   2008, Sara Schwarzbaum, Anita Jones Thomas, Dimensions of multicultural counseling: a life story approach, page 369

2. Of a word, object, etc., acceptable for or available to any gender.

   Tabyi-daw, Hiroko Kawanami observes, is a gender-free term of self-address used when speaking to monks.

   2007, Ingrid Jordt, Burma's mass lay meditation movement, page 160

   5 more examples

   He got the idea of transforming the traditional sashiko — quilted-cotton worker's pants and jacket fabric — into a modern leisure fabric, a homegrown equivalent of denim, which became another early source of gender-free clothing.

   1988, The Connoisseur, volume 218, numbers 912-915, page 108

   The term ‘engineer’ is apparently a gender-free term - there is no single word meaning ‘female engineer’ - but it seems to contain an invisible male marking. ‘Nurse’ works in the opposite way, [...]

   2001, Alison Ross, Jen Greatrex, A2 English language and literature for AQA B, page 130

   In the German, Buber often used the term Mensch, a gender-free term, which is best translated as person or human being. In contrast, the term Mann does refer to a male person.

   2003, James William Walters, Martin Buber & feminist ethics: the priority of the personal, page 111

   During the same decades in which feminist critiques of generic uses of “man” and “he” led to widespread changes in usage — no mean feat — "you guys” became even more widely accepted as an informal and allegedly gender-free phrase.

   2006, Lisa Miya-Jervis, Andi Zeisler, BITCHfest: ten years of cultural criticism from the pages of Bitch magazine, page 77

   Sometime in the early Seventies, gender-free toys were briefly a popular idea. So at Christmas on the California beach in 1972, we downplayed the dolls with frilly dresses and loaded up Santa's sack with toy trucks and earth movers for our three daughters.

   2007, Tom Brokaw, Boom!, page 482

   Synonyms: gender-neutral

3. Of a society, which does not define people on the basis of gender; in which gender is irrelevant to people's lives and choices.

   So once the notion of a gender-free society is clarified, there should be widespread agreement [...]

   1996, Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady, Bringing peace home: feminism, violence, and nature, page 215

   4 more examples

   Many argue that we must build a gender-free world, that is, a world in which society does not define and organize all people on the basis of gender categories.

   2004, D. Stanley Eitzen, Maxine Baca Zinn, In conflict and order: understanding society, page 325

   The underlying argument is that if gender relations were altered at the level of social structure (ie, in the social institutions of the family, workplace, state policies, the courts, and media), a more gender-free world would eventually lead to gender-free parenting.

   2006, Andrea Doucet, Do men mother?: fathering, care, and domestic responsibility, page 23

   Do you think a child raised in a relatively gender-free environment will develop differently from other children?

   2007, Spencer A. Rathus, Childhood and Adolescence: Voyages in Development, page 257

   Japanese reformers speak of ‘gender-free’ situations as the goal of reform. [...] A gender-free society remains a useful conceptual benchmark for thinking about change.

   2009, Raewyn Connell, Gender, page 89

   Synonyms: genderless