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Demigender

"Demigender" — demiboy, demigirl, deminon-binary — claims a partial identification. How much "partial" is is never specified. It is a grading without a scale, a second derivative of a concept that itself has no marker — and yet enough for some clinics to proceed with mastectomy.

Definition according to proponents

An identity in which someone feels "partly" male, female, or another gender. The rest is non-binary, empty, or another identity. The label suggests a continuous quantity but provides no unit of measurement: no one can say how much of a boy he "is," nor what he measures against.

Origin: Tumblr 2014, TikTok 2020+

Tumblr glossaries from 2014; early LGBTA Wiki contributions provide the canonical definition. Especially in English-speaking and Western online communities; in the Netherlands, the label circulates primarily among adolescents via TikTok and Discord — see spread since 2010 .

The growth fits within the ROGD pattern described by Lisa Littman (2018): adolescents adopting an identity without childhood dysphoria, often in clusters within peer circles and with intensive social media use. See Littman/ROGD . Michael Biggs (2022) demonstrated for the UK that such growth is strongly concentrated among adolescent girls — a pattern that is impossible to explain with claims of innate origin.

Criticism: gradation without scale

Half identity is a second derivative. First, it is assumed that a measurable identity exists; subsequently, that a part of it also exists. Both steps rely on self-reporting without an external measure. There is no measurable marker that distinguishes "demiboy" from "boy" or "non-boy".

Functionally, demigender is a softened form of transgender claim—an entry point that does not require full transition but does require social recognition. It fits a pattern in which ROGD cohort youths start with "I am partly boy" and, upon support or medicalization, move towards more complete claims. The Cass Review (2024) has explicitly pointed out the lack of long-term data on outcomes in these newer subgroups; Levine (2022) warns that without distinguishing between developmental experimentation and stable identity, any "partly" claim can have disproportionate medical consequences.

Kathleen Stock (2021) points out a deeper objection: as soon as self-reporting suffices for a gender claim, the concept loses its working definition. Everyone can feel "partly" something. A construct that cannot be refuted is not a scientific construct but a creed — see unfalsifiability and circular reasoning . Hruz (2020) concurs with this from a clinical perspective: without an objective diagnostic marker, an intervention trigger is arbitrary.

Damage: mastectomy for "half-boy"

Several clinics have prescribed hormones or mastectomy to adolescents with demigender self-labeling. The Cass Review (2024) recommends offering such pathways only within formal research, because the evidence base is considered "remarkably weak" and regret and detransition are systematically underreported. SBU (2022) and NICE (2020) confirm this caution. Transition does not cure — see detransition research .

Related identities

• Gender flux — intensity variation.

• Non-binary — umbrella.

• Transmasculine — spectrum equivalent.

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