Word.ws English Dictionary

bigenderism

bigenderism noun: the theory that society enforces a strict male-female gender binary, privileges masculinity and maleness over femininity and femaleness, and (when the theory is strictly construed) limits gender to a direct correspondence with assigned sex at birth.

Noun (1)

bigenderism (uncountable)

  1. The theory that society enforces a strict male-female gender binary, privileges masculinity and maleness over femininity and femaleness, and (when the theory is strictly construed) limits gender to a direct correspondence with assigned sex at birth.
    • Understanding bigenderism may offer insight into the specific challenges faced by nonbinary people.
    • Bigenderism is a plague that specifically punishes gender-diverse people, but its negative effects go way beyond that. Bigenderism is a cross many children have to bear, and many don’t bear it easily. Living up to the expectations of bigenderist ideals requires a great deal of effort on the parts...2003, Miqqi Alicia Gilbert, “Bigenderism”, in Transgender Tapestry, volume 102, retrieved 23 Sep 2020, page 16

Noun (2)

bigenderism (uncountable)

  1. The state of being bigender; the state of having two (or multiple) genders simultaneously.
    • I find that bigenderism best describes my gender identity and pansexuality is a good descriptor for my sexual orientation.
    • To our knowledge, however, no scientific literature has attempted to explain or even describe bigenderism [...] This may be due to the low prevalence of bigenderism and relatively recent adoption of the term by bigender individuals.2012, Laura K. Case, Vilayanur S.Ramachandran, “Alternating gender incongruity: A new neuropsychiatric syndrome providing insight into the dynamic plasticity of brain-sex”, in Medical Hypotheses...

Examples of bigenderism in a sentence

  • Bigenderism is a plague that specifically punishes gender-diverse people, but its negative effects go way beyond that.2003, Miqqi Alicia Gilbert, “Bigenderism”, in Transgender Tapestry, volume 102, retrieved 23 Sep 2020, page 16:
  • Bigenderism maintains there are only two genders, which correspond with the two sexes, male and female.2009, Miqqi Alicia Gilbert, “Defeating Bigenderism: Changing Gender Assumptions in the Twenty‐first Century”, in Hypatia, volume 24, number...
  • Bigenderism is to be distinguished from "bisexuality" whose meaning would be limited to sexual attraction to both sexes.2015, Mark J. Blechner, “Bigenderism and Bisexuality”, in Contemporary Psychoanalysis, volume 51, number 3, →DOI, page 503:

Origin of bigenderism

From bi- + genderism; modelled on heterosexism. Coined in 2003.

From bigender + -ism.

Questions about bigenderism

What does bigenderism mean?
Bigenderism means the theory that society enforces a strict male-female gender binary, privileges masculinity and maleness over femininity and femaleness, and (when the theory is strictly construed) limits gender to a direct correspondence with assigned sex at birth.
How do you use bigenderism in a sentence?
Bigenderism is a plague that specifically punishes gender-diverse people, but its negative effects go way beyond that.
What part of speech is bigenderism?
Bigenderism is a noun.

Words near bigenderism in the dictionary

  1. bigeminism
  2. bigeminous
  3. bigeminy
  4. bigender
  5. bigendered
  6. bigenderism
  7. bigenera
  8. bigenerational
  9. bigeneric
  10. bigenic
  11. bigenital

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bigenderism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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