Neutrois (everything you need to know)
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In this blog post, we will talk about neutrois – a gender identity that has several meanings.
Keep reading to learn everything about what it means to be neutrois, the etymology of the world, neutrois flag and neutrois community.
What is neutrois?
Neutrois (pronounced nu-trruá, ne-trruá or niu-trruá) is an identity that has several meanings.
The most common meaning used today is gender-neutral: that is, a gender that is not male or female, or the mixture between the two, but which is also non-existent, and which is only characterized by neutrality.
Rather than being gender-neutral, a neutrois person can:
- Not have a gender;
- Define their gender as null;
- Have a gender that is neither male nor female.
Whichever definition is used, neutrals can:
- Identify themselves as transfeminine, transneutres or transmasculine, if they identify with any of these descriptions;
- Use the pronoun he and/or the pronoun she;
- Have a stereotypically feminine or masculine appearance, without trying to make it more “neutral”;
- Want hormonal therapy and / or surgery to make their bodies more neutral, feminine, or masculine, according to what they consider to be neutral, feminine, or masculine;
- Not want hormonal therapy or surgery.
The word neutrois was created in 1995 by H. A. Burnham.
Originally, the definition of neutrals was that of someone without gender who would like to lose the physical characteristics associated with the gender assigned to the person.
Neutrois flag
The first instance we found of the neutrois flag was 2014, from the blog Pride Archive. The flag is not credited, but the meanings are as follows:
White belt: gender-neutral, unidentified, or in the process of questioning
Green belt: non-binary gender
Black belt: genderless or agender
The word neutrois is the same in English. However, the constitution of the word probably comes from French: neutral (neutral) + Trois (three, reference to being a “third genre”, after the binary genres).
What is the neutrois community?
The neutrois community alters the concept of sexuality within a society that identifies only two genders since they make up a group that does not find it well to identify with one.
Although biologically its sex is that of a man or a woman, a neutrois does not agree to define itself as one or the other.
For them, a person can have characteristics of both sexes, both physical and personality.
For some, it can be confusing because their appearance refers to identifying them as homosexual (although they are not necessarily so), but they can have different sexual orientations – heterosexual, bisexual and even asexual.
Little by little the neutrois community focuses on the public eye, and with it, its social recognition.
In San Francisco, the Agender project, by Chloe Aftel, photographer and filmmaker graduated from the University of Southern California (USC), is a series of portraits of people belonging to this community, and that exposes the versatile beauty of each one.
Aftel wanted to demonstrate their rejection of gender norms, in addition to promoting a dialogue about the existence of their community.
Neutrois are in search of recognition of their rights as part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual (LGBT) community.
When the media that published news about the new version of The Little Mermaid, directed by Sophia Coppola, everyone wondered who will be the actress who will play Princess Ariel – Emma Watson or Adele?! – while the only person with the assured role as Ariel’s Sister # 4 is Andrej Pejić, 22 years old.
Pejić, a renowned model, is a neutrois. He was born a man but he identifies himself at the midpoint between both sexes (he prefers feminine pronouns when addressing him).
A native of Bosnia, who came to Australia with her family as a refugee from the war, has participated in the Fashion Shows in Paris, modelled as a man and a woman for the runways of Jean Paul Gaultier, and as a man for Marc Jacobs; once again she will play a woman on the big screen.
With this, Pejić represents a model to continue making way for the acceptance of this community in our society.
What is sexual orientation?
Sexual orientation, an expression often called sexuality, is essentially an identity that expresses the conditions of a person to feel sexual attraction to someone, or, occasionally, what relationship a person has with sexual attraction and/or sexual relations.
The sexual attraction is finding someone sexually attractive; think that a certain person is hot, and consequently want to have sex with them.
Of course, there are other social factors that cause sexual attraction to not always end in an advance with sexual intentions towards another person.
People with heterosexual sexual orientation are privileged. Many do not even know the word, thinking only that they are “normal”.
Heterosexual people are people of binary genders who only feel sexual attraction to people of the gender considered “opposite” to yours.
Attraction, love, marriage and sex between a man and a woman are seen as the norm of society. This is a phenomenon called heteronormativity or heterosexism.
Attraction or sexual relations between two men or between two women are often seen as denatured, false, or just for purposes of rebellion or experimentation.
A man’s lack of sexual attraction to a woman, or vice versa, is also frowned upon by society.
Often, a man wanting to “catch” several women is seen as necessary for a standard of masculinity, while women are pressured to satisfy sexually those they date or are married to.
Not feeling like talking about colleagues or hot celebrities is seen as a sign of childishness or unnaturality.
The structure that dictates that anyone needs to feel sexual attraction and want sexual relationships is called zedsexism, zednormativity, allonormativity, allosexism, allonormativity or allosexism.
The presence of sexual attraction for more than one gender is seen as a sign of promiscuity, infidelity or insecurity, or perhaps even as a sign that the person is lying or having trouble admitting that “in fact” he is gay, lesbian or hetero.
The structure that dictates that people need to be attracted to just one gender is called monosexism.
Anyway, any sexual attraction that is not heterosexual is subject to prejudice by our society, even though all are equally valid and real.
Regarding sexual orientations, Orientando mainly wants to offer resources to those who are questioning their sexual orientation and to help people whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual.
Several of the words used as sexual orientations refer to the gender (s) of the targets of sexual attraction.
For example, a person who is attracted to men and women may call himself bisexual, a term whose definition is given by attraction to two or more genders.
The orientation that denotes a lack of sexual attraction for any gender is asexual. The orientation that denotes sexual attraction for all genders, or regardless of gender, is pansexual.
The orientation that denotes that sexual attraction is not an applicable or understandable concept by the person is quoissexual.
The orientation that denotes someone’s willingness to not have a rating for their sexual orientation is pomosexual.
It is common for someone’s sexual orientation to imply that other types of attraction felt by the person have the same goals as sexual orientation.
For example, it can be assumed that a person who claims to be heterosexual is heterosexual and heteroromantic unless he says otherwise.
A person who calls himself gay feels a sexual and romantic attraction to people of the same or similar genders, most of the time.
This is because many people do not think about other types of guidance, or see no need for them.
For this reason, many people use sexual orientation or sexuality as a generic term for general guidance, although not all people prioritize their sexual orientation or have labels only for their sexual orientation.
To read more about other types of guidance, read our pages on romantic guidance and other types of guidance.
Conclusions
In this blog post, we talked about neutrois – a gender identity that has several meanings.
You also learned everything about what it means to be neutrois, the etymology of the world, neutrois flag and neutrois community.
Neutrois means gender-neutral: that is, a gender that is not male or female, or the mixture between the two, but which is also non-existent, and which is only characterized by neutrality.
Rather than being gender-neutral, a neutrois person can: not have a gender, define their gender as null or have a gender that is neither male nor female.
If you have questions, comments or recommendations, please let us know!
FAQ about neutrois
What is a Neutrois?
Neutrois is also a non-binary gender identity, which describes a “neutral” gender identity and expression.
Neutrois is also connected with people who feel they are agender or genderless.
What is an Aporagender?
Aporagender means a gender-separate from man/boy, woman/girl, and nothing in between while still having a sense of gender.
Apo in Greek means “separate”, thus aporagender is a non-binary, separate gender.
What is Maverique gender?
Maverique is a non-binary gender characterized by being totally removed from being male, female, neutral and everything derived from it (such as androgyny, binary semi-genres, etc.) and also far from genderlessness.
What is Demigirl?
A demigirl is a gender identity when a person identifies as partially female.
What does it mean if you’re Polysexual?
Polysexual means to have more sexualities and to be attracted to people with different gender identity and gender expression.
Like pansexual, polysexual can be attracted to anyone, regardless of gender, male or female. However, for polysexual, sexual identity matters.
What does Lgbtiqcapgngfnba mean?
LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA ar ethe initials for the following gender identities: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, gender minorities, Curious, Asexual, Pansexual, Gender-non-conforming, Gender-Fluid, Non-binary, and Androgynous.
Further reading
Exploring the Dimensions of Human Sexuality, by Jerrold S. Greenberg
References
transequality.org/
nonbinary.wiki/
