What is bipolargender?
And what is the benefit of gender microlabels?
Some people experience a gender that is thoroughly entwined with neurodivergence. Such an experience is called neurogender. Neurogender is considered a type of xenogender, or a gender that does not fit within typical human constructs of gender such as femininity, masculinity, androgyny, neutrality, and agenrinity (the lack of a gender identity). (Other types of xenogenders include noungenders, or genders that are best described by association with a thing or concept, and aesthetigenders, or genders best described by sensory or aesthetic perceptions. These labels are often useful for people who experience synesthesia in relation to gender.)
Neurogender is not neurodivergence as a gender, and not all neurodivergent people who exist outside of the gender binary are neurogender. It’s a term that people opt into to describe experiences that can otherwise feel too complicated or personal to explain. At least, that’s how it feels to me.
There are many different types of neurogender, just as there are many, many different types of neurodivergence. The one I want to focus on here is bipolargender. Bipolargender is, broadly speaking, gender that is defined by, or strongly affected by, one’s experience of bipolar disorder. One way this can manifest is described by the LGBTQIA+ Wiki:
One's gender may fluctuate during mania and depressive episodes: one gender for mania, which is very grandiose and always moving, and one where they feel as if their gender is nothing, almost a void when their depression hits.
I identify with bipolargender because I came into my nonbinary gender identity simultaneously as I navigated my first bipolar episodes, and my bipolar impacted my experience of my gender. Right when I fully came out on my college campus at the start of my sophomore year, I had a hypomanic episode that made me feel vibrant and confident in myself. But just a few months later, I became doubtful of my nonbinary identity, thinking that I was just a woman and was “pretending” to be nonbinary. At this point I became seriously depressed and sought psychiatric treatment for the first time.
What I didn’t know at the time was that my bipolar episodes were actually a significant part of what caused my confusing gender fluidity. Whereas the LGBTQ+ Wiki’s description of bipolargender suggests a spatial contrast in how gender manifests during mania versus depression, my initial experience was both spatial and temporal. When I was manic, I felt expansive and propelled forward towards a future self that I could create. This made me empowered to embrace androgyny and even, to an extent, gender fluidity. When I was depressed, the possibilities for being seemed to shrink, and I felt trapped in my past. When this happened, I felt that I could only be a woman.
One thing I would experience is that when I felt like a woman, I emotionally could no longer remember or access what it felt like to be nonbinary.1 I would then feel guilty and depressed because I concluded that I must have never been nonbinary in the first place. I thought that I must have been lying to everyone, and since I value honesty and authenticity very much, this made me feel terribly ashamed, as if I were a bad person for questioning my gender. But then once the depression would lift, I would start to feel more confident again and distance myself from femininity. As I experienced rapid cycling, my feelings about my gender continued to go back and forth throughout my sophomore year of college. My gender struggle would only fully resolve halfway into my junior year, probably in part supported by my being properly medicated for bipolar, as well as by intensive psychotherapy.
The correspondence between my gender fluidity and my bipolar symptoms has never been exact, but there are general patterns. When I am manic, I tend to be more masculine. But also, when I’m manic, if I happen to be feminine, I am dramatically feminine. Thus mania is associated with more extreme gender overall. Depression, on the other hand, tends to be expressed in not having the energy to put up a gender performance of any sort, which means I default to what is easiest in the moment. Earlier in my gender journey, when the habit of femininity was still more ingrained, it made sense for my “default” to be femininity or even woman-ness.
Today when asked to identify my gender, I mostly just use the term “nonbinary,” favoring its broadness and its inclusion on many demographic questionnaires. I also use “yinyang ren,” or person of yin and yang, as a personal identifier referring to multiple aspects of my neuroqueerness that are characterized by a contrast and balance of energies. But the concept of bipolargender, as well as other gender microlabels, needs to be talked about more. Having words to describe unique experiences can really help those on the journey towards understanding themselves.
It is possible for someone to be both nonbinary and a woman. Such a person may call themselves a “nonbinary woman.” I knew this, yet my mind could not accept such a concept for myself. What I called “nonbinary” gender at the time would probably be closer to androgyny. It took me a long while to accept in my heart that the gender fluidity I was experiencing was part of being non-binary.