When Simon and Garfunkel sang "I am a rock, I am an island," they weren't thinking about gender or sexuality. But, nowadays, rock can be a gender identity, writes Max Eden, an American Enterprise Institute research fellow, on City Journal. There's also moongender, foxgender, etc.
The neurodiverse may claim autismgender or autigender which means your gender identity is influenced by your autism. Those with borderline personality disorder can be "bordergender."
My favorite is "gendervague," which means, I think, your gender identity is hard to explain. It's vague.
Here's Wikipedia's list, which is a few months old so surely out of date. I notice many of the terms basically mean "not sure."
Gender Spectrum, which Eden calls "arguably the most influential gender identity nonprofit in K-12 education," is training "tens of thousands of teachers, administrators . . . and other leaders to create gender inclusive environments.”
In a 2022 video, “Intro to Neoidentities and Neopronouns,” Naomi Cruz, then Gender Spectrum’s manager of family and educational programming, explains that gender identity isn't confined to variations on male and female, reports the watchdog group OpenTheBooks. There are an infinite number of identities, including "noungenders" such as rocks.
The current neo-identity movement got its start on Tumblr in the mid-2010s with emoji-self genders and unpronounceable pronouns, Cruz says in the video.
"If a man identifies as a woman, then, according to gender ideologues, he truly is a woman," writes Eden. "However, if a man identifies as the moon, he is not necessarily the moon. It might just mean that he identifies with society’s perception of the moon."
. . . you’re not permitted to assume a gender identity associated with another race, Cruz explains. A white person cannot identify as a black-related gender. A white person can, however, identify as a rock. And a black person could, of course, identify as a penguin.
California taxpayers are funding a nine-year $2.3 million grant to Gender Spectrum to analyze the effectiveness of the group's programs, reports Luke Rosiak on Daily Wire. The California Department of Public Health wants Gender Spectrum to develop “concrete strategies for applying the lens of gender diversity to school practices,” according to the watchdog group OpenTheBooks.
The hope is that programs will be shown to improve the mental health of transgender and gender-questioning students and reduce suicidal thoughts.
I don't really understand why different identities are described as gender identities. If you're a metaphoric rock, moon, fox, tree, et al, what's gender got to do with it?