genderless

adjective

gen·​der·​less ˈjen-dər-ləs 

1

a

: not male or female or any combination of male or female

According to Dr. [Meredith] Chapman, "There's a lot of overlap in the terminology. Agender typically means being genderless, without a gender identity or gender neutral."

—Vera Papisova

b

: lacking qualities typically associated with either sex

"Simply because women have biases to contend with doesn't mean they're wired differently," says Emory business school's [Jeffrey] Sonnenfeld. Tomas Kirchhausen, a molecular biologist at the Harvard medical school, agrees. "Speaking as a scientist," he says, "the human brain is genderless."

—Jaclyn Fierman

But did the Torah's compilers (or, depending on one's point of view, its Author) intend to portray God as masculine or did they, intending to portray God as nonanthropomorphic and genderless, have to choose the less obtrusive of the two available genders (Hebrew has no neuter)?

—John Boswell

2

a

: not reflecting or involving gender differences or stereotypical gender roles

None of us has grown up in a genderless culture. In fact, we have grown up in one replete with gender stereotyping and demands for gender normativity, with all the biases that go with that.

—Diane Ehrensaft

The belief that true poetry is genderless—which is a disguised form of believing that true poetry is masculine—fails to recognize that writers necessarily articulate gendered experience just as they necessarily articulate the spirit of a nationality, an age, a language.

—Alicia Ostriker

b

: not reflecting the experiences, prejudices, or tendencies of one sex more than the other

Positive empowerment builds trust; it is genderless; it is collaborative; it is power for, not power over.

—Letty Cottin Pogrebin

"So it was important that this character not be a man, because it afforded, hopefully, an opportunity to actually look at how power actually corrupts individuals. That it's genderless. It's a phenomenon—if you touch it, it's going to contaminate you."

—Todd Field

3

a

: not specifying a sex or sexes

There has been a marked increase in the number of clean beauty lines that use genderless language to play up the inclusivity of their products.

—Dawn Reiss

b

: not using grammatical gender (see gender entry 1 sense 1a)

… some languages, called genderless languages, are characterized by their complete lack of grammatical gender distinction in the noun system. In Finnish, for example, hn refers to both he and she, and so has no gender.

—Jennifer L Prewitt-Freilino

genderlessness noun

Nevertheless, Barthes was sixty-five when he died, and he had kept his public and private life carefully separate all through his literary career, even when embarking on projects as ambiguous as A Lover's Discourse, where the genderlessness of the loved one often sounds tongue-in-cheek …

—Antoine Compagnon

compare gendered

Synonyms

• androgynous
• unisex
• unisexual

Examples of genderless in a Sentence

a trendy boutique selling genderless accessories—bandannas, caps, bracelets, etc.

Recent Examples on the Web

To start the day, Outlaw Agency presented Private Policy, a genderless label whose show was all about revisiting 2000s fashion in the office (the runway even included a little office motif). —Hedy Phillips, Peoplemag, 12 Sep. 2024

Soft, sweet, and fresh, jasmine, wood accord, iris, and frankincense gives the eau de parfum genderless appeal. —Christian Allaire, Vogue, 5 Sep. 2024

In the mid-2010s, new niche fragrance brands, with their genderless packaging and scents, put their own new-school spin on the old-school rose. —Kara Nesvig, Allure, 17 Oct. 2024

Kneeling before me, a genderless cutie in a leather dog mask begs for another round of rope tug. —Bae Leche, refinery29.com, 3 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1840, in the meaning defined at sense 3b