Genderfluid

Genderfluid people experience a gender identity that moves over time: closer to male in one stretch, closer to female in another, or shifting among nonbinary positions. The tempo varies — for some the shifts run on days, for others months or years — and so does the range. Gender expression (clothes, hair, forms of address) may track the shifts or stay constant; both are normal. The Chinese rendering is 性别流动 (xingbie liudong, “gender flowing”), with 流性别 also in use.

Genderfluidity usually sits under the nonbinary umbrella, and it is the most vivid illustration of the idea that gender is a spectrum rather than a switch.

Register note: community vocabulary in both languages.

Common misuse: two recurring ones. First, reading fluidity as “fickle, fake, can’t make up their mind” — it names a real and stable inner pattern, and “stably fluid” is no contradiction: the tide changes every day, yet the tide itself is a reliable fact of nature. Second, confusing it with bisexual: bisexuality is about whom you’re attracted to (orientation), genderfluidity is about who you are (identity) — the two axes don’t determine each other, and genderfluid people can have any orientation. For the fundamentals, see Gender basics.