In fact, the kanji “Seibutstu” 性別 translates to gender but also biological sex. Meaning that in Japanese there isn’t much ideological distinction between the two. So when self identifying, according to my research, X-gender people tend to make their identities known in safe spaces online like Ameba or Mixi boards.

The social media space in Japan is also kind of insular. I’ve never heard of these SNS platforms but apparently they’re super popular over here. The sign up options don’t really allow for much gender variance so most people identify their “seibutsu” and then clarify in their username or profile.

X-gender folks will identify as MTX (male to X gender), FTX (female to X gender) or XTX (X gender to X gender). The body and internal lived experiences are stated together. Similar to the word 性別 Seibutsu, they’re acknowledging both implications of the word in their identity. I haven’t seen other Non-Binary people use that phrasing to self identify, so this was new to me. It’s also unique and culturally significant, which I find really cool.

Within the Trans and Non-Binary community you can find a lot of people using similar identifiers but the X-gender label is something specific to Japan. In many cases where you can get gender neutral markers on documents, the letter X is a go-to, but I have a feeling that’s for ease of data entry. That’s not the case with X-gender peoples. It’s a part of who they are.

It’s actually really interesting to see and learn more about Queer communities around the world, seeing how they validate themselves and how their culture informs their gender identities and expressions.