Gender Modality

Gender Modality refers to the relationship between one's assigned-gender-at-birth and one's actual gender identity. The two primary binaries, and most well known gender modalities, are cisgender and transgender; however, those are not the only modalities that have been coined. A cisgender individual is someone whose gender identity matches their assigned-gender-at-birth, whereas a transgender individual is someone whose gender identity does not match their assigned-gender-at-birth.

Though the cis-trans binary is commonly established in queer communities, it is not always used for self-identification. Though some individuals may have transgender-like experiences, or may technically fit under the transgender definition, said individuals may still not identify as being transgender. The cis-trans binary system may become restrictive or complicated in cases where an individual may:

• be unassigned at birth, or raised as gender neutral
• be intersex
• be bigender (for example, an individual who may be both a man and a woman, which may simultaneously match their assigned-gender-at-birth and not)
• be demigender (for example, an individual who only partially identifies as their assigned-gender-at-birth)
• be agender, or does not relate with or identify with the concept or gender
• be gender questioning
• be part of a culture that does not match Western concepts of gender
• be part of a plural system
• have detransitioned (for example, a cisgender woman who transitioned into being a man, then detransitioned into being a woman, may not identify as either transgender or cisgender, or they may identify as both, because of their transitioning experiences)

Since coining, gender modality has also been used to refer to other aspects of identity. For example, a cisnominal individual is someone who identifies with the name given to them at birth, and a cissex individual is someone who identifies with their body sex from birth.

History

Gender modality was a term created some time around the 28th of February, 2019, by Florence Ashley, a transfeminine jurist and bioethicist. The term was coined because Ashley noted that the notion of gender identity as used in law, perpetuates the idea that gender identity is something only used by transgender individuals (whereas cisgender individuals would just have gender). Ashley traces this misuse of the term gender identity to the fact that a conceptual category such as gender modality was not available when policymakers attempted to speak of discrimination against transgender individuals by virtue of being not cisgender.

Ashley advocates for the usage of gender modality in the WPATH Standards of Care version 8 and has written several essays on the topic of gender modality. The term has since been used in research about transgender health. The need for a categorical term of one's relationship to one's assigned gender had been explored prior to Florence's coining as early as year 2014.