- published: 18 Aug 2014
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Bigender, bi-gender or bi+gender describes a tendency to move between feminine and masculine gender-typed behaviour depending on context. Some bigendered individuals express a distinctly "en femme" persona and a distinctly "en homme" persona, feminine and masculine respectively; others have shades of grey between the two. It is recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a subset of the transgender group. A 1999 survey conducted by the San Francisco Department of Public Health observed that, among the transgendered community, less than 3% of those who were genetic males and less than 8% of those who were genetic females identified as bigender.
While an androgynous person retains the same gender-typed behaviour across situations, the bigendered person consciously or unconsciously changes their gender-role behaviour from primarily masculine to primarily feminine, or vice versa.