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Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. (2025). 9780191826320, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191826320 Androgyny may be expressed with regard to Sex or gender expression.
When androgyny refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often refers to conditions in which characteristics of both sexes are expressed in a single individual. These are known as intersex people, or those who are born with congenital variations that complicate Sex assignment, as they do not correspond entirely to the male or female sexes. A subsection of intersex people, those who have fully developed sexual organs of both sexes, are called hermaphrodites, though the term is considered highly offensive by the intersex community.
In later cultures, kurgarrū and assinnu were servants of the goddess Ishtar, Inanna's East Semitic equivalent, who cross-dressing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples. Several Akkadian seem to suggest that they may have also engaged in sexual activity with men. Gwendolyn Leick, an anthropologist known for her writings on Mesopotamia, has compared these individuals to the contemporary Indian hijra. In one Akkadian hymn, Ishtar is described as transforming men into women.
The Greek mythology of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, two divinities who fused into a single immortal, provided a frame of reference used in Western culture for centuries. Androgyny and homosexuality are also seen in Plato's Symposium, in a myth where, according to Aristophanes, humanity started as three sexes: male-male people that descended from the sun, female-female people who descended from Earth, and male-female people who came from classical planet. The androgynous humans were spherical and had four legs, four hands and two heads. They were also extremely powerful and dared rebel against the Greek pantheon. "Plato cites the ancient tale of Aloadae who rebelled against the gods and drove them from Mount Olympus. Not satisfied with this, they tried to set Mount Ossa atop Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion atop of Ossa, that they might attack the gods in heaven itself." (2025). 9781618110985, Academic Studies Press. ISBN 9781618110985
The gods, angered, divided the primordial humans in two and scattered them across the Earth. The divided searched for their other halves. The women who sought another woman and the men who sought another men were homosexuals.
The Mishnah, a foundational text of Rabbinic Judaism from 2nd century Syria Palaestina, uses the term androgynos 32 times. It also recounts the creation of humanity in the Genesis creation narrative in Platonic terms. Genesis Rabbah, a text written some time after the Mishnah, explains, "Adam, who was created alone and thus embodies all of mankind, was androgynous, i.e. a bi-sexual being, male and female bound together in a single male-female body: 'He created him androgynous . . . He created him double-faced.'" It is one of four additional legal categories of transgressively sexed individuals in the text, alongside the ayelonit, tumtum, and saris. In one mention, Rabbi Meir describes the androgynos as "a creation of its own type, which the sages could not decide whether is male or female".
Philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, and early Christian leaders such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, continued to promote the idea of androgyny as humans' original and perfect state during late antiquity."van der Lugt, Maaike, "Sex Difference in Medieval Theology and Canon Law," Medieval Feminist Forum (University of Iowa) vol. 46 no. 1 (2010): 101–121 In Middle Ages, the concept of androgyny played an essential role in both Christian theological debate and alchemy theory. Influential theologians such as John of Damascus and John Scotus Eriugena continued to promote the pre-fall androgyny proposed by the early Church Fathers, Other clergy expounded and debated the proper view and treatment of contemporary hermaphrodites.
Aristophanes' and Plato's conception are found in theosophy of Neoplatonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Gnosticism. In particular, it was important to Islamic and Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and alchemy through the Renaissance and Romanticism.
The figure of the Androgyne as an archaic formulation of the coexistence of all attributes, thus including sexual attributes, in the divine unity and perfect man of originsJ.Chevalier, A. Gheerbrant Dizionario dei simboli Milano 1986 according to Mircea Eliade depicts the coincidentia oppositorum or unity of opposites: in a variety of , the unique androgynous being appears before the separation of things.Mircea Eliade, Mephistopheles e l'androgino Rome 1971, page 74..
The symbolism and meaning of androgyny was a central preoccupation of the German mystic Jakob Böhme and the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. The philosophical concept of the "Universal Androgyne" (or "Universal Hermaphrodite") – a perfect merging of the sexes that predated the current corrupted world and/or was the utopia of the next – is also important in some strains of Rosicrucianism and in philosophical traditions such as Swedenborgianism and Theosophy. Twentieth century architect Claude Fayette Bragdon expressed the concept mathematically as a magic square, using it as building block in many of his most noted buildings.Ellis, Eugenia Victoria (June 2004). "Geomantic Mathematical (re)Creation: Magic Squares and Claude Bragdon's Theosophic Architecture". Nexus V: Architecture and Mathematics: 79-92.
In the mid-18th century, the macaronis of the Georgian era of England were a wealthy subculture of young men, known for androgynous gender expression. Their unusually large Wig, lavish Haute couture, and Sentimentality behavior prompted backlash from conservative generations of the time. In 1770, the Oxford Dictionary declared, "There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up among us. It is called a macaroni." An example is portrait artist Richard Cosway, referred to as "the Macaroni artist."
Masculine traits are categorized as agentic and instrumental, dealing with assertiveness and analytical skill. Feminine traits are categorized as communal and expressive, dealing with empathy and subjectivity. Androgynous individuals exhibit behavior that extends beyond what is normally associated with their given sex. Due to the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics, androgynous individuals have access to a wider array of psychological competencies in regards to emotional regulation, communication styles, and situational adaptability. Androgynous individuals have also been associated with higher levels of creativity and mental health.
An androgynous person is an individual who has a high degree of both feminine (expressive) and masculine (instrumental) traits. A feminine individual is ranked high on feminine (expressive) traits and ranked low on masculine (instrumental) traits. A masculine individual is ranked high on instrumental traits and ranked low on expressive traits. An undifferentiated person is low on both feminine and masculine traits.
According to Sandra Bem, androgynous individuals are more flexible and more mentally healthy than either masculine or feminine individuals; undifferentiated individuals are less competent. More recent research has debunked this idea, at least to some extent, and Bem herself has found weaknesses in her original pioneering work. Now she prefers to work with gender schema theory.
One study found that masculine and androgynous individuals had higher expectations for being able to control the outcomes of their academic efforts than feminine or undifferentiated individuals.Choi, N. (2004). Sex role group differences in specific, academic, and general self-efficacy. Journal of Psychology, 138, 149–159.
When androgyny is used to refer to physical traits, it often refers to a person whose biological sex is difficult to discern at a glance because of their mixture of male and female characteristics. Because androgyny encompasses additional meanings related to gender identity and gender expression that are distinct from biological sex, today the word androgynous is rarely used to formally describe mixed biological sex characteristics in humans. In modern English, the word intersex is used to more precisely describe individuals with mixed or ambiguous sex characteristics. However, both intersex and non-intersex people can exhibit a mixture of male and female sex traits such as hormone levels, type of internal and external genitalia, and the appearance of secondary sex characteristics.
Some non-Western cultures recognize additional androgynous gender identities, called .
The word genderqueer is often used by androgynous individuals to refer to themselves, but the terms genderqueer and androgynous are neither equivalent nor interchangeable. Genderqueer, by virtue of its ties with queer culture, carries sociopolitical connotations that androgyny does not carry. For the association with homosexuality, some androgynes may find the label genderqueer inaccurate, inapplicable, or offensive. Androgyneity is considered by some to be a viable alternative to androgyn for differentiating internal (psychological) factors from external (visual) factors.
An alternative to androgyny is gender-role transcendence: the view that individual competence should be conceptualized on a personal basis rather than on the basis of masculinity, femininity, or androgyny.Pleck, J. H. (1995). "The gender-role strain paradigm". In R. F. Levant & W. S. Pollack (Eds.), A new psychology of men. New York: Basic Books.
In , the division of people into women and men (in the physical sense), is considered erroneous and artificial. Agendered individuals are those who reject gender labeling in conception of self-identity and other matters. (2025). 9783319556567 ISBN 9783319556567 They see their subjectivity through the term person instead of woman or man. According to E. O. Wright, genderless people can have traits, behaviors and dispositions that correspond to what is currently viewed as feminine and masculine, and the mix of these would vary across persons. Nevertheless, it does not suggest that everyone would be androgynous in their identities and practices in the absence of gendered relations. What disappears in the idea of genderlessness is any expectation that some characteristics and dispositions are strictly attributed to a person of any biological sex. (2025). 9782874632754, Presses universitaires de Louvain. ISBN 9782874632754
In the 20th century, starting around World War I traditional gender roles blurred and fashion pioneers such as Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel introduced trousers to women's fashion. The "flapper style" for women of this era included trousers and a chic bob, which gave women an androgynous look. Coco Chanel, who had a love for wearing trousers herself, created trouser designs for women such as beach pajamas and horse-riding attire. During the 1930s, glamorous actresses such as Marlene Dietrich fascinated and shocked many with their strong desire to wear trousers and adopt the androgynous style. Dietrich is remembered as one of the first actresses to wear trousers in a premiere.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the women's liberation movement is likely to have contributed to ideas and influenced fashion designers, such as Yves Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent designed the Le Smoking suit and introduced it in 1966, while Helmut Newton's erotized androgynous photographs of the suit made it iconic and a classic.
Elvis Presley introduced an androgynous style in rock'n'roll. His pretty face and use of eye makeup often made people think he was a rather "effeminacy guy", When the Rolling Stones played London's Hyde Park in 1969, Mick Jagger wore a white "man's dress" designed by Michael Fish. Fish was the most fashionable shirt-maker in London, the inventor of the Kipper tie, and a principal taste-maker of the peacock revolution in men's fashion. His creation for Mick Jagger was considered to be the epitome of the swinging 60s.
In 1972, David Bowie presented his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, a character that was a symbol of sexual ambiguity when he launched the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars. Marc Bolan, the other pioneer of glam rock, performed on the BBC's Top of the Pops in 1971 wearing glitter and satins, with The Independent stating his appearance "permitted a generation of teeny-boppers to begin playing with the idea of androgyny". The 1973 West End musical The Rocky Horror Show also depicted sexual fluidity.
Continuing into the 1980s, the rise of avant-garde fashion designers like Yohji Yamamoto, challenged the social constructs around gender. They reinvigorated androgyny in fashion, addressing gender issues. This was also reflected within pop culture icons during the 1980s, such as Grace Jones, Prince, Annie Lennox and Boy George.
Power dressing for women became even more prominent within the 1980s which was previously only something done by men in order to look structured and powerful. However, during the 1980s this began to take a turn as women were entering jobs with equal roles to the men. In the article "The Menswear Phenomenon" by Kathleen Beckett written for Vogue in 1984 the concept of power dressing is explored as women entered these jobs they had no choice but to tailor their wardrobes accordingly, eventually leading the ascension of power dressing as a popular style for women. Women begin to find through fashion they can incite men to pay more attention to the seduction of their mental prowess rather, than the physical attraction of their appearance. This influence in the fashion world quickly makes its way to the world of film, with movies like "Working Girl" using power dressing women as their main subject matter.
Japanese designers began popularizing androgynous fashion in the 1980s, as seen in the work of Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, who brought in a distinct Japanese style that adopted a distinctively gender ambiguous theme. These two designers consider themselves a part of the avant-garde, reinvigorating Japanism. Yamamoto has expressed the lack of necessity behind gender distinctions, stating "I always wonder who decided that there should be a difference in the clothes of men and women"
Also during the 1980s, Grace Jones, a singer and fashion model, gender-thwarted appearance in the 1980s, which startled the public. Her androgynous style inspired many and she became an androgynous style icon for modern celebrities. is often noted for his androgynous looks.]]
Androgyny has been gaining more prominence in popular culture in the early 21st century. Both the fashion industry and pop culture have accepted and even popularized the "androgynous" look, with several current celebrities being hailed as creative trendsetters.
The rise of the metrosexual in the first decade of the 2000s has also been described as a related phenomenon associated with this trend. Traditional gender stereotypes have been challenged and changed since the 1960s, which included the hippie movement and flower power. Artists in film such as Leonardo DiCaprio sported the "skinny" look in the 1990s, a departure from traditional masculinity, which resulted in the fad "Leo Mania". Musical stars such as Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Andre 3000, and the band Placebo have used clothing and makeup to popularize androgynous and genderqueer aesthetics throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s.
While the 1990s unrolled and fashion developed an affinity for unisex clothes, there was a rise of designers who favored that look, including Helmut Lang, Giorgio Armani, and Pierre Cardin. Men in catalogues started wearing jewellery, make up, visual kei, and designer stubble. These styles have become a significant mainstream trend of the 21st century, both in the Western world and in Asia. Japanese people and Koreans cultures have featured the androgynous look as a positive attribute in society, as depicted in both K-pop, J-pop, in anime and manga, as well as the fashion industry. The 21st century additionally saw global conversations around gender identity which helped further the presence of androgyny in fashion. In the mid-2010s, online searches for the word "nonbinary" skyrocketed, and young people began to see themselves as nonbinary or gender nonconforming. Actor Lachlan Watson, who uses they/them pronouns, posted a photo on Instagram wearing a t-shirt saying "Gender is Over," a riff on the John Lennon and Yoko Ono "War is Over" poster.@instagram (24 November 2018). "Gender is Over" Retrieved 21 November 2024 – via Instagram.
Singer Billie Eilish has also openly called gender roles "ancient." Since her musical debut in 2016, Eilish has worn both traditionally masculine and feminine silhouettes, wearing a Marilyn Monroe inspired Oscar de la Renta gown to the Met Gala in 2021 to being referred to as a "hey mamas" lesbian after an appearance on Chicken Shop Date in 2024 where she wore an oversized tee, bandana, and backwards cap.
Another common androgyny icon in the medieval and early modern period was the Rebis, a conjoined male and female figure, often with solar and lunar motifs. Still another symbol was what is today called sun cross, which united the cross (or saltire) symbol for male with the circle for female.William Wallace Atkinson, The Secret Doctrines of the Rosicrucians (London: L.N. Fowler & Co., 1918), 53-54. This sign is now the astronomical symbol for the planet Earth.
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