Enbyflux
A non-binary gender that changes volume — fully there some weeks, faint others, sometimes gone to agender — without swapping station.
- One of twenty-three Fluid identities
- No settled flag
- 3 min read
A shorter entry: the essentials, written to the same standard. The fuller guides are on the main identities.
What it is
Enbyflux is genderflux with the gender named. Boyflux is maleness at a changing volume; girlflux is femaleness. Enbyflux is a non-binary gender at a changing volume — strongly, unmistakably non-binary some stretches, barely gendered others, and for many people all the way down to agender.
The LGBTQIA+ Wiki entry puts it this way: one may move from feeling strongly gendered, in a gender that is not strictly male or female, to being agender, to anywhere in between. Along the way the quieter readings have their own names — paragender, demigender, libragender — and some enbyflux people use those as waypoints. Some slide between levels. Some jump.
What it is not: genderfluid, where the gender itself changes. An enbyflux person is broadly the same non-binary thing throughout; what moves is how much of it there is. It is not agender with occasional noise, either. If the gender always comes back, the coming back is the point. The wiki says the exact coining date is unknown and dates the earliest reference it can find to a 2018 Tumblr post. There is no research behind it and no count of who uses it.
Pronouns
Most enbyflux people keep one set through every level, often they/them, because it holds at full volume and at none. Some add a second set for the faint stretches. There is no enbyflux pronoun, and the word says nothing about which you use.
Does this sound like you?
Take the test
Twenty questions, about four minutes, nothing leaves your phone. It suggests. You decide.
Nearby identities
The distinction is the useful part.
The umbrella. Same dial, gender unspecified. If you know the gender that fades is non-binary, enbyflux is the tighter word; if you would rather not say, genderflux covers you.
Compare Enbyflux and Genderflux →The masculine counterpart. Maleness at a changing volume. Same mechanism, different station.
Compare Enbyflux and Boyflux →The feminine counterpart. Femaleness fading and returning. If what comes back has a binary name, one of these is closer.
Compare Enbyflux and Girlflux →It might not be you if…
- The gender you keep coming back to is a man or a woman. That is boyflux or girlflux.
- What changes is which gender, not how much. Genderfluid is next door.
- It went quiet once, slowly, and has not come back. That may be agender, or something arriving, rather than a fluctuation.
- Only the discomfort moves. A non-binary person whose dysphoria spikes and settles is non-binary the whole time.
Questions people ask
Is enbyflux the same as genderflux?
It is a kind of genderflux. Genderflux says the volume moves; enbyflux says the gender at full volume is non-binary. Use whichever level of detail you want to give people.
Can I be enbyflux and genderfluid?
Yes. Some people's gender both moves and fades. Fluidflux is the word some use for both at once; others just say both and let people keep up.
Where does the word come from?
The LGBTQIA+ Wiki's earliest findable reference is a June 2018 Tumblr post; it says the exact coining date is unknown. It is a community word, not a clinical one. Nobody at your GP's surgery will know it.
Read next
Most pages about gender describe a place. This one is about movement. What it is like when the thing underneath changes, how people tell…
Guide · 14 min readAgender Identity: What It Means to Live Without GenderAsk most people what gender they feel like and something comes back. Ask an agender person and the line stays open.
This is not a clinical instrument, not a diagnosis, and not evidence of anything about anyone. It describes experiences so you can recognise your own — or rule them out.