Gender Envy. What is it?

In my past couple of months on the internet, I have learnt a great deal.

I have become educated on loads of topics I had either briefly heard of, or never heard of at all. Gender envy (despite it not being a new concept) was one of those that I had never heard of before.

Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash

The name itself is pretty self-explanatory but I had never really thought about the whole concept in great detail before. The whole idea of gender envy is when one feels envious of how another presents their own gender identity.

It is most commonly experienced by either trans or gender non-conforming people (however it can be experienced by cisgender people as well), them seeing someone who presents as the gender they are transitioning to or just someone who is usually comfortable in the way they present themselves.

It also doesn’t always have to be real people that the gender envy is felt towards, I have seen countless comments on fanart and other forms of art on Twitter of people saying they want some of the characters gender.

Understandably this can get confusing for cisgender people, I see it a lot on streaming platforms as well, people commenting saying they ‘want some of their gender’ however, one shouldn't be concerned. This often means that you possess desirable traits such as a certain voice pitch or even confidence in your own gender identity that GNC people do not feel they possess.

Following on from this, a lot of gender envy comes hand in hand with gender dysphoria, a feeling of distress and sadness one may get when they feel their body does not reflect their gender identity, thus wanting to ‘steal’ or ‘borrow’ someone's gender.

So if you ever hear someones voice and think to yourself… hmm I wish I sounded like that, it could definitely be gender envy.

Ranboo, a Twitch streamer that is also known on Twitter as Gender Man.

To add, experiencing gender envy is nothing to be ashamed of. The word envy can often be perceived or read as a greedy emotion (with it being one of the 7 Deadly Sins), however, craving features or attributes that people of your gender identity possess should never feel like a guilty thing.

Happy Exploring!