Shadowenbian is an orientation affected by the fact one is transmasculine, a trans man or woman, transfeminine, transneutral, or just binary (includes multigender and genderfluid/genderflux/fluidflux people), as they either are dysphoric about being called nonbinary, and/or experience a disconnection from traditional enbyhood. One may describe their attraction as any of the following: MLNB; MLX; WLNB; WLX, etc – but they don’t identify their labels as NBLNB or NBLX due to reasons listed above. With a multigender and/or genderfluid/genderflux/fluidflux identity, one feels not straight when with a woman and/or has a fluctuating level of dysphoria where they may sometimes view their attraction as diamoric/enbian in nature, or as NBLNB or NBLX. To express that disconnection, the prefix shadow- is used. It can also be called shadowdiamoric.
In simpler terms, a shadowenbian may be defined as the following:
- Being multigender/genderfluid/genderflux/fluidflux but never NBLNB, yet feeling like their attraction to nonbinaries is gai.
- Being m-spec and not NBLNB, yet feeling a connection to the label.
- Being too dysphoric about being called non-binary/enby/being thought of as one, yet being either MLNB, WLNB, or XLNB with a connection to the enbian label.[1]
History
The shadow- orientations (shadowlesbian, shadowgay, and shadowfloric) were first coined by Tumblr user ashix0trender0juice on 19 July 2020, with shadowenbian and shadowstraight being coined later on 26 August 2020. The flags were made around the same time.[2]
A redesign of the shadow- flags, including a shadowdiamoric flag, were created by Tumblr user thepokedexisgay. The shadowenbian redesign was posted on 27 February 2021[3], and the shadowdiamoric flag was posted 28 February 2021.[4]