Is there a word for the process of creating antonyms for minority groups?

Traditionally, when someone has been described in writing, readers have been left to make certain assumptions. People were specified as members of minority groups and when no such specification was made, the reader was left to assume that the person being described was a member of the majority group. The forward to The Food of a Younger Land calls out descriptions of implied whiteness from stated blackness, e.g. "Mrs. A.C. Jacobi of Pulaski County" (implied white) from "L.M. Rall, a Negro woman of Little Rock."

I've noticed a trend toward using adjectives to describe both majority and majority groups in order to be more inclusive. In the example above, the word white already existed. There are other situations where newer words are used for majority groups. My church works with people who do not have stable housing. Instead of talking about "homeless people," we talk about people who are unhoused and housed (the majority group). Similarly, we refer to individuals who are transgender and individuals who are cisgender (the majority group) and other gender categories as people self-apply.

I'm wondering if there is a name for the process of creating a word for a majority group that has traditionally been an assumption (or a word to describe these antonyms).

Here are a few examples:

  • "Now that so many people have developed COVID-19, we need to come up with a _________ to describe people who have never had the disease."
  • "The term 'housed' is a relatively new _________ to differentiate people with housing from people who are unhoused."
  • "'Cisgender' is a _________ that became popular in the 2010s to identify gender conforming individuals."

EDIT: Added examples.


I agree with comments above that "retronym" is a pretty decent fit here - a term retrospectively created for something previously assumed.

I also note that a frequent mechanism for their creation is "back-formation", as in your example of "housed" from the previously orphaned negative "unhoused", and arguably also "cisgender" as a retrospective antonym for "transgender".