#culture exclusive gender

[neopronoun-user-culture-is]

neopronoun user culture is finding sets of pronouns you like and you'd like to be addressed with but fearing that they're exclusive/you're not allowed to used them (i've personally seen on pronoun list sites and similar some sets of pronouns that were said to be for some people only, that really pushed me out of trying neopronouns on myself)

Neopronoun user culture

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is being sick of "They aren't dating anyone so they must be gay/a lesbian!"

Nothing against people headcanoning characters as gay or lesbian (I'm arospec ace and gay) but like. Aromanticism exists too.

(This was brought on by seeing a slide in a PowerPoint in my English Lit lesson today (13th March), I didn't see it fully since the teacher was just skipping over it quickly to check some other context stuff but it said something about how in the book we're studying, Jekyll and Hyde, none of the major characters are in romantic relationships and therefore it's possible that they could be gay. I might bring up that they could also be aro when my teacher brings it up?)

.

[torahtot]

ok ive had enough of queering judaism. can we start judaizing queerness now. or something

[beyond-mogai-pride-flags]

Coining

Tefrenme or teferenme: a descriptor for those experiencing a culturally specific identity that could be interpreted as feminine and/or female in nature and the individual consents to this interpretation.

Tremenme: a descriptor for those experiencing a culturally specific identity that could be interpreted as masculine and/or male in nature and the individual consents to this interpretation.

Ternenme: a descriptor for those experiencing a culturally specific identity that could be interpreted as nonbinary or abinary, neutral or null, or otherwise extrine in nature and the individual consents to this interpretation.

Taberenme: a descriptor for those experiencing a culturally specific identity that could be interpreted as androgynous or ambiguous, ambiguine or androgyne and/or ambinary or mesobinary in nature, both treme- and tefre- gendered, a midbinarine combination, centrigender, or mixture, and the individual consents to this interpretation.

Tuxrenme: a descriptor for those experiencing a culturally specific identity that could be interpreted as xenic, xenine and/or xenous in nature and the individual consents to this interpretation.

The pronunciation of -en in -enme is /ẽ/ (IPA). But you can translate and pronounce in any way it's more comfortable for you. Note that these identities aren't solely about gender, it could be about sex, sexuality, orientation, attraction, relationship, presentation, or beyond.

[rjalker]

"AFAB culture" and "AMAB culture" is ⭐biological essentialism⭐

[butchlifeguard]

the she/theys vs he/theys and wlw vs mlm posts are symptoms of a larger problem within the queer community 👍

[gynkgobilobo]

Something something, the drastic difference of "gender nonconformity" prevalence between heterosexual women and homosexual women is that said phenomenon in the latter category is excused via homophobic remarks that point towards sexual orientation as determinant factor for so-said nonconformity. Sexual attraction towards females being wrongfully categorized as something "inherently male" is what drives the dismissal of gnc traits found in lesbians as something to be expected based on this brand of homophobia, casual or otherwise. The excuse does not do causation, it merely pardons its happenings

Heterosexual women however, as unable to hide under the "veil of anomaly" (which I am not at all claiming is an advantage) find themselves in the position to either delude themselves into thinking they could ever alter their sexual orientation, force themselves into conformity ("growing out of it" isn't used correctly in the context of what actually happens, i.e. coercion) or to "transition" (as in forcing conformity in a different font). It should also be mentioned that some weaponize this concept of conformity as something that determines them to be the standard of normalcy against women who do not perform up to the same standard in fear that all their shitty gendered martyrdom must've been for something (it's not, yet captains die with their ships and polly wants a cracker)

In truth, gnc culture in LGB spaces is in fact a mirror into the untapped potential of heterosexual society should they renounce the laws of "gender"

[wasmormon]

Believe Absurdities, Commit Atrocities

Voltaire’s quote, “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” can be applied to the history and doctrines of the Mormon Church by examining some of its teachings and the actions inspired by them. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” – Voltaire, French Writer, Philosopher and Historian. 1694-1778. Those who can make you…

[radiomogai]

[start ID: two similar images are attached. all two images show a rectangular flag with 7 straight horizontal stripes. from top to bottom, the stripe colours are black, pinkish red, pink, white, light blue, blue, and black. the first image has a snowflake made up of blue diamond-shaped crystals over the flag. the second image has the plain flag. end ID.]

ID by @idescription

✦ 　── 　 SAPPHEIR ( pronounced saff - air ): is a term for afro-american individuals who are AFAB, but do not identify as women outside of the context of being a black woman in america, largely due to how society perceives them.

✧ 　── 　 those who identify as sappheir do so specifically in reclamation of the “sapphire,” or “angry black woman” trope, which originated in america. sappheirs take pride in being ( perceived as ) black woman, and embrace whatever biases that are held against them.

✧ 　── 　 this term is exclusive to afro-american ( as in, soulaan ) afab individuals who are under the transgender / nonbinary umbrella.

tagging: @idescription ( for image ids ). @vampitsm. @gender-goth.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

It became clear to me that the reasoning of those who reject an inclusive approach relies on what they call a 'plain' or 'common sense' reading of the Bible. In his book A Place at His Table Joel Hollier explains that:

In many Protestant (especially Reformed, evangelical) circles, there is a stated theological method that seeks to take any given text at face value – we call it the 'plain reading' of a passage . . . [It] is rather more enigmatic than we would often like to admit. The reality is that everything that we read in the Bible is filtered by 2,000 years worth is theologizing through social, cultural, and political data, culminating in a strangely personalized framework . . . radically informed by our class, gender, family history, education, and political persuasions . . . If all my years in theological education taught me one thing, it is that those who hold that there are plain readings of a text are, in a strange way, misguided. There are 'informed readings', and there are 'more informed readings', but nobody approaches any text entirely neutral.

This, then, calls for epistemic humility, by which I mean a willingness to listen lots and form a view carefully.

"In/Out: A Scandalous Story of Falling Into Love and Out of the Church" - Steph Lentz

[liom-archive]

(pasted from under cut)

zachar is roughly equivalent to "male," and nekevah is to "female." tumtum is neither, lacking identifying gendered characteristics, and androgynos is both, having characteristics of both a zachar and a nekevah. ay'lonit is someone who was identified a nekevah a birth, but later gained traits associated with a zachar, and saris was identified a zachar at birth and later gained a nekevah's traits.

these are jewish genders/sexes, described in jewish religious & legal texts. they can be "hamah," through natural development, or "adam," through human intervention, e.g. a "saris adam" could be assigned male at birth but transition later in life, while a "saris hamah" was assigned male but later naturally developed sex characteristics commonly associated with someone assigned female. so, in short, just like how many conceive of "male" and "female" as something you can be born into or transition into, you can be born into or transition into these genders. you can also have your gender change due to an unintentional injury to the hormone regulators/producers that causes a change in the way your body operates.

they are of a physical nature rather than a more internal one: while they contain transgender experience as well as intersex experience, they depend upon your physicality, as noted above, and serve a legal purpose: you can walk into a congregation and tell a rabbi you're tumtum, and the expectations of your halachic practice in that congregation may change. in slightly older parlance you might associate the "adam" side of these experiences more with "transsexual" than "transgender," if you had to make a comparison.

and on that note: they are not the same as and do not smoothly translate into the LGBT community's standard terms and definitions surrounding sex & trans and nonbinary identity, and are exclusive to the cultural context of judaism. the jewish people have a six-aspect (or arguably ten- or twelve-aspect, depending on how you separate adam and hamah and whether you apply them to zachar and nekevah) gender system where the genders other than zachar and nekevah are on equal cultural standing and not "nonbinary" because we do not have a binary, like the exclusive "male" and "female" western-christian system.

in order from top->bottom and left->right:

zachar, ay'lonit, nekevah tumtum, androgynos, saris

under the cut i'll provide more information on these identities and their place in judaism, including what makes a person one of these genders.

goyim are ok to reblog this if you want to share it with jewish people, but if you start messing around with these or try to give any commentary on it i will fuck your whole life

zachar is roughly equivalent to "male," and nekevah is to "female." tumtum is neither, lacking identifying gendered characteristics, and androgynos is both, having characteristics of both a zachar and a nekevah. ay'lonit is someone who was identified a nekevah a birth, but later gained traits associated with a zachar, and saris was identified a zachar at birth and later gained a nekevah's traits.

these are jewish genders/sexes, described in jewish religious & legal texts. they can be "hamah," through natural development, or "adam," through human intervention, e.g. a "saris adam" could be assigned male at birth but transition later in life, while a "saris hamah" was assigned male but later naturally developed sex characteristics commonly associated with someone assigned female. so, in short, just like how many conceive of "male" and "female" as something you can be born into or transition into, you can be born into or transition into these genders. you can also have your gender change due to an unintentional injury to the hormone regulators/producers that causes a change in the way your body operates.

they are of a physical nature rather than a more internal one: while they contain transgender experience as well as intersex experience, they depend upon your physicality, as noted above, and serve a legal purpose: you can walk into a congregation and tell a rabbi you're tumtum, and the expectations of your halachic practice in that congregation may change. in slightly older parlance you might associate the "adam" side of these experiences more with "transsexual" than "transgender," if you had to make a comparison.

and on that note: they are not the same as and do not smoothly translate into the LGBT community's standard terms and definitions surrounding sex & trans and nonbinary identity, and are exclusive to the cultural context of judaism. the jewish people have a six-aspect (or arguably ten- or twelve-aspect, depending on how you separate adam and hamah and whether you apply them to zachar and nekevah) gender system where the genders other than zachar and nekevah are on equal cultural standing and not "nonbinary" because we do not have a binary, like the exclusive "male" and "female" western-christian system.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Analysis of data from dozens of foraging societies around the world shows that women hunt in at least 79% of these societies, opposing the widespread belief that men exclusively hunt and women exclusively gather. Abigail Anderson of Seattle Pacific University, US, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on June 28, 2023. A common belief holds that, among foraging populations, men have typically hunted animals while women gathered plant products for food. However, mounting archaeological evidence from across human history and prehistory is challenging this paradigm; for instance, women in many societies have been found buried alongside big-game hunting tools. Some researchers have suggested that women's role as hunters was confined to the past, with more recent foraging societies following the paradigm of men as hunters and women as gatherers. To investigate that possibility, Anderson and colleagues analyzed data from the past 100 years on 63 foraging societies around the world, including societies in North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and the Oceanic region. They found that women hunt in 79% of the analyzed societies, regardless of their status as mothers. More than 70% of female hunting appears to be intentional—as opposed to opportunistic killing of animals encountered while performing other activities, and intentional hunting by women appears to target game of all sizes, most often large game. The analysis also revealed that women are actively involved in teaching hunting practices and that they often employ a greater variety of weapon choice and hunting strategies than men.

These findings suggest that, in many foraging societies, women are skilled hunters and play an instrumental role in the practice, adding to the evidence opposing long-held perceptions about gender roles in foraging societies. The authors note that these stereotypes have influenced previous archaeological studies, with, for instance, some researchers reluctant to interpret objects buried with women as hunting tools. They call for reevaluation of such evidence and caution against misapplying the idea of men as hunters and women as gatherers in future research. The authors add, "Evidence from around the world shows that women participate in subsistence hunting in the majority of cultures."

[ohnoitstbskyen]

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

[haru-dipthong]

Gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the main character Utena is a girl (it says so in the title), but very conspicuously uses the masculine first person pronoun 僕 (boku) and dresses in (a variation of) the boys school uniform. Utena's gender, and gender in general, is a core theme of the work. And yet, I haven’t seen a single translation or analysis post where anyone considers using anything other than she/her for Utena when speaking of her in English. This made me wonder: how does one’s choice of pronouns in Japanese correspond to what one’s preferred pronouns would be in English?

There are 3 main differences between gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

Japanese pronouns are used to refer to yourself (first-person), while English pronouns are used to refer to others (third-person)

The Japanese pronoun you use will differ based on context

Japanese pronouns signify more than just gender

Let’s look at each of these differences in turn and how these differences might lead to a seeming incongruity between one’s Japanese pronoun choice and one’s English pronoun choice (such as the 僕 (boku) vs she/her discrepancy with Utena).

Part 1: First-person vs third-person

While Japanese does technically have gendered third person pronouns （彼、彼女） they are used infrequently¹ and have much less cultural importance placed on them than English third person pronouns. Therefore, I would argue that the cultural equivalent of the gender-signifying third-person pronoun in English is the Japanese first-person pronoun. Much like English “pronouns in bio”, Japanese first-person pronoun choice is considered an expression of identity.

Japanese pronouns are used exclusively to refer to yourself, and therefore a speaker can change the pronoun they’re using for themself on a whim, sometimes mid-conversation, without it being much of an incident. Meanwhile in English, Marquis Bey argues that “Pronouns are like tiny vessels of verification that others are picking up what you are putting down” (2021). By having others use them and externally verify the internal truth of one’s gender, English pronouns, I believe, are seen as more truthful, less frivolous, than Japanese pronouns. They are seen as signifying an objective truth of the referent’s gender; if not objective then at least socially agreed-upon, while Japanese pronouns only signify how the subject feels at this particular moment — purely subjective.

Part 2: Context dependent pronoun use

Japanese speakers often don’t use just one pronoun. As you can see in the below chart, a young man using 俺 (ore) among friends might use 私 (watashi) or 自分 (jibun) when speaking to a teacher. This complicates the idea that these pronouns are gendered, because their gendering depends heavily on context. A man using 私 (watashi) to a teacher is gender-conforming, a man using 私 (watashi) while drinking with friends is gender-non-conforming. Again, this reinforces the relative instability of Japanese pronoun choice, and distances it from gender.

Part 3: Signifying more than gender

English pronouns signify little besides the gender of the antecedent. Because of this, pronouns in English have come to be a shorthand for expressing one’s own gender experience - they reflect an internal gendered truth. However, Japanese pronoun choice doesn’t reflect an “internal truth” of gender. It can signify multiple aspects of your self - gender, sexuality, personality.

For example, 僕 (boku) is used by gay men to communicate that they are bottoms, contrasted with the use of 俺 (ore) by tops. 僕 (boku) may also be used by softer, academic men and boys (in casual contexts - note that many men use 僕 (boku) in more formal contexts) as a personality signifier - maybe to communicate something as simplistic as “I’m not the kind of guy who’s into sports.” 俺 (ore) could be used by a butch lesbian who still strongly identifies as a woman, in order to signify sexuality and an assertive personality. 私 (watashi) may be used by people of all genders to convey professionalism. The list goes on.

I believe this is what’s happening with Utena - she is signifying her rebellion against traditional feminine gender roles with her use of 僕 (boku), but as part of this rebellion, she necessarily must still be a girl. Rather than saying “girls don’t use boku, so I’m not a girl”, her pronoun choice is saying “your conception of femininity is bullshit, girls can use boku too”.

Through translation, gendered assumptions need to be made, sometimes about real people. Remember that he/they, she/her, they/them are purely English linguistic constructs, and don’t correspond directly to one’s gender, just as they don’t correspond directly to the Japanese pronouns one might use. Imagine a scenario where you are translating a news story about a Japanese genderqueer person. The most ethical way to determine what pronouns they would prefer would be to get in contact with them and ask them, right? But what if they don’t speak English? Are you going to have to teach them English, and the nuances of English pronoun choice, before you can translate the piece? That would be ridiculous! It’s simply not a viable option². So you must make a gendered assumption based on all the factors - their Japanese pronoun use (context dependent!), their clothing, the way they present their body, their speech patterns, etc.

If translation is about rewriting the text as if it were originally in the target language, you must also rewrite the gender of those people and characters in the translation. The question you must ask yourself is: How does their gender presentation, which has been tailored to a Japanese-language understanding of gender, correspond to an equivalent English-language understanding of gender? This is an incredibly fraught decision, but nonetheless a necessary one. It’s an unsatisfying dilemma, and one that poignantly exposes the fickle, unstable, culture-dependent nature of gender.

Notes and References

¹ Usually in Japanese, speakers use the person’s name directly to address someone in second or third person

² And has colonialist undertones as a solution if you ask me - “You need to pick English pronouns! You ought to understand your gender through our language!”

Bey, Marquis— 2021 Re: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender

Rose divider taken from this post

[radiomogai]

[PT: Refligender. end PT]

Refligender

Refligender: An angelic gender that reflects one’s commitment to God and their belief in Jesus as the human God.

This is a gender for people who identify as angels and is specific to Christians.

Term coined by: @powerpuffblossom

[Image: A flag whose upper half is white, and whose lower half is red. In the lower-right corner, there is a circle with large wings and a short tail, all yellow. The circle is filled in but the wings and tail are just outlines. It looks similar to a golden snitch from Harry Potter.]

Full size [Here]

Designed by: @powerpuffblossom

Color meanings: Unknown

Full pride gallery HERE! FAQ and “dictionary” of genders, orientations, and other related terms HERE. Send any questions to Ask-Pride-Color-Schemes!