Brainstorm: Gender Words
Hey, so I’ve been on this little kick lately to try to get people to see their gender as a list of descriptive words.
For example, I want to claim my gender as: female, androgynous, queer
The people I explain this to tend to get it — it makes sense. But then, when I ask how they identify, I get a deer-in-headlights look of “Oh! Um! Off the top of my head? I dunno!”
I have a little theory that if I handed them a list of pre-approved Gender Words, they’d have a much easier time with this exercise. Can you help me come up with this list? Be creative and colorful! Here, I’ll get it started…
butch
femme
tomboy
queen
male
female
queer
genderqueer
tranny
okay, you keep going…
Posted by Sarah Dopp on March 28th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Category: faces 16 comments »
March 28th, 2009 at 1:06 pm |
Are you familiar with the Yay Genderform! web site? They have 925 gender/sexual identity words to choose from. I discussed the Yay Genderform site (as well as Genderfork.com) in my presentation on Gender and Technology.
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March 28th, 2009 at 1:09 pm |
oh my god, that page is amazing. thank you!
(and thanks for the link to your talk!!)
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March 28th, 2009 at 1:34 pm |
Here’s two for you:
la (Scouse expression meaning: boy, lad)
Sharon’n’Tracey (used in the 80s where i grew up to describe a girl who was a bit tarty/common)
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March 28th, 2009 at 1:36 pm |
love the site but they don’t have three of the things I identify as… boi, kid, and daddy’s boy. haha.
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March 28th, 2009 at 3:04 pm |
I identify as geek. I know it doesn’t really fit your question, but that’s what came to mind first.
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March 28th, 2009 at 5:15 pm |
I like low femme
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March 28th, 2009 at 5:33 pm |
sometimes I like the gender of “cat”, not so much because cats are awesome, but because they don’t really express their gender, unless they are being sexual/reproductive…
ie. female cats don’t have visible breasts unless they have nursing kittens, etc. I know this is not biologically true necessarily, that they can probably tell each other apart by scents/hormones, but I like the fact that when you look at a cat you can’t tell what gender it is at first glance.
other gender descriptors (or ambiguizers) that I like (very dorky, I know): “peter pan”, “encyclopedia brown”!
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March 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm |
Boy, transboy, non-binary, genderfucker, rebel, fagdyke, not what you think.
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March 28th, 2009 at 7:44 pm |
TRANNYFAGGGG!
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March 29th, 2009 at 6:30 am |
Uber femme or one hot queer bitch.
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March 29th, 2009 at 10:59 am |
Of course, an easy way to come up with many more gender descriptors is to simply add modifiers before them (i.e. “hard butch” or “high femme”).
Personally, I really like the descriptor “fagette,” although I have yet to use it in conversation.
I believe “indeterminate” and “undecided” should also be added.
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March 29th, 2009 at 4:45 pm |
i kinda like “surreal” as a gender. Also “fluid”. Sometimes electric; other times blown (like a fuse).
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March 29th, 2009 at 9:03 pm |
Oi. After seeing that other page, I’m going to spend tomorrow poking about it. Aside from trannyfag at the moment, I’ll have to add to my colourfulness!
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March 30th, 2009 at 9:13 am |
This reminds me of the fun I had reading Kate Bornstein’s “My Gender Workbook”.
My words are “genderfluid butch transdyke”
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March 30th, 2009 at 2:57 pm |
fetch queer woman (a little femme/a little butch)
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April 7th, 2009 at 11:37 pm |
i like homoqueer or queero
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