We seem to be at the center of a storm
of language shaping these last few months. Just weeks ago, Mx. joinedMr., Mrs., and Ms. in the Oxford Dictionary as a gender neutral
title. Earlier this year, folks over here in
CAYA Coven started using Priestx as a gender neutral title for our
clergy people. It was exhilarating to have a word that feels like it
describes me just right. However, we've been stuck for awhile as to
what we should call ourselves as a group. I'm genderqueer. When I am
part of a group that contains people who are metagender, agender,
gender fluid, bigender, and more, what do we call ourselves
collectively?
"Non-binary" describes us as
what we are not, which I'm not a fan of. "Gender variant"
suggests by implication that there exist a group of people who are
"gender normal." "Gender diverse" sounds nice but
is unfortunately vague. "Trans" and "trans*" are
broad and clear, but not everyone who identifies as some non-binary
gender identifies as trans.
Then, this last weekend, we had a
Rainbow Trad Hot Tub Visioning. (Yes, you read that right.) As we
were discussing gender and mulling over the various words we use, one
awesome person (thanks, Root!) said this: "What about mxgender?"
We paused. We all looked at each other. Hmmm. Mxgender, which sounds
like mix-gender, a combination of genders- something quite a lot of
us identify with? Mxgender, which draws on the already-known prefix
"Mx."? Mxgender sounds like it could hold us
all. It sounds like it could be home.
Do you like "mxgender" as a collective way of describing us? What words do you use? Share in the comments!
