#ideobinary

The alibinary system - viabinary, mesobinary, ideobinary and exobinary - is meant to be a set of self-applied labels describing one's relationship with the woman/man binary in a more specific way than the word nonbinary does.

These words, therefore, should not be extrapolated to mean:

Relationships to any genders (for instance, viabinary isn't meant to be used to describe being close to maverique or neuangi; there are words such as paragender available for that instead)

Someone's gender identity, presentation or alignment (for instance, someone can be an exobinary juxera or a viabinary agender person)

Any specific subset of nonbinary gender identities (for instance, nonvir isn't inherently an ideobinary identity, because the reasons one may identify as nonvir may differ from person to person and some might identify with exobinary or viabinary rather than ideobinary)

I know about fiagender/miagender/niagender/etc. being based on the word viabinary. That's fine! Because, as I said on another post, those can be separated from the idea of trying to claim these experiences as inherently viabinary.

I also understand the impulse of trying to categorize every label in accurate ways and thus conclude there are certain gender identities that always correspond to any specific label under the alibinary system, but a lot of nonbinary people don't go for the most accurate labels they can. A lot of people use "demigirl" to mean "feminine nonbinary person" or "masc agender" to mean "genderless person who doesn't like being gendered but who doesn't want to call out being constantly misgendered as a man and who prefers that over being misgendered as a woman".

For those of us who live in exorsexist societies, there's value in being able to tell "I'm nonbinary and I relate to a binary gender", "I'm nonbinary and I relate to both binary genders more or less equally", "I'm nonbinary and I don't relate to binary genders, but my identity is dependent on the idea of binary genders somehow" and/or "I'm nonbinary and I'm completely outside of the binary". All of those terms were conceived because of intracommunity discussions leaving folks feel erased.

Being a nonvirmina means I consider my gender identity deeply related to both femininity and masculinity, even though it's completely separate from woman and man.

In my case, this manifests when it comes to gender roles or presentation aspects that "feel right", especially when it comes to projecting myself in characters or situations, while I reject the idea of being a woman or a man because being categorized as either (or both, or in between) would make me very dysphoric. At times, my desire to express femininity and masculinity clashes, as certain aspects of these qualities are felt as incompatible with each other.

But while nonvirmina describes part of my gender experience, at some point I felt some kind of emptiness only describing my gender as such. Sure, it is feminine and masculine and not binary, but what else is there to it? Others use nonera/nonvir/nonvirmina to describe aspects of other genders, and, over time, I found myself identifying with that notion as well.

This is where being lichtgender comes in. This gender is defined as being better described as a big ball of light. And not only this felt like an accurate way to describe my gender when I reflected on how it looked like, it's also a very good metaphor for my nonbinary identity in general.

I am very much neither a woman nor a man. And, unlike some other nonbinary folks, this is very relevant to me: I don't want to settle down for nongendered wording when binary folks get to have their genders affirmed, I'm not comfortable being in women's or men's spaces beyond safety or misgendering issues, I don't want my pronouns to be the default ones for hypothetical people or mixed groups.

However, because of the connection I have with both masculinity and femininity, vocabulary such as aporagender or neutrois ends up being alienating to me: sure, these are labels that can be used by anyone with a gender that is neither woman nor man, but I feel like their intent wasn't to include any sort of connections to those genders.

Is my gender neutral? I'm not sure. My gender is aggressively not binary, but, at the same time, it's like it doesn't have many other particular qualities, and it's feminine and masculine as well, which can be kind of considered some sort of neutral state between various aspects. I only consider myself to have a single gender with multiple aspects to it as well, instead of a polygender person with a feminine gender, a masculine gender and a completely abinary gender.

Lichtgender, however, makes me able to express my gender in an inherently nonbinary way without having to commit to describing it as neutral or not neutral, or as aporine or not aporine, and so on. This is an advantage I don't see being explicitly talked about when it comes to being xenogender: it's not only about being able to talk about aspects of gender beyond the binary and proximity or opposition to it, but also about not having to position a gender or gender identity as possessing or not possessing one of those aspects.

I wouldn't be opposed to joining a community for censaris (people comfortable within the gender neutral spectrum with strong connections to both femininity and masculinity), if there was an existing one out there, for instance: it's definitely a closer experience to mine than, say, genderfluid or agender experiences. However, when it comes to communities more specific than nonbinary ones, the ones that are usually available to me end up being xenogender communities.

I coined the alibinary system (also at @alibinary) partly in response to the midbinary/abinary split, which doesn't acknowledge the differences between folks aligned to one part of the woman/man gender binary, folks who have connections to both sides of the gender binary and folks whose identities are related to binary genders but still not binary (not just many nonvirs/noneras/nonvirminas/nonangis, but also many antiwomen/antimen/antiandrogynes).

Viaboy (viamale, viaman/viamen, viadude, viaguy): male viabinary identity; miagender (miaspec gender); relating to having an experience similar to a binary manhood, while not being 100% that aptobinary male gender (aptoma/aptomagender).

Ideomasculine (ideomasc): ideobinary masculine identity; relating to having an experience that rely on masculinity or other “projections” of MIN (masculine in nature) ideas, without being (necessarily) close to aptobinary masculinity (aptomin/aptomingender).

1. Masculinity is often treated as the same as maleness, and femininity is often treated as the same as femaleness, including within nonbinary communities.

This means it’s hard to trust that alignment, presentation, orientation, and other kinds of labels are meant to include me, who has a gender that is masculine and feminine but not male or female.

2. People throw “masc aligned” and “fem aligned” around, but they don’t give any thought as to if or how those are different from “male aligned” and “female aligned”.

People frequently say juxera is a feminine gender and proxvir is a masculine one, ignoring how the original post says nothing about this.

People say finsexual is sexual attraction to feminine people, but if someone says they are attracted to girls and demigirls and not really comfortable with feminamoric or bi, fin will be suggested.

Ceterogender is a nonbinary gender which may be masculine, feminine or neutral, but ceterogender flags are called ceteroboy and ceterogirl.

Librafeminine and libragirl are considered synonyms. Same for libramasculine and libraboy.

3. There are not many popular ideobinary-leaning labels.

Sure, some people use nonbinary girl/boy or demigirl/boy and mean “I have a feminine/masculine gender which is not binary”, but most people will explain those labels as “I’m partly a binary gender” or “my gender is similar to a binary gender but not quite the same” or “I’m mostly not binary at all but I feel some connection with being a girl/boy”.

Transfeminine and transmasculine are often used in a more female-adjacent and male-adjacent sense, even if they have feminine/masculine in the name.

Labels such as ceterogender, femgender, mascgender, faesari, cenrell, rubygender, sapphiregender, nonvir, nonera, ungender, telegender, altegender? Largely unused.

This contributes to the idea that your gender identity is either close to the binary or entirely detached from it. Which is something I’ve seen while people separated identities between midbinary and abinary, or between solarian, lunarian and stellarian.

4. How can I deal with dysphoria if my gender is not tied to aesthetic, to neutrality, to genderlessness or to binary genders? How can I approach masculinity without approaching maleness, or approach femininity without approaching femaleness?

Some can say they have any masculine and/or feminine binary gender, while others conflate femininity with femaleness as well as masculinity with maleness. However, being nonbinary depends on whether each person considers their gender a different experience of binary gender or a gender identity that's at least partially separate from the binary.

I'd say this is similar to questions such as "are trans men/women nonbinary, since they tend to be alienated from binary cis folks", "are GNC folks nonbinary since they may feel disconnected from the gender roles imposed on them because of their assigned gender" or "are gay men and lesbian women nonbinary since they're rejecting something associated with their assigned gender": sure, some of those folks are completely justified in saying they're nonbinary because of that detachment from the norm, but that doesn't mean everyone with those experiences is going to claim they're nonbinary and that doesn't mean any of those "sides" is wrong.

This is one of the reasons why terms such as ideobinary and viabinary have to do with how one positions themself with regards to the binary, instead of being about "if you're femgender you're ideobinary while if you're a nonbinary woman you're viabinary". Someone may say they're a nonbinary woman for having a feminine nonbinary gender that doesn't quite fit into the binary besides the femininity, while someone else might be a nonbinary woman for having strong ties to being a woman while being distinctly masculine. So the first nonbinary woman may say they're ideobinary while the second may say they're viabinary.

Viagirl (viafemale, viawoman, viagal): female viabinary identity; fiagender (fiaspec gender); relating to having an experience similar to a binary womanhood, while not being 100% that aptobinary female gender (aptofe/aptofegender).

Ideomasculine (ideomasc): relating to having an experience that rely on masculinity or other “projections” of MIN (masculine in nature) ideas, without being (necessarily) close to aptobinary masculinity (aptomideo/aptomideogender).

Ideofemininity (ideofem): a word for those who relate to having an experience that rely on femininity or other “projections” of FIN (feminine in nature) ideas, without being (necessarily) close to binary genders.