reflections on my gender identity as of late 💛🤍🧡 (and how my neurodivergence fits into it)
[PT: reflections on my gender identity as of late (and how my neurodivergence fits into it) /End PT.]
Meant to post this at the end of pride month, but life has been very busy as of late
Heads up, this is going to be a *really* long post. I tried to fix it up as best as I can, but I'm known to ramble. Like, a lot. Sorry!
Also, before I get to the aforementioned rambling, I want to give credit where credit is due. I would like to thank blogs like @your-bigender-big-brother and @themaveriqueagenda (please let me know if you don't want to be tagged!). I learned so much about maverinity from them, and I can never thank them enough for it. Please go support them both if you can, they totally deserve it!
TL;DR: Neurodivergence has played a big role in my gender confusion; I felt distanced from feeling like my gender actually was female, because my gender has always felt like "me." An experience unique to me that didn't fit into any existing categories. Being maverique has allowed me to recontextualize and independently define my gendered experiences, which is what I was really looking for all along.
A big part of my experience as a neurodivergent individual has been trouble understanding how to navigate the world socially and how to understand my own feelings. I like to keep things straight (ha!) in my head, and if they don't fit into the structure, they nag at me until I analyze them as thoroughly as I can. Vaguely defined concepts like gender, and how I was supposed to feel about *my* gender, have been difficult problems, especially recently.
I mean, if you ask anyone to define what "gender" really is, you might see some similarities and common themes in the responses, but there isn't a universal definition. One theme I've observed while exploring my gender is internal, subjective feelings of genderedness. For me, saying, "my gender is female" felt like a horrible oversimplification. "Female" felt like a role I was just going along with, even if it felt like a cop-out.
I understand "womanhood" because it is the social script I was told to conform to since my birth, I share (and value) many female experiences similar to other women, and it's how the world will probably always treat me at a glance. But I never really felt like a woman. Honestly, even saying that I'm just a neurodivergent girl with a neurodivergent experience of womanhood isn't satisfying. My gender has always felt like "me." Staunchly so, and I am very proud of that. It's not an offshoot of some base branch; it is wholly different because everything about me is. It's like saying my eyes are a normal color when they're actually some impossible color: nobody else could correct me on that just by interacting with me, but I would know there was something beyond description.
Furthermore, it wasn't that I just really wanted green eyes because I think they're cool, or that I couldn't tell whether my eyes were blue or grey. I haven't been picking up labels because I want to be the most special person in the world, nor have I been stuck deciding between male, female, masculine, feminine, neutral, etc. None of those categories described me. Simple as that. For example, I like my body. I do not like the fact that I have been conditioned to see it as a woman's body, or that society will treat me as a woman based on my body. Because that's not me. I'm me. In an ideal world, that would just be my gender. Because I do live amongst society, I wanted a descriptor that could accurately convey the complexities of my gender without giving a dissertation.
From the first moment I read the definition of maverique, it struck me. While other genders had to be considered, maverique resonated. It was personal, it defied conventional description, and it captured the finer fluidities of my gender without tying them back to the binary or anything derived from it.
I did drop the label for a while, though. I started to define myself through others' eyes again. When any part of myself resembled binarity, I doubted myself. I'm definitely not doing it justice when I say this, but accepting that I am maverique helped me see myself with my own eyes again. I don't need to draw from or force myself into gendered expectations. That's too rigid for who I am. I get to reshape my gendered experiences to fit my experience. Most importantly, I get to define myself by who I am rather than by the categories I do/don't fit into. I have adopted other labels that have resonated with me as well, such as genderqueer, multimav, aurorian, etc. They help describe parts of my experience a little more specifically (because I am a sucker for details).
In sum, I'm glad to be a gender that reminds me to appreciate my autonomous and unconventional nature. It has given me so much, and I dearly appreciate finding a label like this.
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I'd like to propose a term that might help in the overall discussion of maverinity, but I don't plan on making a flag for it (mostly because I'm a little out of ideas here.)
I propose: Taxic. It's a word that describes non-maverinity. Taxic genders would include man, woman, androgyne, neutrois, and agender. Qualities can also be taxic: Those would include masculine, feminine, neutral, androgynous, agenrine, and I guess technically ambiguous and heteronomous (non-autonomous.)
This term comes from the Greek root taxis meaning "order", "arrangement", or "movement toward something." While maverinity moves away from gendered governance, taxicity moves toward it.
It's used much in the same way as ordinous (and by extension, exordinous.) That means you can't be "demi-taxic" or "taxicfluid" and it's not used to describe people at all. It's simply a word to replace "non-maverine" when talking about maverinity - there are maverine genders and taxic genders; some people experience a maverine quality while others experience a taxic quality.
I found out non-outherine has its own term (tautine) and was inspired to make a similar term! I didn't make it a gender quality (with the -ine ending) but instead, it's just a descriptor. It's similar to gravinous, which means non-neutral.
Maverine (also called verine) is a gender quality typically connected to maverique, a gender that is outside of masculine, feminine, male, female, and neutral while having a distinct gendered feeling. As such, its maverine quality exists outside of masculine, feminine, neutral, and null - this is known outherine, but not all maverinities are considered such. Maverinity is tied to personal inner conviction of gender and is therefore autonomous (AUIN.) It lacks gender ambiguity or apathy.
Maverine falls under the qualities of outherine, aporine, and abinarine, but it does not fall under xenity. It is maverine-in-nature, or MVIN/mvingender.
Maverine is not a gender quality that is unorthodox by choice (which is why the main maverine gender - maverique - is “maverick-like”, a key distinction that differentiates it from the more voluntary gendermaverick identity.) Therefore, it is not related to being genderqueer or genderpunk.
(All of the above links redirect to the YB3 Wiki.)
Why "Maverinities"?
Taking inspiration from @/theoutherlings, a now deactivated blog that discusses outherinities, I find it valuable to talk about maverinities in the plural. Maverinities make up a galaxy of individual maverine experiences as well as neighboring ones. Maveriquinities are qualities and genders specific to the maverique experience. My goal is to pull the focus away from maverinity as THE quality of maverique and delve into the complexities of maverinity on its own. But maverique is not forgotten here!
All archived posts are under this tag. This is still being worked on!
Helpful Tags
Maverine/Transmaverine - all posts have the maverine tag, some others will have transmaverine/transmav
Ouiaspec/Xiaspec/Agiaspec/Niaspec/Liaspec - spectra of identities; I might forget to update this, but it's likely there's a tag for whatever is missing
Coining Post - coining posts for maverine identities
Art - not just art, but also maverine-inspired stimboards, userboxes, wallpapers, and more
Other Websites - links to info and other content from non-Tumblr websites
Videos - video content about maverinity, usually YouTube links
Not archived - coining posts I couldn't archive for some reason; feel free to help out!
I tend to prioritize coining posts, firsthand experiences, and informative posts, but you can tag me in any maverine-related post if you want it reblogged here! You can also contact me if you want any content removed.
See Also
Related Concepts (a page on this blog)
Every maverine gender I could find (Google Docs)
Every maverine gender coined by me (YB3 Wiki)
Maverine coining
Transmaverine flags (coining?)
Maverique FAQ (Tumblr page)
What Does Transmaverinity Look Like? (blog post)
A Deep Dive Into Outherinity (blog post)
The introduction of recontextualization and disidentification (sent as an ask to the YB3 blog)
dear maverine people & maverique-adjacent people who may identify with maverique but not as maverique,
you will always be welcome on this blog as people who relate to the term. especially because maverique is already so little known that it's currently not that likely to build active spaces around non-maverique maverinity, as maverinity is even less known.
if your gender quality is maverine, if your gender expression is maverine or if you have a gender that makes you relate to maverique but not quite, you belong here.
after all, all of these concepts are related to or based on maverique at least somewhat.
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I want to get more in-depth about maverinities and just noticed something. The definition of maverique does not include any mention of xenity. It is outherine, which is "not exactly xenine" (not entirely outside of xenity, but doesn't automatically include it either.) I would assume the maverine gender quality, by extension, would be similar in how it's defined by its not-exactly-xenine-ness but xenity isn't mentioned anywhere where I've seen maverique or maverine defined.
So, what is the overall perspective on maverinity in relation to xenity? How do I discuss maverinities with xenity in mind? Can maverine be more inclusive of xenity because of its unorthodox nature, while outherine is more anthrine in nature?
I'm not great at wording things (which is why all my wiki reference pages and my essays take ten years to put together.) I just want to get all the details right.
A gender quality relating to Maverinity, similar to Masculine and Feminine. Related to Maverique. Maverine can be used to describe one's gender, one's gender presentation, or both.
Two flags because I couldn't tell if a darker middle stripe was better than a lighter middle stripe (and too avoid too much similarities to existing butch flags)
Based off the Masculine and Feminine flags by Kirbirb
So I find that when my gender is maverique, or leaning towards that direction, I have the urge to present that way, but I have a very difficult time imagining what a maverine gender presentation would even look like. It would be a presentation that's not masculine or feminine, but its own thing entirely (and also not genderless or neutral) but I'm not sure what that would look like (and how it would differ from genderless presentation since I'm also genderless.)
My question is, what ideas do you have about what a maverine presentation might look like? Cause I'm struggling here.
