#mesobinary

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.

Mal from Total Drama is a bi gay alloarospec allorospec tulipian veldarcian biologievilgender viabinary mesobinary evilic proxvir pixelgirl duo-binary boy who uses he/him, they/them, and it/its pronouns!

It's in an unlabeled relationship with his co-host Mike, a bisexual genderqueer cistrans girlspike linproche boy who presents fluidly and uses he/him pronouns!

They're both in a queerplatonic relationship with Svetlana, a bi straight lesbian transfeminine girl who uses she/her pronouns!

Viandrogyne/viandrogynous, viaandrogyne/viaangi/viaandrogynous, viafemache, viavire/viaavire, viavirmina, viagynandre/viagynandrous, viapurella/viapuerella, viaeravir, viabirl/viabyrl, viaboygirl/viagirlboy, viaguygal/viagalguy or viambinary/viaambinary: being both viawoman/viafemale/viaera/viagirl/viagal/viapuella/viafemina/vialady/viavira/vialier (viagyne/viagynous/viagyny) and viaman/viamale/viavir/viaboy/viaguy/viapuer (viawerman/viawereman/viandrous/viaandrous/viandre/viaandre/viandry/viaandry) or viafem (viafemininity/viafeminine/viafemme) and viamasc (viamasculine/viamasculinity).

Viandrogyny/viaandrogyny (viagynandry) is both on mesobinary/ambibinary and viabinary spectrums. It’s not a viagender (as liaspec/liagender).

Non-gibberish definition: a word for those who relate to having an experience similar or close to both binary genders, while not (necessarily) being 100% ambinary. 

Fiagender Spectrum / Fiaspec: an umbrella term similar to FINgender for anyone on the "female" viabinary-to-binary spectrum; anyone whose gender is female, partly female (but not partly miagender), or in some way similar to/resemblant of femaleness (without necessarily being FIN), ex: nonbinary woman, lunarian/woman-aligned, demigirl, gxrl, xirl, juxera, altegirl. Can also be used as a gender identity all on its own.

Miagender Spectrum / Miaspec: an umbrella term similar to MINgender for anyone on the "male" viabinary-to-binary spectrum; anyone whose gender is male, partly male (but not partly fiagender), or in some way similar to/resemblant of maleness (without necessarily being MIN), ex: nonbinary man, solarian/man-aligned, demiboy, bxy, xoy, proxvir, alteboy. Can also be used as a gender identity all on its own.

Meso/Liagender Spectrum / Meso/Liaspec: for anyone whose gender is both fia- and mia-; anyone with a mesogender (including femache centrigender & ambigender). Liagender can also be used as its own identity.

(Use of terms in conjunction with "spec" or "spectrum" refers to the whole spectrum. "Mia/Fia/Liagender people" would refer to anyone who identifies as one of these.)

Note: these are different from F- and M-gender, because they do not include certain ideobinary concepts (specifically FIN/MINgenders). Fiaspec people don't necessarily have to identify with notions of femininity or be feminine-aligned, nor miaspec people with masculinity. For example, the fiaspec umbrella term would not include neularian-aligned people, as we identify with "neutral" femininity rather than femininity and womanhood; it would, however, include terms like NINgirl or MINgirl.

What is alibinary?

Alibinary is a word made from the prefix ali-, meaning other, and the word binary. I’m using this word because the system I coined has to do with how different people who are not binary have different relationships to the gender binary.

I think just using nonbinary would make this information hard to find and make this system hard to talk about, since there are many nonbinary systems already.

That said, I don’t think alibinary is meant to be an identity on its own here; please use alibinary system (or AS) when talking about the system, or “people who use the AS/alibinary system”, not “alibinary people” or “alibinary community” or whatever.

But ali is similar to allistic! Appropriation!

1. I’m autistic myself.

2. I don’t think coining new words based on prefixes or using words such as alias, alibi and alien constitutes any sort of appropriation.

3. Alibinary and allistic don’t even look similar.

What is this system composed of?

Viabinary, a word for those who relate to having an experience similar to a binary gender, while not being 100% that binary gender;

Mesobinary, a word for those who relate to having an experience of both binary genders, or to having an experience of being in-between binary genders;

Ideobinary, a word for those who relate to having an experience that does rely on binary or binary-related concepts, while not relating to have an experience that is similar of that of a binary gender;

Exobinary, a word for those who relate to having an experience that is completely independent of binary genders, or at least outside of binary experiences.

In the future, I hope to have more detailed posts for each of these experiences.

Isn’t it problematic/bad/exorsexist/binarist to have all of these based on the binary?

Since binary genders are considered to be the norm, at least in most Western societies, I think it’s fair to say our relationships to the gender binary may affect how we experience exorsexism, dysphoria, erasure, and so on. This is why these terms are the way they are.

If you don’t feel like they apply to your reality, if you don’t feel like sharing spaces with people with completely different identities even if you face similar issues in some ways, or if you are uncomfortable with this system, you are free to not use those terms or participate on communities based on those terms.

What about people with multiple genders? Or genderfluid people? Or people who relate to more than one of those?

Anyone is free to use as many of these labels they want, if they feel like they apply to them.

Someone may say they are mainly exobinary but also relate to some ideobinary stuff, or that they are genderfluid and experience exobinary, mesobinary and viabinary issues at different times, and so on.

Is mascgender a viabinary or ideobinary identity?

This system is based on what issues one is/feels affected by, not on what gender identity someone is. A mascgender person may relate to both, or to one of those, or to none of those; that may vary from person to person.

If you are unsure of what applies to you, you may want to read more on each of these terms.

Are there combo terms?

Not for now. If someone wants to make them, I don’t mind, but I think having more content for the system as it is should be more of a priority than coining more terms.

I want this system to be useful, instead of being just another set of identities and flags that people are like “oh cool” before moving into the next ones when the set is finished, with no one remembering which term means what one week later.

Is there a term for those who don’t fit any of these?

Not for now. If you feel like there is a specific set of issues that may need a word within this system (as opposed to something that may just be described as, say, neurogender issues, pomogender issues, aporagender issues or genderfluid issues), feel free to talk about it!

As for a term that just means “none of the above”, I don’t see how that would be helpful, at least for now. I don’t think you can manage to fit everyone who doesn’t fit into this system as people who face the same kinds of issues, and it’s not like anyone is being forced to choose between viabinary, mesobinary, exobinary and ideobinary, so if you don’t fit anything, I don’t see any reason to want to have a word for it at all. Most people don’t even know about this system!

Anyways, this system is not meant to replace any other sort of terminology. You can still identify as agender, lunarian, xenic, singularian, genderqueer, undefined, quoigender, apogender, genderflux, gendersylph, colorgender, nonbinary girl or whatever your other identities are, regardless if you use the alibinary system or not.

Don’t you think this system can erase certain issues?

This system is meant to bring up issues and discussions that are not taken care of if we are talking about people who aren’t binary as a whole, or if we are talking about issues within specific communities only.

This system is not meant to be a replacement for talking about more general or more specific issues.

We can still talk about aporagender issues. We can still talk about exorsexism. We can still talk about maverique specific issues. We can still talk about solarian specific issues. We can still talk about juxera specific issues. We can still talk about gender reductionism. We can still talk about bigotry targeting genderfluid people. We can still talk about hatred against xenogender identities. We can still talk about agender spectrum erasure. We can still talk about erasure of anyone who is not binary from transgender communities, or from “LGBT” communities as a whole.

Mesobinary is a term for people who feel like their gender identity and/or experience is related to both binary genders in some way.

It’s mainly a term for discussing the issues of having such an identity, while living in an exorsexist society that constantly tells/forces/etc. people to pick one binary gender.

You can read more about it and the system it’s in here, here and/or here.

Mesobinary, and other alibinary system terms, are not genders, or gender alignments, or ways to group specific gender identities. One can identify as mesobinary for being a man/woman bigender person or a man/woman androgyne, but one can also be a librandrogyne, an altefluid person, an ambonec, a millegender person, a genderfae person, a nonbinary person without further labels, and so on, and identify as mesobinary.

Meso means middle. My intention in coining mesobinary as such has to do with how mesobinary people are often asked/forced to “pick a side” between labels for men and labels for women, groups for men and groups for women, and so on, when they /do/ have ties to both of these groups, and thus they are in a way “in-between” those choices, regardless of their actual gender identity, or regardless of their actual preferences regarding those choices (man, woman, both, neither or in-between when that’s possible).

I’m using meso here to give people a starting point to remember this term. The same goes for exobinary, ideobinary and viabinary. These are just okay-ish prefixes, and not necessarily accurate depictions of the gender identities people in each of those groups use.

However, someone asked me (it’s on this blog) about changing the term or using an alternate term, because people who relate to being both men and women in some way while not relating to being “in-between” binary genders may think mesobinary can’t describe them accurately.

I talked with other people about this, and one of them asked me to make this post, separate from the ask, so people can see the context before responding.