an acquired taste

here is the wording from the original coining:

a Stellar Nonbinary Person, or Stellarian, would be someone who does not experience strong alignment with either binary gender, or who rejects such alignment

(source)

stellarian basically means any gender alignment that isn't binary. but of course people went and misconstrued it as a lack of alignment - because someone who is neither male nor female (aligned) can only be nothing (aligned) or a neutral alignment - because neutrality is the only other option besides male and female.

stellarian originally included neutral alignments, xenogender alignments, agender alignments, maverique alignments and more.

but over the years it's been watered down so much to just "neutral" or "unaligned" that many people the term was intended for no longer felt like stellarian was the right fit.

spacialian for xenogender-aligned & boötian for agender-aligned are some examples for terms that would fall under the original definition of stellarian.

and with the continuous misdefinition of stellarian and the creation of new terms, i can't help but notice how none of these terms describe me anymore, how a term that was intended for me was taken away (again) and none of the substitutes apply to me.

i'm a maverique and stellarian in its original definition actually is the perfect term for me - i align myself not only with other maveriques but with everyone whose gender is not related to the binary, i have called this "other-aligned" before. these genders and experiences feel at least somewhat similar to mine. however, it is incorrect to call myself neutral-aligned because my alignment is so much broader. it is incorrect to call myself unaligned because i am not without alignment. the other, newer terms are also incorrect because xenogender-aligned, kenochoric-aligned etc. do not tell the full story.

and most importantly, none of these new definitions or new terms include maveriques by name or at least by description. stellarian, with its broadness, did.

now most queer wikis will define stellarian as "neutral-aligned" or "unaligned". at best, they will use a lack of binary alignment synonymously with neutral or lack of alignment, at worst they erase the original definition entirely.

and i'm wondering, will we ever get it back?

Charles: my old friend, my love, we could have retired to a house by the sea where no one knows us and I would have kissed you in the sunshine and tenderly fed you fresh fruit every day for breakfast had shit not gotten real. Please reconsider your decision to kill us.

i just miss when other trans people didn’t look at me like they don’t even know what to do with me. i know being trans comes with issues and exclusion no matter what, but it hurts even more when it comes from inside the community.