anon: in terms of the metalline discussion:

i think my biggest problem with it is that its hard to determine its meaning from the sound of the word alone

i like the term “intragender” a little better, because at least that someone can hear and have a little bit of an idea of what it might refer to.

otherwise i worry it would get lost in the mogai and have people tune out without looking into it at all

(nothing against mogai genders btw, but this community is… its different. its less individualistic. that and we need to outreach a little more i feel. get the news out to others of us who dont realize how many of us there are)

viscasi:

Important discussion about terminology below!

Meaning from Context of Familiar Words

i think my biggest problem with it is that its hard to determine its meaning from the sound of the word alone

Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. Though, I think all words start out that way, and I also think that once the word “allinity” is more established* the meaning will be a lot more obvious. I mean, the word “metalline” is basically a 1 to 1 with “transgender,” which seems quite straightforward to me, provided the person in question is familiar with “allinity.”

* And that might not take long, either; I could actually see “allinity” catching on quite easily, given that it’s not an aspect of identity limited to a small group of people– nearly everyone has an allinity identity, and it’s a part of someone’s identity that means a LOT to most of those people. So, I could see a lot of people feeling relieved to have a word for it and becoming familiar with it relatively quickly.

Intragender

If we decide to find a different term than “metalline” anyway, though– I like the way “intragender” sounds, but I think it might pose a couple of issues. Primarily:

1. The etymological meaning of “intragender” is something along the lines of “internal experience of gender” or “internal gender” (“intra”/within + gender), which is already “gender identity”.
2. It could also be easily misinterpreted as a gender identity itself, being closer in composition to “agender,” “bigender,” “autigender,” and mogai genders like “pupgender,” etc.
3. (Tangent, but come to think of it– it almost sounds like it could be a word to act as a mean between “transgender” and “cisgender,” like a sort of grey area, like one anon I answered before was asking about… they might appreciate that, actually.)

Mogai

I hear you on the concern with being falsely perceived as part of mogai, though. I second that it’s not to condemn mogai for any reason, just that, as you said, the nature of our community is not individualistic enough for it to make sense to categorize it as mogai, so for that reason it should be avoided if possible.

But, I think to some extent, any queer identity that a person is unfamiliar with is going to be mentally categorized as “mogai” or “one of those random niche genders” until they become more familiar with it. Even if we’re using familiar root words (like “gender” in “intragender”), a lot of mogai labels use familiar root words too. It’s more so the unfamiliar combination, I think, that makes people’s brains glaze over a bit.

On the bright side, because this identity isn’t as individualistic as mogai identities, there are a lot more of us in number– which means it will be a lot easier to get people familiar with our terminology, as opposed to many mogai identities that are limited to one or a handful of people whose identity label might come across someone’s screen once in passing in someone’s bio and never again. There’s enough of us that I’m very willing to bet we could raise significant awareness for ourselves.

I also want to make a quick note that one thing that will set our terminology apart from mogai effectively is being diligent about constructing them methodically (at least for the most part– obviously we have some words like “Calico” that break this rule.) Modelling them after what already exists, being intentional about root words, etc.

Just an example of what I mean by “constructed methodically”, for anyone who missed the etymology behind the “metalline” proposal:

“met-” = across, between, with, after, behind, over, or about, denoting some transformation or exchange between modes (functionally very similar to “trans-”) + “alline”, derived from “allinity,” which breaks down into “all-” = including or the sum of parts, “in” = within, “ity” = denoting a state or quality (derived from “masculinity” and “femininity”). So, “metalline” is, literally: Across modes of internal qualities, or an internal state differing from another.

Criticisms of Metalline

1. Ultimately, my reasoning behind the word doesn’t really matter if we can find a better alternative that does the same thing and is received better by more people.
2. It almost sounds like “metal,” or “metallic,” which may throw a few people off at first glance. However… it’ll be pretty hard to avoid phonetic similarities to other words entirely when inventing new ones, and I for one think that of all the words we could have accidentally phonetically adjacent to our term, “metal” is kind of fun, haha. Could make some good community memes out of that.
3. Methodically constructed, but with words that may be unfamiliar to people initially. I think this is kind of inevitable, given that it’s a concept inseparable from “alinity” which would be a new word for those same people anyway. But it’s a valid criticism nonetheless.

Creating Our Word

So, if we don’t end up wanting to keep “metalline,” or if we want to play around with adjusting it, how do we go about doing that?

While I do think we should stick to the basic formula of:

“word meaning across/opposite/transform/different/etc.” + “allinity”

… there is more than one way to construct a word with the same meaning. “Metalline” isn’t the only etymologically-sound option. I’m sure there are other root words meaning “across/etc.” we could use to get a different sound if we wanted to. I think we should keep some form of “allinity” in there though, so that it’s clear what we’re referring to.

But anyway, hopefully this doesn’t come across combative. I’m not necessarily saying you’re totally wrong or that “metalline” has to be the word we end up with (this post isn’t necessarily directed at you specifically either), rather these are just my thoughts to keep the conversation going.

THANK YOU for voicing your opinion about it! I think this term, whatever it ends up being, serves one of the most crucial roles in our community so it’s important to me that at least most of us are on the same page about what it should be and why, and we can only get there if we actually talk about it.