krtisfranks wrote:
> In English "non-binary" often means "affirmatively non-binary" and is an
> identity which is distinct from and possibly even mutually exclusive
with
> beibg transgender, agendered, intersex, neuter(ed), neutral, etc. We
> should decide whether we want to make this word inclusive of all of
these
> options (in other words: anything which is not exactly one of the
> traditional (European) binary genders of masculine or feminine) or
> restricted to just the English interpretation of "affirmatively
> non-binary". The current definition is inclusive, but that is a lot of
> range for one word and, arguably, implicitly bins everyone into
masculine,
> feminine, or 'the third option' (the 'else') in a way which is not
> natural, representative, fair, considerate, or helpful. However, each of
> these options could be considered as sub-options of this one with their
> own descriptive words being derived from this word but via semantically
> restrictive tanru. If, instead, we make the definition narrow (referring
> only to affirmatively non-binary individuals), then each of these other
> options/categories deserves a co-equal word. Not only is that a lot of
> words for this single concept, but it also would probably have to
> generalize to many other gendered meanings.
>
> (Note: There are always completely general terms which do not reference
> gender at all in Lojban (such as "zukte" for "dinti" and its ilk, or
> "rirni"/"rorci" for "mamta" and "patfu" and "preri" etc.),
which
> can take the role of the inclusive umbrella term for the respective
> meanings).
>
> Furthermore, the wording of the original definitions of related words,
> each of which was in English, all said "non-binary". Because this was in
> English, this implies that narrower "affirmatively non-binary" meaning,
> which excludes the other options. I was actually going through those
> definitions, editing them in order to make this aspect of them clear,
> until I hit this word and realized that there are nonparallelities in
the
> definitions and that some choice has to be made. It would be best, I
> think, to make them all mutually parallel.


I think that my current opinion leans toward making this term (and all of
the related terms) inclusive of any individuals who are not affirmatively,
exclusively, and time-constantly male/masculine xor female/feminine (by
some standard), possibly also inclusive of transgender identity even when
the relevant gender is one of the traditional European binary options
aforementioned (if that is desirable), to be used when explicitly stating
gender is somehow important. I do not want it to be insulting to people
who have such gender identities and thus will defer to their opinions, but
this does seem, to me, to be the most practicable solution. Otherwise,
each gender identity would deserve its own word for each term, which would
quickly clog up gismu space. This word can be thought of as being
inclusive in a positive way, rather than lumping disparate identities
together in a negative way (glossing over their mutual differences); we
can develop specific zevla from this word for each option.