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.

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 an experience that is similar to 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 and binary-related experiences.

In the future, I hope to have more detailed links 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, or see some examples.

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.

The alibinary system is supposed to be a tool to talk about specific issues, to be used alongside with other existing terms, not instead of them.