I think that fits very well, I always felt like Haku had some kind of non-binary gender and bigender fits him really well
It was actually very fun learning english; I agree english is hard, but It looks kind of tame when compared to my native language, At least your verbs don't change depending on who's doing the action :) (they say that in brazillian portuguese, there are rules with exceptions that have exceptions)
Base concepts: *Spectrums : No matter how much someone tries to put people into neat separate divisions, that won’t ever work -- because humans are complex and basically every human trait exists on a spectrum.
Biological sex: The sum of the physical characteristics of a person that define them as female biological sex, male biological sex or intersex. Characteristics are: sexual organs, secondary sexual characteristics (ex: breasts), hormones (and the proportions in which they are present)and chromosomes (ps: there are a lot more combinations than xx or xy). * Intersex definition: http://www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex (source: intersex society of north america)
Gender: While biological sex is the physical characteristics, gender is present on the brain (when explaining this (especially to little kids) I tend to tell people to think of the sex as the “giant robot” and the gender as the “control cabin” or the “pilot” of said giant robot). * Brains vary between gender (and not in the sexist way. There’s no “more intelligent” gender or that stuff) and transgender people have brains that look muuuch more like their actual gender than with the brains of the gender they were assigned at birth. (the source was from MIT but unfortunately I lost the link. Sorry. But there’s lot of similar research on the internet). * Assigned at birth: the gender given/assigned/designated to you at birth. *Binary genders and Non-binary genders: ----Binary genders: “man” and “woman” ----Non-binary genders: every gender that is not “man“ or “woman” In the present times most cultures in the world use the binary system for gender - It was widely spread by european colonizers (there were places other than europe with binary gender, but europe was who influenced most of today’s countries binary systems). BUT there were ethnic groups with other gender systems and genders beyond “man” and “woman”: A famous one is “Two spirit” from a specific native north american ethnic group (that I unfortunately don’t know the name), although there were 130 other native american ethnic groups with similar third and even fourth genders. Other traditional genders are: fa’affafine, fa’atama, hijra, kathoey, mahu, muxé, nadleehe, winkte, etc. ). I once heard someone say the Torah had seven genders, but I don’t know if it’s true or not (it probably is).
Gender expression: The way someone expresses themselves (the way they dress, talk, their hobbies, favorite colors, hair style, etc) categorized according to the person’s culture and/or vision of what constitutes “feminine” and “masculine”appearance and/or traits. Ex: a person lives in a culture were cooking and skirts are considered “””women’s things”””, this person categorizes people with those traits as “feminine”.
Finally the actual list (of diverse character traits I rarely ever see):
Non- binary genders such as: Agender: person who has no gender, identifies with no gender. (lots of agenders use neutral pronouns like they/them, but there are also agenders that don’t care which pronouns are used)
Neutrois: (a little different from agender) neutrois people have a gender that is neither feminine or masculine, it is neutral. (here “feminine” and “masculine” are used as gender, NOT as gender expression. Difference above in base concepts)
Genderfluid: gender changes, is fluid. Person passes indefinite amount of time as one gender, and then it changes for indefinite amount of time to another gender, and son on and on. Some people pass years as one gender before it shifts to another one. Sometimes I have a day where my gender keeps changing back and forth every three seconds. *Different people have different amounts of time they pass as each gender. for example: person A may commonly stay as woman for one week before it shifts through all the gender spectrum for one or two weeks and then it shifts back to “woman” for another week. But person B may be a woman very rarely for only one day every two months.
Bigender: Person is two genders at the same time. Commonly bigender people are woman and man at the same time but there can be other combinations of two genders. *Trigender, pangender, etc. are basically the same, but the quantity of genders is different (ex: trigender= three genders).
A fictional cultural gender: (I’ve actually seen this done once) if the writer is writing a fictional culture or cultural group, the writer can invent a gender system that does not have to be binary. (there probably would have to be a research in real life cultural genders though)
Demi-boy or demi-girl(or demi-man or demi-woman): people whose gender changes only (for demiboys) between “boy” and no “gender at all” or “neutral gender”. And (for demigirls) between “girl” and “no gender at all” or “neutral gender”. (you could say it’s like a type of gender fluidity, but with less gender options/possibilities than a genderfluid person).
other: Asexual people --Aromantic asexuals or romantic asexuals * there's a lot that makes romantic asexual’s relationships different from sexual people’s relationships. -- Some romantic aces do not do sex at all (the sex-repulsed aces, but there could be other reasons for not having sex), and if they do have a partner that is not ace, sometimes the partner abstains from sex, sometimes they form a polyamorous relationship (for example person romantic ace A dates a sexual person B who also dates Person C, in a fully consensual polyamorous relationship-- great text about this: http://paradife-loft.tumblr.com/post/155884912189/vergess-fredericksergievsky-i-want-to-talk). --Some romantic aces are sex-neutral (don’t enjoy or are repulsed from sex) and some romantic aces do like sex even though they don’t feel sexual attraction. So there are a lot of different ways being ace could affect a relationship. *also it's very cool to see aromantic ace characters too. Romance(sexual or not) is not a necessary thing in all person’s lives.
People on the asexual spectrum ( demisexuals and greysexuals)
Polyamorous relationships: There are lots of different types of polyam relationships and I don’t know enough about the subject to write about it.
bisexual and pansexual (bi means two, so some people prefer pansexual because it includes non-binary genders). *The theory is that there are more bi/pan people than hetero people in the world because 70% of bi/pan people are in the closet. But stories tend to have so little of those characters.
Skoliosexual: (never seen a skoliosexual character before) attracted only to non-binary genders.
Transgender characters: those whose gender assigned at birth does not correspond to their actual gender. Some trans people have non-binary genders, some have binary genders. *extra tips when writing trans characters: ---”transexual” is the old term, we respect older members who use it because it is part of their identity, but “transgender” is a much better term. ---characters who use binders: (binders are used to give the impression of not having breasts- kind of like a very tight sports bra) can only safely use binders for certain amount of time (6 hours recommended, 7 hours ideal, 8 hours maximum) can’t make heavy exercise in binders because of the risk of fracturing ribs. Can’t sleep in binders (could make person stop breathing and die). ---gender dysphoria: --->Corporal gender dysphoria: bad feeling about your body not aligning with the mental image of your body in regards to gender and biological sex. Some people don’t have it, some people have reeally bad dysphoric days( the crying and not looking at mirrors type of day). (includes being uncomfortable about their voice). --->Social gender dysphoria: bad feeling when someone mistakes you for the gender you are not, someone uses the wrong pronouns, the wrong name, etc.
(ps: if you are writing a trans ninja they probably could use the transformation jutsu to deal with gender dysphoria. But they’d have to be really good at it, to maintain it all the time).
Don't apologise! I loved the list! Thank you so much for sharing it! I won't just be using it for this series, but also my original series and other (vague) ideas that I want to write.
If you ever think of anything else, you know where to find me. ^_^
Toru is aromantic-asexual, simply because I relate to that, and I want to see more representation (as I might have mentioned earlier). I also really want to work with the idea of romantic love being something necessary in one's life, because that idea is extremely hurtful (and wrong). I will include other aces as well (I actually made one of the major characters ace and bisexual now, which fits better I think, it'll come up much later, though).
I will try to work a polyamorous relationship, even if it's mentioned just in passing. I think it would definitely be something that can be included because otherwise it's just all two-people couples and that's quite restricting.
Looking at this list, I don't know what characters in this series are straight, I haven't actually figured out some sexualities of characters, I only know three off of the top of my head. I still don't know Sasuke or any of the main cast, but they're young - it's really not something that's a major aspect of their life currently (or will be for a few years, I'd imagine).
I haven't written a trans character in any of my books, and I've been avoiding it because I don't know how well I'd manage working with gender dysphoria and I don't want to write a character terribly that doesn't reflect trans people well. However, it just means I need to do more research and some more exploration around the whole thing (and attempt to find someone to talk to who won't mind questions because this can be a very hard topic).
Of course, it doesn't help that I just view gender as a thing that exists and pronouns don't matter it just is whatever.
Exactly! I'm upset it didn't show straight away with his first appearance in the next book (after Current Strength), but I'm thinking I'll have an interlude somewhere that will get to show it and I can mention it in the author's note. I'm really excited to write it (although, I don't know what it will be about). I was debating what gender Haku is meant to be, when you mentioned bigender, and since then it hasn't left my head.
That is difficult! Congratulations! You've done really well. Also, I probably won't respond to all your messages, but I will respond to a few that I have something to say about. Thank you for being willing to type it all up!
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