If you saw my last article introducing outherinity — a term for present gender qualities that exist outside of masculinity, femininity, neutrality, androgyny, nullity, and xeninity (tautine qualities) — you may be a bit confused; how exactly do terms like maverique, aporine, and other terms fit into this? You might remember I mentioned three categories of outherine specified by Oltiel in relation to tauntine qualities, those being: entirely independent, independent but comparable, and independent intersections. In this article, I will be explaining these categories and the terms within them, and hopefully helping you better understand outherinities.

Forine is the name for the first category and refers to outherinities that are independent in their entirety. They are not comparable to, the opposite of, or alongside any tautine qualities. Think of forine qualities as being on a completely different plane than tauntine. Within forinity is three subcategories: itherine, ipsine, and preterine. Itherine is what most likely imagine when they think of outherine. These qualities are entirely independent from anything, often defined simply by their own existence. Examples include péra and ilyagender. Ipsine is similar to itherine, and describes qualities unique to the individual (autonine) or to an aspect of an individual’s identity (piesic). Examples include maverique, egogender, and trinäq. Preterine describes qualities that, while beyond tautine concepts, are not beyond the concept of gender itself. Examples include luxine, kenochoric, and elale. Wait, whats the difference between preterine and xenine? Good question! While preterine genders (or neogenders, as I have heard them referred to in recent) often relate to concepts, they are not beyond human understandings of gender like xenogenders are. Think of xenine as there are currently no words for my gender, so I say my gender is a cat because that is the best or only way to describe it, and preterine as my gender has the qualities of a cat; its soft, lazy, and cuddly, but in the same way maleness is strong and protective or femaleness is gentle and sweet. Furthermore, your intuition is right; preterine and xenine are not always seperate, and they can (and do) overlap. For instance, sunsine is an outherinity, but a xenan who is ‘sungender’ may consider themselves both xenine and sunsine.

Umbine refers to outherinities that, while independent, are comparable to tautine qualities. An umbine quality is completely unrelated to, say, masculinity, but if someone asked you to describe it, you could say “oh, its kind of like masculinity in this way…” Umbinity has two subcategories: distine and circumine. Distine include qualities that can only be described as the opposite of or simply not a given tautine quality. This mainly includes antigenders. Circumine describes qualities that are comparable to or near a tautine quality. For example, ainuline is outherinity comparable to masculinity, and ainemine is outherinity comparable to femininity. Altraenine is also a circumine quality, and is a form of androgyny that exists opposed to and alongside masculinity and femininity rather than between them.

Lastly, cattrine refers to outherinities that are ‘uncommon intersections’ of existing qualities. Cattrinities, while the intersection of existing qualities, are entirely new and independent. Cattrine also has three subcategories: anderine, dipherine, and ectine. Anderine refers to qualities that are the independent intersection of two or more pre-existing outherine qualities. For example, ainuline and maverique may intersect to create a new independent quality, and that quality would be anderine. Ectine refers to qualities that are the independent intersection of one or more outherine quality with one or more tautine quality. Dipherine refers to qualities that are the independent intersection of two or more tautine qualities. For example, troinine is the independent intersection of femininity and neutrality. Wait, how is this outherine? What makes toinine any different from neufem or simply the combination of neutrality and femininity? Another good question. Think of it like paint: Neufem (a combolity) is like holding a brush with yellow and blue paint. They work together to create an effect, but they are still individual colors. Troinine (a dipherinity) is like mixing the blue and yellow paint to create a new color: green. Green, while created from blue and yellow, is its own independent color.

Hopefully this article helps you understand the ins and outs of outherinity. The language of our community is ever-evolving.