some assorted xenogender thoughts
Let me preface this by saying that I am transmasc and genderqueer and have identified as such since I was 25-26 or so, but I’ve been trying to decipher the secret third aspect of it all, my xenogender, which I know I have but cannot seem to fully describe so far, for about a year-and-a-half now.
I’m feline, as in every Felidae species, whether extinct or extant, plus extra, but I don’t need to get into fictional and mythical felines or feline-like species here. Just the Earthly mundane Kingdom Animalia ones. A theriform domestic cat of either sex (AKA a tom, or a molly), or a tigress, none of them think about nor understand human gender concepts, they simply follow their reproductive instincts. (Good for them, good for them.)
How does that factor into me? I often have felt that the idea of being a momma of cubs or kittens is relatable, even familiar, yet I do not under any circumstance desire to have any human children in this lifetime. I am child-free by choice. Yet, being a maned lion taking part in raising a crèche of my own offspring within my pride is also something that sticks out to me, or on the other end of the spectrum, behaving as a wandering male patrolling my territory, doing nothing to care for the babies I helped produce with receptive females, just going where the wind takes me on any given day. The last one I experience much less often than the other two, but it does happen. It’s an absolute clusterfuck of felinity inside of me.
Instead of all this being identity-based, perhaps it could be from a more symbolic angle? Different cultures impose certain traits onto the visual symbol that is, say, a brightly plumaged male songbird, a peacock as opposed to a peahen, or a protective mother bear, but none of this necessarily needs anything to do with gender. It’s just that the mental image embodies the labels we recognize as something that “belongs” of a particular human notion of gender, such as a headbutting sheep ram, or a demure deer doe or hind.
There may be a specific sort of maternal “caring” that we use lionesses (for example) as one of these labels for, but otherwise it has nothing to do with traditional binary femininity, as that fem-ness originates from a human perspective. It could be that this sort of caring for others is what I identify as, without being attached to a gender in any direction at all. Is that my xenogender? It can’t be that alone, as there’s felinity still intertwined with it.
I started writing this with the intent of talking it through with myself, but this is proving harder than I expected.
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[edit, addition] ... August 12, 2025:
Okay! I’ve thought of it some more, and maybe I don’t need a specific xenogender label. I am simply genderqueer in the sense that a feline has no concept of gender, and thus does whatever the hell it wants, all the time ever. That works for me. I have, however, collected a bunch of coined MOGAI gender labels for fun in a folder on my PC, haha. They’re all so cutesy and cool. I don’t take any of them that seriously, but I don’t have to.
I just like to hoard. A list, in no order, which y’all can look up if you wish, I suppose: genderwitch, feligenos, catgender, lumicattic, magicattic, mooncatic, moongender, RiverClangender, sekhet, suncatic, weirdcatgender, witchgender, and witchycattic. Most of them I found via Pinterest, but some were discovered via Tumblr.
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[edit, addition] ... August 16, 2025:
Within my single fictotype-slash-copinglink…or fictonkind-vaguetype-thing...I am a transman, just a man; and then in this lifetime’s body I’m a nonbinary sort of transmasc, I want to be more physically androgynous, with the label of genderqueer tacked on indicating that gender-nonconformity. The ‘type is a very AU version of the Danny Phantom cartoon protagonist, from my own fanfiction project that I’ve been working on since middle school.
This has been forged over time, strongly, as opposed to being a spiritual (felines) or childhood-imprinted (unicorn linktype) thing. The decision to depict Danny as transgender in my fic years ago was one of the snowballing nails in the coffin that finally convinced me to accept that I’m trans myself around age 25. Danny cracked my egg. I suppose it makes sense, then, that I have essentially become him via pouring so much deep thought and effort into crafting his tale.