Genderplay: Discussion of Terminology

[zaniida]

My apologies for the delay; turns out having new kittens in the house makes it difficult to concentrate on anything else (who knew?). They're about a month old now, and have figured out how to get out of their box, so the little Houdinis are going to take up even more of my time until I have a decently kitten-proofed room for them to enjoy. However, I'm trying to get the documents together, and hope to post some completed docs and a fresh set of Bingo cards later this month.

While compiling the documents, I ran up against a terminology question, and I thought I'd open the floor to discussion of terms.

Initially, I wrote the docs using Male/Female or Man/Woman kind of terms. Later on, while considering how to adapt my favorite fandoms to the various AUs, I got annoyed by the use of female characters in the (generally far less detailed) female roles -- e.g. the Blotched AU has three interesting male roles but nothing particularly interesting about the female role, just "these guys compete over the gals." Then I realized that the Omegaverse already gives the "female" role to male characters (both Alpha and Omega are either male, or gender-independent).

So I figured that pretty much any of the AUs could be adapted to be gender-independent, or slash-specific, by combining with Alpha/Omega or the like. So I've been trying to figure out how to phrase a more neutral version.

For example, with the Blotched AU, the concept I want to express is:

There are three types of [people who can sire] and they compete for [people who can bear a child].

My first draft used "Sires" and "Breeders" but, upon reflection, "Breeders" has some baggage to it, and also isn't precise (it can be used of someone who causes another being to get bred, e.g. panda breeders).

Sires/Dams kinda annoys me, and also it feels like "Dam" applies only after a child is actually born; to me, it doesn't say "this is a being capable of bearing a child."

And using Male/Female clashes with the gender-independence I'm aiming for ("the Omega plays the Female role" etc.), and also just feels a little off the mark.

And that's about when I ran out of possible terms, or at least terms I'm familiar with. I tried looking up synonyms but that also turned out to be difficult (because "sire" and "dam" have multiple other meanings).

So... does anyone have suggestions for how to phrase these distinctions? Am I stuck using phrases instead of terms, or using like "Male/Alpha" and "Female/Omega" or the like? Or "childbearers"? I mean the underlying concept is that of a person capable of bearing a child, but it feels like the term shouldn't be that reductive.

What are my options here? What should I absolutely avoid?

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I recommend exploring biology and science fiction. Both offer more options. Nongendered pronouns may also help.

One is simply to list sex chromosomes. XX has these options, XY has these options, and so on. Some other species have different sets.

You could use descriptive terms like "egg parent / womb parent / sperm parent" or "bearing / seeding."

You could use alphabetic terms, which I did in Feathered Nests.

Note that Omegaverse has many variations, and one is split gender: a person is male or female, and also alpha, beta, or omega. All the combinations can exist but usually not all of them are fertile.

[shipperslist]

I've also seen the term "carrier" and to me, it doesn't have the same baggage as "breeder."

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Carrier also has the advantage that you can use it like human females (both providing eggs and carrying in a womb) or just for the carrying part like how male seahorses provide sperm and carry the eggs in a pouch. Bearer usually means both eggs and carrying.

Re: Thoughts

[shipperslist]

You know, I was thinking about male seahorses when I suggested that. :D

[miscellanium]

if the emphasis is on being able to bear children but you don't want to use the word "childbearer", then i agree with ysabetwordsmith that descriptive terms or neutral pronouns could be a workable solution. iirc the sims has it as "can get others pregnant" or "can become pregnant", so maybe there's something there you could work with. it could also be phrased as "uterus-haver" or something, lol, which keeps it gender-neutral.

if the emphasis isn't on child-bearing, you could use terms like dominant/passive or the like.

i would discourage the use of chromosome terminology.