Something I explained in an earlier comment on the source post. It's a way I have started to describe characterizations that are often associated, correctly or not, with a person's gender identity. Many of the terms most often employed for this suffer from ambiguous, misleading, or downright incorrect usage. Man/Woman/Male/Female lead the way here, and don't really align well with what actually gets done.
In line with the practice in medicine of using Greek and Roman roots to designate body parts and systems, I have adopted the prefix "morpho-", already in use to refer to shape (e.g., "morphology"), to indicate that I am talking about someone's apparent shape, and "episio-" (Greek "loins") to indicate that I am talking about someone's apparent genital configuration. So, just as "morphology" covers inferences one can make based on the shape of someone's body. "episiology" covers inferences one can make based on the shape of someone's genitals -- or to put it more crudely, what their crotch looks like.
So now, I can stick either of these on "gender", and make it clear that I am talking about another person's inference about someone's gender identity based on what they are observing. So if someone is walking around with a body that looks like it was grown under the influence of testosterone, I can say that their morphogender is "man". (People who are not gender-aware often don't realize that what they are really doing is speculating about what that person's crotch looks like (their episiogender) based on that, and what that says about their gender identity. While those inferences are generally reliable, there are more than enough exceptions in the world that one must be prepared to be wrong if one does that.) When I say something is episionormative, I am saying that it is something that is culturally accepted for people of the cultural default gender identity associated with the person's episiology.
Is there anything about this you'd appreciate if I clarified further?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: episiogender
Date: 2018-12-13 01:42 am (UTC)In line with the practice in medicine of using Greek and Roman roots to designate body parts and systems, I have adopted the prefix "morpho-", already in use to refer to shape (e.g., "morphology"), to indicate that I am talking about someone's apparent shape, and "episio-" (Greek "loins") to indicate that I am talking about someone's apparent genital configuration. So, just as "morphology" covers inferences one can make based on the shape of someone's body. "episiology" covers inferences one can make based on the shape of someone's genitals -- or to put it more crudely, what their crotch looks like.
So now, I can stick either of these on "gender", and make it clear that I am talking about another person's inference about someone's gender identity based on what they are observing. So if someone is walking around with a body that looks like it was grown under the influence of testosterone, I can say that their morphogender is "man". (People who are not gender-aware often don't realize that what they are really doing is speculating about what that person's crotch looks like (their episiogender) based on that, and what that says about their gender identity. While those inferences are generally reliable, there are more than enough exceptions in the world that one must be prepared to be wrong if one does that.) When I say something is episionormative, I am saying that it is something that is culturally accepted for people of the cultural default gender identity associated with the person's episiology.
Is there anything about this you'd appreciate if I clarified further?