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Gender Definitions Master List Draft


Heart

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In most of the would feminine people must be "pretty" .. Which totally leaves me. My body is not feminine never will be.. my beard does not allow for that. I guess for some in this world I will never be feminine. While I will never truly be masculine. So that leaves me at the same place I started. I am just that person.. Who most will never truly understand. I used to believe that to be feminine I needed to do a lot of stuff. But, now most of those things are not options.

Presentation =/= gender, remember ;) If demigirl is you, then demigirl is you. Some demigirls rock their beards, and honestly? I think that's great!

The world sees one person, the one you present to it. But you, deep down, are you, not the person they see. In fact, a lot of demigirls I know identify as such while not being particularly feminine. A lot of women I know aren't particularly feminine either... I think I know about equal numbers of men and women that like housecleaning, and that includes the trans ones ;)

*Giggle really :o* I do not know any demigirls.. Well, most people around me look down on anyone who does not fit into social norms or the sort.

Then a lot of people you know are missing out ;)

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In most of the would feminine people must be "pretty" .. Which totally leaves me. My body is not feminine never will be.. my beard does not allow for that. I guess for some in this world I will never be feminine. While I will never truly be masculine. So that leaves me at the same place I started. I am just that person.. Who most will never truly understand. I used to believe that to be feminine I needed to do a lot of stuff. But, now most of those things are not options.

Presentation =/= gender, remember ;) If demigirl is you, then demigirl is you. Some demigirls rock their beards, and honestly? I think that's great!

The world sees one person, the one you present to it. But you, deep down, are you, not the person they see. In fact, a lot of demigirls I know identify as such while not being particularly feminine. A lot of women I know aren't particularly feminine either... I think I know about equal numbers of men and women that like housecleaning, and that includes the trans ones ;)

*Giggle really :o* I do not know any demigirls.. Well, most people around me look down on anyone who does not fit into social norms or the sort.

Then a lot of people you know are missing out ;)

Closet life seems to comfy while other days it is so lonely.

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Hi Heart,

Maverique means: "A gender characterized by autonomy and inner conviction regarding a sense of self that is entirely independent of male/masculinity, female/femininity or anything which derives from the two while still being neither without gender nor of a neutral gender."

Source and more information: http://maveriques.tumblr.com/faq#what

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Oh, nice list! Just what I was looking for ^_^

Perhaps pronouns could also be included?

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Oh, nice list! Just what I was looking for ^_^

Perhaps pronouns could also be included?

I working on a separate post, that is to include all sorts of "gender etiquette and how-to's". I wanted to leave that for another post so that I could talk about non-triggering ways of talking to genderqueer folk, as well as a FAQ too :)

As usual, I'm super busy, so it's taking a long time. But one day I'll get there!

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VindicatorPhoenix

Heart, I just gotta say: you rock! :)

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Hahahahahaha! "Binary's Bitch" makes waaay too much sense to me. I'm trying to work my way out of that category.

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This is an awesome list!

I'm glad I could help/confuse you more :P

Yeah, thanks for that, Heart XD

Cis-Genderless Female, Agender or Demigirl????????? AHGHhghaghaghgahgahagshjakl :poop:

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Hey! I love this Master List so much! This is really helpful to people questioning their gender. There are actually tons of lesser known identities on the gender spectrum. When I was questioning my identity, I found a bunch of gender identities here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hg9GVoe6ShYyqBwmGjRon-ZwK9_2qcgr75jh8r7D_rE/edit if you want to take a look at it. I'm saying this because, when I was questioning my gender, I had to look at some definitions that not many people had heard to find a label that suited me. idk, I thought you might be interested. :)

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Plectrophenax

Many thanks for the effort of devising this list. I've been looking for a non-confusing and simply worded list of this kind for quite some time now. Glad to say that I think I've struck gold.

A few questions even so, if I may.

Man or Boy: Identifying as a man or boy as per traditional societal definitions of that term in the individual person's culture.

Woman or Girl: Identifying as a woman or girl as per traditional societal definitions of that term in the individual person's culture.

Given that these terms are more or less at the center of discourse - both for sex and for gender - and given further that they aren't at all clearly defined - both by being culturally relative and non-constant even within the same culture - I feel like this list is only really useful to those who have a very clear notion of what these "traditional societal definitions" entail [except when you're genderless, that is]. You made an effort to describe a few aspects of masculine and feminine under "Gender Expression" but not only is that description non-binding and non-exhaustive, it also doesn't pertain to "man/boy" and "woman/girl" specifically.

Do you have any idea of how this could be captured more clearly? Or do you happen to know of a resource/thread that defines these terms in a way satisfactory to you?

Transmasculine: A person who identifies as masculine but not a man.

Transfeminine: A person who identifies as feminine but not a woman.

Just for clarity's sake, does this mean that the person identifies as masculine/feminine but doesn't identify as a man/woman, or does it mean that the person identifies as masculine/feminine without being a man/woman?

Whichever it is has rather large implications on the meaning behind "masculine/feminine" and "man/woman" as well as their relation to each other.

Genderless or Agender: A state of not identifying with any gender; a person with no conscious gender identity. Such an individual may or may not experience dysphoria about their body, or a desire to transition or express their gender in a non-binary way.

Cis-genderless: The state of being in which one identifies as what they were assigned at birth (usually male or female, though sometimes intersex) without having feelings or concepts pertaining to gender. A genderless individual with no dysphoria.

According to this, "Cis-genderless" is a subclass of "Genderless" or "Agender", since you can be Agender and have dysphoria but you can't be Cis-genderless and have dysphoria. I assume this is what is meant, in which case it might help to have the terms directly follow each other, as opposed to being separated by the unrelated demi-spectrum.

Though if the terms are supposed to signify different notions I'm not sure if Agender/Genderless wouldn't have to be strictly defined through the presence of dysphoria, seeing as being Agender while not having dysphoria "makes" you Cis-genderless.

Of course, for my taste, the difference has a lot more to do with the term "identify" than it has with dysphoria, since I'm genderless, have no real dysphoria to speak of but don't care at all for the concept of gender [thus Cis-genderless]. But my stance to what I was declared to at birth is one of neutral acceptance, not positive identification [which is a clear requirement for being Cis-genderless].

It follows that I'm not sure where I or others would position myself on this spectrum, making me feel like it may not quite be sufficiently refined as of now.

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So why do we have to define everything?

We all have the capacity and we are set up having all and no gender or sex in us...

it's called being a person or human.

In my day to day life, people just talk to Morgan,

who looks like a male with long hair who wears a crystal around his neck!

Chill out, relax, have a cup of tea and a tim-tam.

It's not so difficult, we are all everything inside and because of our history we become who we are,

but honestly... who cares?

I'm Bi-Gender, gay male and straight female in a male body...

how does that affect me, not very much in day to day life,

I would think it would have more bearing in the dating scene or in the bedroom.

Love to all.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Reptilian: I was under the impression that igender was more of a philosophy than a gender. I may work on adding auxillary terms like that too, but for now I was focussing on the gender terms in case it got too long...

Hey! I love this Master List so much! This is really helpful to people questioning their gender. There are actually tons of lesser known identities on the gender spectrum. When I was questioning my identity, I found a bunch of gender identities here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hg9GVoe6ShYyqBwmGjRon-ZwK9_2qcgr75jh8r7D_rE/edit if you want to take a look at it. I'm saying this because, when I was questioning my gender, I had to look at some definitions that not many people had heard to find a label that suited me. idk, I thought you might be interested. :)


Thanks! I'll check that out.


And to Plectrophenax: thank you for the feedback and questions! I don't know the answers to all of them I'm afraid. Can you think of a better way to define man and woman? I'm very open to suggestions, since I agree that those definitions seem a bit weaker than the others. As for the question of how masculine relates to man and feminine to woman... Man and woman, to me, are genders, while masculine and feminine have double meanings. Masculine/feminine can mea:

1) a gender presentation based on society's definition of what masculine and feminine mean (eg in Western culture, feminine may involve dresses and masculine involve suites for formal attire, while other cultures have defined feminine and masculine attire in different ways)

2) as a "gradient" term in the gender space. Some people use "masculine" in the same way others might use "demiboy" for example; masculine can describe a nebulous gender identity that is close to "man" but not quite.

The double meaning in general useage is confusing, and I'll try to make that more clear. I might even use what I have above as a starting point, so ask if it's unclear or you have suggestions.

And to Indigoskies: Some people don't feel the need for labels, and that's great! Others feel like labels are a useful tool for communication and self-exploration, among other things, so this post is mostly for them :) If labels are not a thing you enjoy or find useful, then you are absolutely free to never use any one of these in reference to yourself. This list is here only for those who find it useful, either in finding their own genders or in helping understand other people's :)

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Plectrophenax
And to Plectrophenax: thank you for the feedback and questions! I don't know the answers to all of them I'm afraid. Can you think of a better way to define man and woman? I'm very open to suggestions, since I agree that those definitions seem a bit weaker than the others. As for the question of how masculine relates to man and feminine to woman... Man and woman, to me, are genders, while masculine and feminine have double meanings. Masculine/feminine can mea:

1) a gender presentation based on society's definition of what masculine and feminine mean (eg in Western culture, feminine may involve dresses and masculine involve suites for formal attire, while other cultures have defined feminine and masculine attire in different ways)

2) as a "gradient" term in the gender space. Some people use "masculine" in the same way others might use "demiboy" for example; masculine can describe a nebulous gender identity that is close to "man" but not quite.

The double meaning in general useage is confusing, and I'll try to make that more clear. I might even use what I have above as a starting point, so ask if it's unclear or you have suggestions.

Aside from the primarily genitalia-based bio-chemical definitions of "man" and "woman" I can think of no other way to define them. It is the only definition that is more or less exhaustive. Since it is not based on behaviour or overly fluctuating data [the obvious exceptions being transitioning and, arguably, puberty] it strikes me as the most objective and clear definition of gender in its most unconnotated basic form.

The way you currently describe them - through "traditional societal definitions" - may well encompass this, but I don't think it necessarily does. You rightly focus on the 'identification' aspect of gender, but in the case of 'man' and 'woman' it is really not an exclusive matter of identification. Unless there is said to be no connection whatsoever between gender and sex, it seems to me that the fundament of gender identity is a position towards the biological gender, and as such the definitions of 'man' and 'woman' need to entail the biological definition as opposed to speaking merely of "societal definitions". I'm not sure you agree, but it seems as though you share a similar view, stating that 'man' and 'woman' are genders and thereby implying they are not gender identities per se.

Though I will say that I have no problem with your current definitions, but I find them to be incomplete without at least an example of such a "traditional societal definition" - because, to me, these either don't exist or shouldn't exist.

I think I understand the double-meaning behind 'masculine' and 'feminine', and it is surely a good idea to stress that notion further. But I still don't understand it.

You state that "masculine/feminine can mean (1) a gender presentation based on society's definition of what masculine and feminine mean." But, in spite of your example, this doesn't help much. It's like me saying "fishing means an action based on society's definition of what fishing means" - I have said nothing about what fishing actually is.

I realise this is difficult to do since - and this was the point of my initial post - there is no clear and unambiguous "societal definition" and, even if there was, there are multiple societies and maybe even sub-societies within each one, each with their own so-called 'definition'. So, aside from examples, I'd much rather see a concrete exhaustive definition. If this is not possible, I would prefer not to call it 'definiton' but rather present a list that is as exhaustive as possible [i wanted to make a thread on this, but it's such a fundamental question that I'm certain to have missed an older thread on the subject]. If that too is impossible, I'm afraid I have to stick with my initial assertion that the list is only truly useful to those who already have some [intuitive] understanding of these meanings - which unfortunately would exclude myself and potentially a few others on the agender side of things.

The gradient notion is easier to understand, I feel, because it is speaks more of an affiliation as opposed to an integral belonging to whatever 'man' and 'woman' mean. In this sense, "sewing" [something any body with nible fingers can do] might be called "feminine" even though there is no concrete connection between sewing and females [because aside from historic allocation that has no binding nature, there is none]. And a personality might be called "male" even though there is no concrete connection between a given personality and the abstract generalised concept of 'man' [because people are generally not archetypes].

The obvious shortcoming of this definition too, however, is the lack of clarity in the definitions of the words necessary to understand it - namely 'man' and 'woman'. Even if they were defined, say, via testosterone and oestrogen levels, it would still seem weird to say "masculine = something associated with high testosterone levels".

By the way, you didn't address my question regarding the understanding of 'transmasculine' and 'transfeminine' - whichever reply you think is more correct would, I'm sure, shed light on what expectations and intuitions you have regarding the relation between 'man'/'woman' and 'male'/'female' or 'masculine'/'feminine', thus perhaps helping to form more precice definitions of explanations.

Finally, next time you edit the OP, I'd appreciate if you would move 'cis-genderless' under 'genderless or agender' just for the sake of readability.

Hey! I love this Master List so much! This is really helpful to people questioning their gender. There are actually tons of lesser known identities on the gender spectrum. When I was questioning my identity, I found a bunch of gender identities here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hg9GVoe6ShYyqBwmGjRon-ZwK9_2qcgr75jh8r7D_rE/edit if you want to take a look at it. I'm saying this because, when I was questioning my gender, I had to look at some definitions that not many people had heard to find a label that suited me. idk, I thought you might be interested. :)

Though that list is interesting, it has the same fundamental problem most of these do. It's about 'gender identities' but makes constant remarks of 'gender' and even primarily describes the identities as 'genders' [as in "the gender identity 'abimegender' refers to a gender which is infinite"]. So what does 'gender' mean? Are we supposed to know that? Is it suppoes to be obvious?

To me, it should read more like "the perception of [one's own] gender as being infinite" - but even there the question needs to be asked; what is meant by 'gender'?

EDIT: After reading through it more carefully, I'm even more confused. Some seem to be exclusive to identity and have nothing to do with gender, while others are frankly absurd in their vagueness [i.e. being defined by the absence of understandability for example].

So why do we have to define everything?

We all have the capacity and we are set up having all and no gender or sex in us...

it's called being a person or human.

In my day to day life, people just talk to Morgan,

who looks like a male with long hair who wears a crystal around his neck!

Chill out, relax, have a cup of tea and a tim-tam.

It's not so difficult, we are all everything inside and because of our history we become who we are,

but honestly... who cares?

I'm Bi-Gender, gay male and straight female in a male body...

how does that affect me, not very much in day to day life,

I would think it would have more bearing in the dating scene or in the bedroom.

Love to all.

Definitions and labels are immensly useful. Truly. I often find that we actually have too few clear definitions and too few specific words for certain things. But I understand your dislike for labels specifically, since they are always generalisations - no word can have an extension complex enough to sum up a distinct personality completely [though we make due with names for that*]. Thus, labels should be applied and handled with care and transparency - but I don't think they should be dismissed.

Also, you say that we are "set up having all and no gender and sex in us" yet you also say that you "look like a male" and "have a male body". So you have both 'sexes' in you, but only one 'sex' for your body? I'm asking because this, again, seems like a different take on the understanding of what the word 'gender' means.

[And yes, I'm more or less asking you - someone who just argued against labels and definitions - to define your terms. Sue me.] ;)

*EDIT: In the list provided by eringras, interestingly, there is a gender identity [or just gender?] that fulfills the same function, called "Egogender".

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Thank you for the really well-thought-out reply Plectro! I will be reading that over a few more times to try and really work on it. This is one of those moments where my brain feels stretched out to its max, but your feedback is great. I can't think of how to make what I have much better right this instant, but I'll work on it, and my definitions list will come out the better for my and your efforts one day ;)

As a question: what, to you, is the difference between "gender" and "gender identity"? How do you phrase it?

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http://genderqueerid.com/post/124334032613/identifying-as-graygendergreygender


Graygender / Greygender:

a person who identifies as (at least partially) outside the gender binary and has a strong natural ambivalence about their gender identity or gender expression. They feel they have a gender(s), as well as a natural inclination or desire to express it, but it’s weak and/or somewhat indeterminate/indefinable, or they don’t feel it most of the time, or they’re just not that invested in it. They’re not entirely without a gender or gender expression, but they’re not entirely “with” it either, so to speak.

So using the word “graygender” can express:
the state of being kinda close to agender but not quite (just greysexuality is kinda close to asexuality but not quite), having a nonbinary gender that falls in a hazy grey area and can be hard to define or pinpoint, being gender neutral-ish more because of ambivalence and lack of participation in gender rather than active participation in nonbinary gender expression, and/or feeling gender and an inclination to participate in gendered thinking/expression less than most seem to.

———-

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+ gender is the bigger thing IMO

while gender identity is a sense of belonging to a gender, to a group of people called"[insert gender name]", however it applies mostly binary genders Isuppose, unfortunately (best formulation I've ever come up with)

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Plectrophenax

Thank you for the really well-thought-out reply Plectro! I will be reading that over a few more times to try and really work on it. This is one of those moments where my brain feels stretched out to its max, but your feedback is great. I can't think of how to make what I have much better right this instant, but I'll work on it, and my definitions list will come out the better for my and your efforts one day ;)

No, thank you for your open ears and respect for feedback in spite of the hard effort you clearly pour into this. I am not doubtful at all that the list will turn out helping many, and I'm sure it already does - I'm just a nitpicky [and incredulous] sort of person. On that note, please let me know if you happen to not understand some of my points [PM will do if you'd rather avoid cluttering the thread] or if you'd prefer clarification of any kind. Though bear in mind that the questions I ask are generally asked because I myself cannot respond to them.

As a question: what, to you, is the difference between "gender" and "gender identity"? How do you phrase it?

This is very difficult to respond to, because you can tell by reading from or listening to people that there are many subtly different understandings going aroud. I don't have any means to understand gender identity. I don't have one. I would call myself 'agender' but some people would say that that is positive identification and should be considered an identity. Others think that, because I sense no dysphoria in spite of living in [and, more to the point, living as] a gendered body, I cannot be 'fully' agender, but rather something like cis-genderless or even cis-gendered but without strong identification. But while there's a lot to be discussed in terms of 'identity', I agree with Emery-Ripley that the much larger issue in this context is the definition of 'gender'.

In light of that, gender identity is simply the sensation of belonging to or feeling as a gender. This is already controversial, because there are said to be gender identities that are not related to a gender but to the absence thereof [and that I simply do not understand]. The list provided by eringras also makes a distinction between 'feeling' and 'identifying', meaning you can feel like one but identify as another gender. This I also don't understand, since I fail to see what one identifies with if not the sensation of belonging. So even though I find this definition to be simple and obvious, it clearly is contested and needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

The issue is 'gender'. For the record, I don't adhere to the seperation of gender and sex. I don't acknowledge the importance of socially defined gender roles, because they hold no inherent meaning and should not be considered binding by anyone [ironically, the term was introduced in order to criticise what it stands for, but has since then become more of a means to justify what it meant to discard]. I also don't consider 'gender' in this definiton to be linked to sex at all, but rather that the connection is made mentally [through tradition, culture, experience or subjective reasoning]. So the word is empty to me.

As such, when I use the term, I use it in the context in which it is always ultimately used - the body. And in light of that, we can't get around biological differences, be they the subtleties in biochemical makeup or the obvious sexual distinctions of a sexually dimorphic species. It is clear that the origins of notions and contemplations on gender stem from these differences and are the direct cause for the 'binary' seperation into 'man' [the ones with testicles] and 'woman' [the ones with uteruses]. We now know that what defines ones physical gender is not limited to genitalia in the sense that there is a hormonial spectrum in our development, allowing for things like mind-body disphoria to fully form. But still, all the discussion on gender ultimately rests on the manifestations of gender through the body in one of two ways - male and female. Even the list posted by eringras accepts this [though they add the 'main' gender of 'neutral' as well - oh were it but so!], and I take the author/s of that to lean heavily on the side of those who woud criticise the 'reductionistic' understanding of gender I might be taken to have. Even so, they cannot help but rest their own understandings on this simple biological observation.

So, when pressed to define gender, I fear I would have to offer a biological or biochemical definiton, either referencing the sexual organs or the levels of certain homones related to sexual development [like testosterone and oestrogen]. Only because of this is there a binary understanding, and the efforts to free ourselves from gendered restrictive behavioural codes have resulted in a rejection of this binary, but have thusly capped the notion of gender from where it originially came from. Thusly floating in the ether, gender has become somewhat synonymous with what it is used for now, which would be 'gender identity' [which are, ironically, still basically gendered restrictive behavioural codes]. Hence why it is not only impossible to understand gender identity without having some form of understanding of gender, but seemingly vice versa too.

In short, gender identity is the sensation of belonging to and feeling as a gender, and gender is the de facto relation of one's body to the spectrum of our species' sexual dimorphism, primarily decided on by ones sexual organs.

In that sense, gender identity is not free to choose, because you can't feel like having a female/male body if you have a male/female one - though you can not feel like the body you have, you can't thereby feel like having another [unless you loosen the definition of 'feel' or the definiton of 'gender' in some way]. It's like you can't identify as anyone other than yourself, you can't feel any other thing than what you feel. One can reject the reduction of ones person to ones gender, as I think one should, but on the exact same argumental basis one cannot conflate ones person with a gender, whicherver one it may be.

Because this may seem dismissive of some personal experiences, especially trans [hence my question about 'transmasculine' and 'transfeminine'], the definition of gender as a social construct and thus gender identity as a referral to said social constructs will be more inclusive, but at the cost of being comprehensible. There is nothing wrong with this line of argumentation though, as long as biological makeup is somewhat accounted for, but it absoltely requires a clear and unambiguous explanation as to what these social constructs are.

If such an explanation is not or cannot be provided, you'd have to forget about defining gender and only define gender identity like this; "The sensation of belonging to and feeling as any percieved social construct of gender."

Either way, the relation between gender identity and gender is one-sided. You need understanding of gender before you can understand gender identity - which is why a exhaustive list of gender identities [in my opinion] needs to provide some sort of reference to their understanding of gender.

I hope this can be of some help, though I fear it may not. Consider it the illustration of my lack of understanding as opposed to a serious suggestion for your list. I am, after all, the person who seeks a list and would not dare contemplate actually making one - all the more powet to those, like you, who honestly and - dare I say - happily undertake this task.

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Thank you everyone! I love the feedback. I'm going to digest this, and keep working. This is a much bigger project than I anticipated, but I'm having fun at it.

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What is it if I sometimes wish I had male body parts? I never really feminine either... But I'm okay being call a "she".

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Honestly there are a lot of terms that could apply. If you feel like a mix between man and woman, try androgyne. Or if you feel like your gender changes between man and woman, then try bigender. Or maybe demiboy would suite you, if you feel partly like a man, but partly not? Or, if you'd like, there are umbrella terms such as genderqueer and non-binary that cover anything that is not man or woman (for non-binary) or anything that is not cis (for genderqueer). Those can be good ones if none of the others feel quite right, or if they seem too detailed :)

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All right, the time has come for me to lock this thread too and work away. If my track record has anything to do with it, this will take longer than I had thought, but I promise it's on its way :D

If you still want to post anything, please feel free to start your own thread. But for now, I have plenty of suggestions to work with and will be working hard. Wish me luck!

Heart

Gender Discussion Moderator

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