The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality by Morgan Lev Edward Holleb

Author:Morgan Lev Edward Holleb
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784506636
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2019-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

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NAFF — Polari slang to describe being bad, drab, heterosexual, or boring. Possibly an acronym for “Not Available For Fucking.”

see also: POLARI; HETEROSEXUAL

NAME — The particular word used to distinguish an individual.

The name is a site of gender; for trans people who change their names, it’s a site of declaration and reclamation. Choosing a new name is an informal rite of passage for many trans people. Naming yourself is an act of self-definition and can be very empowering.

The legal name is not a stable category. People can have different names on their birth certificates, their photo IDs, their marriage certificates, and what they use in daily life. The concept of a “real” name is generally used to undermine trans people with invasive questions about their past.

Names are different for different scenarios. Sex workers usually use aliases and may have multiple personas; trans people tend to try out names with a small, safe social group before using them with the wider public; drag performers have names which often bleed into their non-performance life; and in the 20th century the gay community used “camp names” for each other (e.g., “Mary”).

see also: PRONOUNS; DEADNAME; DRAG

NANCY, NANCY BOY — Pejoratives for a queer or effeminate man, sometimes reclaimed by the people they target.

Nancy and nancy boy are intended to be insults to masculinity, and are indicative of failure to correctly perform it.

see also: NONCE; EFFEMINATE; GAY

NATURAL, UNNATURAL — An arbitrary distinction used to assign value to identities, behaviors, aesthetics, and hierarchies.

There are not objective “facts of nature.” Nature is the name we give to our wider environment, which predates us and will outlast us. Our facts are tainted by our biases and constantly need re-evaluating if they are to be useful.

Nature is not balance or order. Nature is chaotic and indifferent to human life, and we cannot untangle ourselves from it. We exist in nature; we are natural.

Race, sex, gender, and class are all social constructs; none are “natural” (i.e., created outside of human reasoning), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real or material. Science has always been subject to personal and social bias, and has never been objective.

Natural versus unnatural is an arbitrary distinction, used to delegitimize “undesirable” behaviors. People use “natural” to imbue behaviors and identities with morality, and they usually mean “like me” or “how I should be.” “Unnatural” is wielded to mean “unrelatable” or “bad.” If humans are “natural” at all, everything we do is natural. There is no “unnatural.”

see also: NORMAL; CISNORMATIVITY; HETERONORMATIVITY; BIOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM; AESTHETIC

NB — Acronym for NON-BINARY.

NE/NIR — A gender neutral neopronoun.

Like ve/ver, ne/nir is derivative of both he/him and she/her, to create a gender balanced, gender neutral pronoun.

Like all pronouns, the use of ne/nir doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about the user’s gender; anyone can use gender neutral pronouns. Here are some examples:

Ne is good

I called nem

Nir face lit up

That’s nirs

Ne loves nemself

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