Unlike my LGBTQIA collections, the pieces in this collection aren't necessarily accurate to what people are like in real life. Some of the things here are realistic, and some are speculative works about what gender might be like in nonhuman societies, or in the future. Those can be interesting and useful to think about, too.
In real life, people who are xenogender don't necessarily consider themselves to be nonhuman too. People who do consider themselves to be nonhuman don't necessarily see their nonhumanity as making them different from common human ideas of gender, either. However, there are people who feel that their nonhumanity is part of why they don't fit in with how most people think about gender. Their stories are in this collection, too. As such, this collection is part of a series of curated collections of itch.io creations for alterhumans.
This collection is also part of my directory of other people's creations on itch.io, Curated Collections of LGBTQIA, where you can find more collections about other topics. I personally select and review each creation in them, even if they are different than my own views or experiences as a queer person myself.
Content: Rated PG. Swear words. Drug mention.
Medium: Dice rolling table for use with a tabletop role-playing game.
Genre and subject: Comedy. Satire.
About, as described by the designer:
"Inspired by the Babylon Bee article Dungeons And Dragons Introduces New 100-Sided Die For Determining Your Character's Gender, [this] is a D&D-style table celebrating the ways we talk about gender [...] meant to be laughed with, not laughed at. This was made with the help of dozens of transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people, and by a transfeminine designer (me). Use this for your characters or just for laughs. Enjoy!"
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Physical game. One page of instructions.
Length: A few minutes.
About: "Third Option is a simple game about reaching outside the options you're given. It takes the form of a conversation (written, spoken, or otherwise), and requires no extra materials. Recommended as an icebreaker, idle distraction, or grounding exercise."
Vibe: Thoughtful, playful.
Curator's note: The game doesn't mention genders outside of the male/female binary, but personally I think it's ideal for getting that idea across, and for sharpening the skill of thinking outside of other boxes.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Illustrated zine.
Duration: You can read this in a few minutes.
About a category of nonbinary gender identities that are defined by something other than what they have to do with women and men. Part of this zine talks about how a nonhuman experience of gender differs from that of many people.
Vibe: Cute and playful.
Content: Unrated.
Medium: An anthology zine. 53 pages long. Color. Essays, artwork, comics, and more.
About: Xenogender means "A gender that cannot be contained by human understandings of gender; more concerned with crafting other methods of gender categorization and hierarchy such as those relating to animals, plants, or other creatures/things." People who are xenogender are not necessarily alterhuman, and alterhumans are not necessarily xenogender, and some people are both. This zine is about how our genders intersect with our species. The contributors to this anthology are:
Daski, the Dragonheart Collective, the House of Chimeras, Laika Wallace, N. Noel Sol, Nova, Professional_jaywalker, Raphyel Snyder, Sarabi, Sonne Spiritwind, Sunny (sssunshinebreeze), Toby Rivok, Vexxervee, telo Telo, and anonymous.
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages.
Medium: A zine. 16 pages, with covers. Layout for reading on screen.
About: A workbook for describing your gender by plotting it on a grid, where the reference points are other concepts than a male-female axis.
Vibe: Innovative, approachable, makes difficult concepts look easy.
Content: Rated PG-13. References to bodies and sex aren't explicit.
Medium: A supplement for any tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) or story that has nonhuman cultures.
About: In a nonhuman culture, would they have the same norms about gender and relationships? What do they think makes a gender, could it be something else unrelated to what humans think is key to that? Consider these questions when you're world-building or designing a character. You can use these dice rolling tables to generate some ideas for your game or story.
Content: Rated PG because sometimes there are swear words.
Medium: A random word generator that runs in your web browser.
About: The creator explained in one of the comments,
"Gender has meaning but for me and a lot of others that meaning changes depending on context. In this context specifically it's kind of being thought of as an intimate definition of self, not so much just what literal gender you are or whatever. Although honestly it was just me and some friends having fun thinking of different things that could be somewhat considered a 'gender.'"
When I played with this generator, some examples of genders that I saw it randomly produce were:
bogwitch, captain, forbidden, aether, riot, flower, dial tone, Andy Warhol, anti-real, purse puppy, hall of the mountain king, (modem sounds), cringe, the smell of old books, pretentious, nudibranch, awoo, lost to mortal tongues, no thank you, feral cat, being the one who loads the dishwasher, a Where's Waldo? poster with no Waldo in it, and what are you, a cop?
Vibe: The sort of queer humor by queer folk that is sort of tongue in cheek while also being sort of all too real and relatable.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: "A set of phone wallpapers for pride month! Featuring two charismatic fox species, PLUS a layered .PSD so you can create a version with the flag (or other color scheme) of your choice + your fox OC. You can even replace the fox with a totally different animal :3"
Relevance: One of the designs in this creation uses the xenogender flag.
"Made for #TRANSFUCKINGRAGEJAM with all the anger I could muster. In this experience, you are given a piece of paper and told to go to town on it as an unbridled expression of your gender. Less of a game, more of a prompt."
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: Computer game.
Relevance: Dragons in this story don't have gender, and are all called it/its. They have male/female roles just for mating. In the beginning of the game, there is some dialog that sets which physical sex you will have. Before they hatch, a baby dragon can telepathically ask for which one it wants to be, and then the brooding parent will incubate the egg at the appropriate temperature for that development.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: An interactive text, created in Twine, which guides you through steps of making a drawing on a piece of paper.
About: This game "uses the art-making process to mirror the process of forming a gender identity, and invites players to think about their gender in ways that are unclear, abstract, potentially uncomfortable, and disconnected from a binary understanding of gender."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Computer game created in Bitsy. It runs in your browser.
Duration: About ten minutes.
About: This tiny little encyclopedia is about a world where parts of language are personified as creatures, similar to Pokémon. Third-person singular pronouns appear as dear little monsters, but not as stereotypes associated with those pronouns. Some of these are nounself pronouns.
Relevance: In real life, some xenogender people prefer to be called by nounself pronouns, to express that their gender is about something unrelated to male or female.
Content: Rated PG-13. Warnings for alcohol, drugs, body horror, scary moments, trauma, grief, kink, fantasy racism, and gross-out humor about spoiled food and unsanitary things.
Medium: Computer game. Mostly a visual novel with a few puzzles.
Duration: Hours for each play through. You have to play the game over from the beginning to get the other endings.
About: Science fiction with some elements of comedy and horror. The first truly artificially intelligent robot asks you (a failing journalist) to help investigate the disappearance of their creator.
Relevance: Some dialog is about how gender is for a robot.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A personal zine.
About: No gender. Only snakes?
Content: Rated PG.
Medium: Illustrated zine in full color. Fantasy fiction.
Content: Rated PG-13. WARNING FOR FLASHING LIGHTS.
Medium: Computer game.
Duration: Many hours in a play through.
About: You clean up other people's litter in a bustling spaceport. You dream of a life of adventure, just like the tantalizing glimpses that you see all around you. The last time you tried, you only got cursed with a skull apparition that drains your luck whenever it roars at you, and it never stops. This game is about faith, chronic illness, and how poverty can be impossible to escape once you're trapped in it.
Relevance: Many alien experiences of gender and sexuality appear in this game. Most are little mentions here and there, but one is a main element of game play. The alien player character regularly needs to buy a new gender from a vending machine. You get a different one each time. Some of the examples that the players have seen:
girlbeast, crystalline, crime baby, damp man, NPC, heavenly, goblin, artisanal femme, hellgender, meh, seapunk, Susan Sarandon, chronogyne, cuddleslut, decomposed, medusoid, punchin nazis, industrial, wizard, healthcare is a human right, cowboy
It's hard for you to afford a gender, but the longer you postpone your gendershift, you suffer worse hallucinations and nausea. When I looked at reviews and blog posts about this game, I noticed that transgender gamers see this as being like taking hormones, and representing the janitor's need to regularly take care of her health, even though this is tough to balance with her other competing needs and goals. These players don't neglect the janitor's gender for long, partly because they enjoy getting to see the name of her new gender. In contrast, cisgender gamers usually interpret "gender" as being the street name of a drug that the janitor is addicted to. These players decide to go cold turkey to save money for other needs. They prefer to tolerate how the character's withdrawal symptoms interfere with their play throughout the game. The players' expectations lead them to make distinctive choices with this game mechanic.
Vibe: A lot of really specific emotions that I'm having a tough time naming. Like, it's the feeling of when everything really really sucks, but instead of despair, you have hope, even if your hope is unrealistic, and you appreciate how there is an overwhelming amount of beauty and wonder in the world, even though you're barred from participating in a lot of it. I would also say it feels true to the spirit of punk.
Medium: TTRPG for 1-5 players.
About: "Set in the strange world of Gaukesh, it [this game] explores the relationship between bodies, gender, and identity through the lens of science fantasy. You tell the story of Galio, a pilgrim venturing into the Twisting Chateau on Churning Day. Together, you will make decisions for them and guide them through the strange labyrinth. The festivities something between a dungeon crawl and a massive party. Countless pilgrims have traveled travel far and wide to the nearest Twisting Chateau. Alongside them, through both hardships and celebration, you seek to discover truths about yourself."
Content: Rated G.
Medium/about: A tool for user pronouns in Twitch that can handle complicated neopronouns, even nounself pronouns.
