X

X — A third gender alternative to M (male) or F (female) on identifying documents.

At the time of writing, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, and some places in the US allow X gender markers or other third-gender markers.

The link between legal gender recognition and social acceptance and freedom from discrimination is strong, but not absolute. Legislation codifies and reproduces social hierarchies. But, just because some countries allow for legal recognition of a third gender on certain documents, it does not mean that the material conditions for trans people in those places are better, and access to changing your gender marker will depend on other socio-economic factors such as administrative fees, time cost, ease of navigating bureaucracy, and safety regarding being out.

see also: GENDER RECOGNITION; NON-BINARY; OUT

XE/XEM — A gender neutral pronoun, pronounced the same as “ze.”

Xe pronouns can be used by anyone—using gender neutral pronouns or language does not necessarily indicate anything about the user’s gender.

Xe represented an aesthetic change away from the feminine leanings of “ze” pronouns. The X has a “Z” sound, but this is not immediately obvious to people unfamiliar with the pronouns, which makes them fairly uncommon.

Xe sighed	I smiled at xe	Xer friend is nice	That’s xers	Xe likes xemself
	I smiled at xyr	Xyr friend is nice	That’s xyrs

XEM — see: XE/XEM.

XENOFEMINISM — A feminist politic focused on biohacking, post-capitalism, and gender abolition.

Xenofeminism was developed by the feminist collective Laboria Cuboniks in Xenofeminism: a politics for alienation (2015). Xenofeminism is anti-naturalist, unconcerned with respecting the so-called laws of nature. It’s a call to arms to change nature, which “has nothing to offer us” if we are women, queer, trans, and/or disabled: “If nature is unjust, change nature!” Nothing is too sacred to hack and wield in the struggle for emancipation, including our languages and our bodies.

Xenofeminism positions itself after post-modernity and is less focused on identity politics; in fact, it chastises the puritanical virtue signaling and fetishization of oppression on modern social media. Xenofeminism does not strive for purity, but for “better corruption.”

Gender abolitionism here is not shorthand for homogenizing or “ending” gender, but ending the asymmetrical power relations of gender under patriarchy.

Xenofeminism builds on cyberfeminism—the virtual and the material are understood as interconnected and equally real. It also incorporates aspects of queer theory, critical race theory, and Marxist-feminism. Critiques of xenofeminism highlight that humanity is not afforded or denied equally, and that xenofeminism should more explicitly account for these differences.