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gentle_beastiesjust in case anyone needs them,
here are a couple of examples of the use of singular they in english literature from the 1800s until the early 2000s.
because some bigots still love to try and insist 'they' can't be a singular pronoun or that there's no precedent for it, for some reason. as if that even matters. obviously, it's completely irrelevant whether there's a precedent for it or not, but the claim that there isn't, is also totally false. so if you need ammo for those kind of bigots, here you go!
( only a tiny few of the many that exist )
here are a couple of examples of the use of singular they in english literature from the 1800s until the early 2000s.
because some bigots still love to try and insist 'they' can't be a singular pronoun or that there's no precedent for it, for some reason. as if that even matters. obviously, it's completely irrelevant whether there's a precedent for it or not, but the claim that there isn't, is also totally false. so if you need ammo for those kind of bigots, here you go!
( only a tiny few of the many that exist )
thinking disabled thoughts
19 July 2022 11:34 amthe_night_shiftin a capitalist world, Disability is a radical concept.
it's the radical concept of being, not doing.
of existence equalling worthiness, instead of needing to earn it.
of living at the pace of your own body & brain, not the pace demanded by capitalist society.
of doing what you need, not serving the eldritch god known as "The Economy".
and the fact that no person is actually a production automaton capable of functioning at 100% capacity every day forever, and that all bodies break down and wear out, technically makes everyone disabled (small d) under capitalism.
obviously, there's still a Very Important Difference between those who experience societal ableism to the extent that Disabled (big D) people do, versus those who experience abled privilege. but even those two things can both co-exist in the same person in different ways. it's complicated.
plenty of other Disabled activists have said it before me, but yeah... revolutionary idea:
what if everyone's disabled by capitalism?
what if this capitalist life is unsustainable even for privileged folks?
and what if we all sit down and refuse to play along, anymore?
if enough people stop turning the wheels, we can stop the machine.
stop the slow, endless grinding of ourselves and everyone else into dust.
how about it? shall we?
it's the radical concept of being, not doing.
of existence equalling worthiness, instead of needing to earn it.
of living at the pace of your own body & brain, not the pace demanded by capitalist society.
of doing what you need, not serving the eldritch god known as "The Economy".
and the fact that no person is actually a production automaton capable of functioning at 100% capacity every day forever, and that all bodies break down and wear out, technically makes everyone disabled (small d) under capitalism.
obviously, there's still a Very Important Difference between those who experience societal ableism to the extent that Disabled (big D) people do, versus those who experience abled privilege. but even those two things can both co-exist in the same person in different ways. it's complicated.
plenty of other Disabled activists have said it before me, but yeah... revolutionary idea:
what if everyone's disabled by capitalism?
what if this capitalist life is unsustainable even for privileged folks?
and what if we all sit down and refuse to play along, anymore?
if enough people stop turning the wheels, we can stop the machine.
stop the slow, endless grinding of ourselves and everyone else into dust.
how about it? shall we?
elsegender - an umbrella term
18 February 2022 12:21 pmgentle_beastieselsegender - coined by Halley (thon/thons) of the gentle beasts plural clan in february 2021.
contents:
what is elsegender?
elsegender definition
why elsegender?
pride flags
pride flag meanings
metadata for researchers
what is elsegender?
it's a positive alternative to "nonbinary," designed to be more empowering, and more inclusive of racialised/POC cultures (especially indigenous ones) and of a wider range of gender experiences marginalised by the western binary.
definition:
elsegender:
anyone whose gender, lack of gender, or experience of gender can be described as "something else" than the gender expectations of their culture or a culture they interact with.
why elsegender?
the term elsegender is designed to make space for people from cultures that don't use a gender binary (like if they have 3 or more traditional genders for example), and to empower all genderqueer/elsegender/nonbinary/etc folk by defining us by what we are, instead of defining us by what we're not.
it's less white-people-centric, and it's claiming space for us in the gender landscape, instead of leaving us exiled and defined in relation to the binary, the way 'nonbinary' does.
(personally, a lot of us beasts use 'genderqueer' for the same effect, but we know not everyone's comfortable identifying that way due to the reclaimed slur, so it's nice to have a more neutral umbrella term that includes everyone.)
pride flags
CC0: public domain. these pride flags are free to use, modify, distribute, and profit from. they belong to the queer community and the world. we (gentle beasts) created these designs, but we waive our copyright control. see below for detailed copyright info.
4 designs available (full size lower down):
elsegender pride flag v1 - original/fancy version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
(skip to top of full size original flag)
elsegender pride flag v2 - simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
(skip to top of full size simplified flag)
elsegender pride flag v3 - big stars version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
(skip to top of full size big stars flag)
the muted pride flag is an accessibility/safety option for people with light sensitivity, colour sensitivity, brightness/colour migraine triggers, or any other reason to need or want to use it. you can use it just because you like it better, too!
elsegender pride flag v4 - basic muted simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
unfortunately we haven't had the spoons (limited disabled-person energy/capability to do things) yet to create a properly curated muted version (where we carefully select each individual colour), so this version just uses a grey filter. we also haven't yet had the spoons to create muted versions of the other flags, but we do intend to.
or feel free to create your own! the filter we used was hex code #333333 at 50% opacity.
[note: this section of the post, and all other references to/instances of the muted version of the flag, were added on the 8th july 2026.]
(skip to top of full size muted flag)
elsegender pride flag v1 - original/fancy version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
elsegender pride flag v2 - simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
elsegender pride flag v3 - big stars version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
elsegender pride flag v4 - basic muted simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
(skip to the top of the copyright info)
(skip to the top of the full size images section)
feel free to make your own versions!
pride flag meanings:
the black surrounding all the other colours is to symbolise space/infinity, because gender is as limitless and varied as the multiverse. (by 'the multiverse' we mean every universe that does or could possibly exist.)
this is also why the original & fancy versions of the flag use stars scattered across black. the idea of the flag is to invoke the infinite vastness of space and the multiverse, and all the diverse possibilities of gender.
colour symbolism:
purple
symbolises magic, spirituality, starlight, culture, & uniqueness.
represents two-spirits and other cultural genders from indigenous, racialised, or otherwise not-western-mainstream cultures, xenogenders, androgynous folk, and elsegender men/women/girls/boys.
teal-green
symbolises nature, growth, diversity, community, & selfhood/identity.
represents intergender, neurogender, genderqueer, genderfluid & multigender folk, orientation-genders, disability-genders, and other identity-trait genders.
yellow
symbolises joy, sunlight, power/energy, empowerment & independence.
represents outherine, binary-independent, abinary & 3rd-gender+ folk.
white
symbolises change/fluctuation, moonlight, introspection, and exceptions.
represents genderflux folk, questioning folk, and anyone who feels or identifies elsegender but doesn't fit the definition.
black
symbolises space, limitlessness, the void, defiance/subversiveness, and undefinableness.
represents agender & pangender folk, plurals, anyone who cannot be defined/rejects labels or is too many things, anyone whose gender is about defying or subverting societal expectations, and anyone not otherwise mentioned here.
we chose to keep the colours similar to the nonbinary flag, but felt it was very important to add an element of nature/growth with the teal-green, because being elsegender is natural, and so is being intersex, neurodivergent, disabled, and all those other things that can influence gender in a queer direction.
we also chose to prioritise inclusion for spiritual, indigenous, and otherwise racialised and/or cultural genders that often get overlooked or excluded otherwise, which is why we gave their colour - purple - the top spot.
(skip to the top of the flag colour meanings)
metadata for researchers:
the term elsegender was coined by Halley Finn-Beasts (thon/thons pronouns) of the gentle beasts plural community/plural collective.
by the terms 'plural community' or 'plural collective' in this context, we mean a community of people and other conscious beings who all share access to a single human body - a plural.
Halley coined the term elsegender because thon realised that many of us (gentle beasts) were tired of the white-centric/western-centric, binary-focussed, negative-toned nature of the term 'nonbinary', found it disempowering and exclusionary, and disliked being defined in relation to the binary. but thon noticed we also felt unable to use the term 'genderqueer' in certain spaces due to its potential to be triggering to some who've survived the word queer's use as a slur. so thon decided to create a word we could use that would define us positively and empoweringly, focus on including indigenous & other marginalised cultures, avoid relating us to the binary, and not use any reclaimed slurs.
when the term was first coined in february of 2021, our disabilities meant we were unable to make a comprehensive public post about it, like this one. we mostly just used it personally with our loved ones and close friends, and in our personal self-identifications online, and explained it to anyone who asked (several of whom began using it themselves). for this reason, there may not be much online record of it, especially since it saw the most use in discord servers, which aren't publically accessible.
unfortunately we do not have screenshots of the original coining, largely because it never occurred to us to take any. we were just talking privately amongst ourselves and with our siblings, at the time. but any screenshots we did have of early uses are also lost due to our laptop dying and the backups being partially corrupted.
[edit 8th jul 2026: it also took us over 4 years to be able to fully publish this post after making it in 2022, due to a combination of disability and harassment. so this post spent a long time only being privately visible to logged-in community members instead of public. end edit.]
however, we do know the term elsegender was used by several people in their responses to the nonbinary gender census in 2021. (to preserve the intended anonymity of the census, we will not confirm which if any were members of the gentle beasts.) if the term is visible in the published gender census results, the results from 2021 may represent the earliest publically-searchable useage of 'elsegender', but we have not checked.
we're also aware some people (who are not members of gentle beasts) posted on tumblr using 'elsegender' as a tag.
there was also an old thread on our @gentle_beasts twitter somewhere, but its definition wording will be outdated. (due to cognitive disabilities, it took Halley and the rest of us a long time to get the wording for the definition down correctly, so that it says what we actually intend.) [edit jul 2026: we checked, and our old twitter account has now been suspended, despite the fact we haven't even logged in for around 3 or 4 years. our best guess is that our queerness is objectionable to the new fascist regime there under the muskrat. unfortunately this means the old thread about coining the term is no longer available. end edit.]
info added 8th jul 2026:
pride flag creation dates etc
the original/fancy version pride flag was created on: 8 aug 2021
the simplified version pride flag was created on: 8 aug 2021
the big stars version pride flag was created on: 18 dec 2023
the basic muted simplified version was created on: 8 jul 2026
the simplified version of the pride flag was used in a twitter avatar in 2021 on a now-deleted account.
someone on twitter made a mandela-style version of the pride flag inspired by spiral galaxies in 2021 or so, but we don't remember their username.
there was a podcast about marginalised genders that incorporated the simplified elsegender pride flag into their logo design back in 2022, but we don't remember the name.
the big stars version of the pride flag has been available on drue wilding's personal pride flag blender (warning, not accessible to screen readers) since april 2025.
(skip to the top of the metadata)
we hereby give explicit permission for the contents of this post to be reproduced in full or in part on wiki pages or other queer community info resources, if desired.
contents:
what is elsegender?
elsegender definition
why elsegender?
pride flags
pride flag meanings
metadata for researchers
what is elsegender?
it's a positive alternative to "nonbinary," designed to be more empowering, and more inclusive of racialised/POC cultures (especially indigenous ones) and of a wider range of gender experiences marginalised by the western binary.
definition:
anyone whose gender, lack of gender, or experience of gender can be described as "something else" than the gender expectations of their culture or a culture they interact with.
why elsegender?
the term elsegender is designed to make space for people from cultures that don't use a gender binary (like if they have 3 or more traditional genders for example), and to empower all genderqueer/elsegender/nonbinary/etc folk by defining us by what we are, instead of defining us by what we're not.
it's less white-people-centric, and it's claiming space for us in the gender landscape, instead of leaving us exiled and defined in relation to the binary, the way 'nonbinary' does.
(personally, a lot of us beasts use 'genderqueer' for the same effect, but we know not everyone's comfortable identifying that way due to the reclaimed slur, so it's nice to have a more neutral umbrella term that includes everyone.)
pride flags
CC0: public domain. these pride flags are free to use, modify, distribute, and profit from. they belong to the queer community and the world. we (gentle beasts) created these designs, but we waive our copyright control. see below for detailed copyright info.
4 designs available (full size lower down):
| elsegender v1 original/fancy | elsegender v2 simplified | elsegender v3 big stars | elsegender v4 muted simplified |
 |
 |
 |
 |
click to show/hide: full size pride flag images & copyright info
click to show/hide: original (fancy) pride flag full size
elsegender pride flag v1 - original/fancy version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
(skip to top of full size original flag)
click to show/hide: simplified pride flag full size
elsegender pride flag v2 - simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
(skip to top of full size simplified flag)
click to show/hide: fancy pride flag - big stars full size
elsegender pride flag v3 - big stars version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
(skip to top of full size big stars flag)
click to show/hide: simplified pride flag - basic muted version full size
the muted pride flag is an accessibility/safety option for people with light sensitivity, colour sensitivity, brightness/colour migraine triggers, or any other reason to need or want to use it. you can use it just because you like it better, too!
elsegender pride flag v4 - basic muted simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0
unfortunately we haven't had the spoons (limited disabled-person energy/capability to do things) yet to create a properly curated muted version (where we carefully select each individual colour), so this version just uses a grey filter. we also haven't yet had the spoons to create muted versions of the other flags, but we do intend to.
or feel free to create your own! the filter we used was hex code #333333 at 50% opacity.
[note: this section of the post, and all other references to/instances of the muted version of the flag, were added on the 8th july 2026.]
(skip to top of full size muted flag)
click to show/hide: copyright info
elsegender pride flag v1 - original/fancy version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
elsegender pride flag v2 - simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
elsegender pride flag v3 - big stars version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
elsegender pride flag v4 - basic muted simplified version by gentle beasts is marked CC0 1.0. To view a copy of this mark, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
(skip to the top of the copyright info)
(skip to the top of the full size images section)
feel free to make your own versions!
pride flag meanings:
click to show/hide: elsegender flag colour meanings & symbolism
the black surrounding all the other colours is to symbolise space/infinity, because gender is as limitless and varied as the multiverse. (by 'the multiverse' we mean every universe that does or could possibly exist.)
this is also why the original & fancy versions of the flag use stars scattered across black. the idea of the flag is to invoke the infinite vastness of space and the multiverse, and all the diverse possibilities of gender.
colour symbolism:
purple
symbolises magic, spirituality, starlight, culture, & uniqueness.
represents two-spirits and other cultural genders from indigenous, racialised, or otherwise not-western-mainstream cultures, xenogenders, androgynous folk, and elsegender men/women/girls/boys.
teal-green
symbolises nature, growth, diversity, community, & selfhood/identity.
represents intergender, neurogender, genderqueer, genderfluid & multigender folk, orientation-genders, disability-genders, and other identity-trait genders.
yellow
symbolises joy, sunlight, power/energy, empowerment & independence.
represents outherine, binary-independent, abinary & 3rd-gender+ folk.
white
symbolises change/fluctuation, moonlight, introspection, and exceptions.
represents genderflux folk, questioning folk, and anyone who feels or identifies elsegender but doesn't fit the definition.
black
symbolises space, limitlessness, the void, defiance/subversiveness, and undefinableness.
represents agender & pangender folk, plurals, anyone who cannot be defined/rejects labels or is too many things, anyone whose gender is about defying or subverting societal expectations, and anyone not otherwise mentioned here.
we chose to keep the colours similar to the nonbinary flag, but felt it was very important to add an element of nature/growth with the teal-green, because being elsegender is natural, and so is being intersex, neurodivergent, disabled, and all those other things that can influence gender in a queer direction.
we also chose to prioritise inclusion for spiritual, indigenous, and otherwise racialised and/or cultural genders that often get overlooked or excluded otherwise, which is why we gave their colour - purple - the top spot.
(skip to the top of the flag colour meanings)
metadata for researchers:
click to show/hide: metadata: info on the coining of the term and where to look for use examples (for archivists, researchers, and the curious).
the term elsegender was coined by Halley Finn-Beasts (thon/thons pronouns) of the gentle beasts plural community/plural collective.
by the terms 'plural community' or 'plural collective' in this context, we mean a community of people and other conscious beings who all share access to a single human body - a plural.
Halley coined the term elsegender because thon realised that many of us (gentle beasts) were tired of the white-centric/western-centric, binary-focussed, negative-toned nature of the term 'nonbinary', found it disempowering and exclusionary, and disliked being defined in relation to the binary. but thon noticed we also felt unable to use the term 'genderqueer' in certain spaces due to its potential to be triggering to some who've survived the word queer's use as a slur. so thon decided to create a word we could use that would define us positively and empoweringly, focus on including indigenous & other marginalised cultures, avoid relating us to the binary, and not use any reclaimed slurs.
when the term was first coined in february of 2021, our disabilities meant we were unable to make a comprehensive public post about it, like this one. we mostly just used it personally with our loved ones and close friends, and in our personal self-identifications online, and explained it to anyone who asked (several of whom began using it themselves). for this reason, there may not be much online record of it, especially since it saw the most use in discord servers, which aren't publically accessible.
unfortunately we do not have screenshots of the original coining, largely because it never occurred to us to take any. we were just talking privately amongst ourselves and with our siblings, at the time. but any screenshots we did have of early uses are also lost due to our laptop dying and the backups being partially corrupted.
[edit 8th jul 2026: it also took us over 4 years to be able to fully publish this post after making it in 2022, due to a combination of disability and harassment. so this post spent a long time only being privately visible to logged-in community members instead of public. end edit.]
however, we do know the term elsegender was used by several people in their responses to the nonbinary gender census in 2021. (to preserve the intended anonymity of the census, we will not confirm which if any were members of the gentle beasts.) if the term is visible in the published gender census results, the results from 2021 may represent the earliest publically-searchable useage of 'elsegender', but we have not checked.
we're also aware some people (who are not members of gentle beasts) posted on tumblr using 'elsegender' as a tag.
there was also an old thread on our @gentle_beasts twitter somewhere, but its definition wording will be outdated. (due to cognitive disabilities, it took Halley and the rest of us a long time to get the wording for the definition down correctly, so that it says what we actually intend.) [edit jul 2026: we checked, and our old twitter account has now been suspended, despite the fact we haven't even logged in for around 3 or 4 years. our best guess is that our queerness is objectionable to the new fascist regime there under the muskrat. unfortunately this means the old thread about coining the term is no longer available. end edit.]
info added 8th jul 2026:
pride flag creation dates etc
the original/fancy version pride flag was created on: 8 aug 2021
the simplified version pride flag was created on: 8 aug 2021
the big stars version pride flag was created on: 18 dec 2023
the basic muted simplified version was created on: 8 jul 2026
the simplified version of the pride flag was used in a twitter avatar in 2021 on a now-deleted account.
someone on twitter made a mandela-style version of the pride flag inspired by spiral galaxies in 2021 or so, but we don't remember their username.
there was a podcast about marginalised genders that incorporated the simplified elsegender pride flag into their logo design back in 2022, but we don't remember the name.
the big stars version of the pride flag has been available on drue wilding's personal pride flag blender (warning, not accessible to screen readers) since april 2025.
(skip to the top of the metadata)
we hereby give explicit permission for the contents of this post to be reproduced in full or in part on wiki pages or other queer community info resources, if desired.
