Why Aren't We All Using These Adorable Gender-Neutral Terms?

My roommate bounced onto my bed one day this summer with the biggest smile on her face. She had spent the day visiting our mutual friend, Ryn* and had some news to share. “Guess what?” she asked. “Ryn has a boyfriend!”

There’s nothing out of the ordinary about that conversation — people have friends who start new relationships, and are excited for them, all the time. But Ryn’s relationship with this guy isn’t exactly ordinary. Ryn identifies as an agender, non-binary, and asexual person. Their new boyfriend identifies as a cisgender and allosexual (aka, not-asexual) man.

That summer day, Ryn had one question on their mind. “What is he going to call me?” they asked.

The question had already come up. When they decided to make the relationship official, Ryn’s boyfriend asked if he could call them his girlfriend. Understandably, Ryn was uncomfortable with him using that word — because they’re not a girl. They’re not a boy, either, so “boyfriend” was out. Because the relationship was so new, “partner” seemed too serious.

Ultimately, Ryn decided that their boyfriend could just call them “Ryn” — because why not just refer to them with their name? Still, the conversation brings up an important point for gender non-conforming people in any kind of relationship — and for people whose gender we can’t possibly know. The English language may be full of unnecessarily gendered terms — like boyfriend, girlfriend, niece, nephew, uncle, or aunt — but there has to be a gender-neutral way to refer to our loved ones who don’t fit within the gender binary.

And there is. The Tumblr page, Gender Queeries, has crowdsourced words from the queer community that are more inclusive — words so adorable, we should all be using them. Read on for the gender-neutral terms you didn’t know you needed.