Colorgender
Describing a gender by colour when words will not do it.
Colorgender describes a gender using colour rather than category: pink gender, grey gender, gold gender. It belongs to the xenogender family, where the description borrows from something other than the usual vocabulary of gender.
The colour is not decorative. People using it report that the colour conveys the texture of the gender in a way that masculine, feminine and neutral do not, and that a specific shade is often more precise than any word.
It attracts the same ridicule as xenopronouns and for the same reason: it is an attempt to describe something for which the shared vocabulary genuinely has no term.
Colorgender is a description, not a decoration
It is read as choosing a favourite colour and calling it a gender, which mistakes the register the description is working in.
The people using it are reaching for the nearest accurate thing after finding that the standard words are not accurate. That is what description is.
Saying it well
Say this
- My gender is a colour.
- Colorgender, closest to a particular grey.
- Not decorative. Descriptive.
- The shade is more precise than any word I have.
Not this
- Your gender is not a colour
- This is why nobody takes it seriously
- That is an aesthetic, not a gender
- Just say nonbinary
Questions people actually ask
What does colorgender mean?
Describing a gender by colour rather than by category, as part of the xenogender family.
Is it the same as liking a colour?
No. The colour conveys the texture of the gender rather than a preference.
Why describe a gender this way?
Because for some people a specific shade is more precise than any available word.