Objectum

Objectum (pronounced ob-jikt-tum or ob-jekt-tum)

(1) In the categorization of human sexuality (also as object sexuality or objectophilia), a form of interest focused on one or a number of particular inanimate objects.  It must not be confused with sexual objectification.

(2) In philosophy, a now mostly obsolete descriptor of that towards which cognition is directed, as contrasted with the thinking subject; anything regarded as external to the mind, especially in the external world.

Pre 1000:  From the Medieval Latin objectum (something thrown down or presented (to the mind)), noun use of the neuter of objectus (past participle of objicere) from obicere, the construct being ob- (against; facing (a combining prefix found in verbs of Latin origin)) + jec- (combining form of jacere (to throw)) + -tus (past participle suffix) and a gloss of the Ancient Greek ἀντικείμενον (antikeímenon).  From this Middle English gained objecten (to argue against), from the Middle French objecter & objeter from the Latin objectāre (to throw or put before, oppose) and later (circa 1325-1375), the more familiar object (something perceived, purpose, objection).  The sense of object describing a “tangible and visible thing” emerged in the late fourteenth century from the Old French object and directly from Medieval Latin obiectum (thing put before (the mind or sight)).  Objectum is a noun & adjective and objectism is a noun; the noun plural is objectums. 

The O in LGBTQQIAAOP

Objectum Sexuality (OS) and objectum romanticism (OR), both often clipped to "objectum", is the attraction to inanimate objects, a feeling which can be sexual, romantic or both and can be a form of tertiary attraction.  The objects to which an objectum individual is attracted are often called "beloved objects" and not infrequently have names and personalities given to them by their objectum lover.  Beloved objects have included buildings, light fittings, bridges, cars, statues, fences, water, musical instruments, articles of clothing, and amusement park rides although objects do not have to be tangible and can include logos or letters, thus the linking by some psychiatrists to synesthesia.  Some objectum people are poly-amorous, dedicated to many objects, some are devoted to a single thing and both may either be also attracted to people or drawn exclusively to objects.  Objectum sexuality is different from a sexual paraphilia as a paraphilia does not imply a devoted personal relationship, feeling mutual and reciprocal attraction, and usually does not include animistic beliefs.  Academic work has developed a spectrum defining the differences between object fetishism and objectum orientation, the most interesting interactions presumably at the margins.

The modern, somewhat opportunistic, adoption of objectum by the OS/OR community wasn’t widely embraced by the medical profession which preferred first objectophilia and later, object sexuality although, in American psychiatry, prior to the publication of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), objectophilia was regarded as just another example of "psychopathic personality with pathologic sexuality".  The DSM-I (1952) included sexual deviation as a personality disorder of a sociopathic subtype although objectophilia attracted little professional interest, probably, and quite reasonably, because the “victims” were inanimate.  The DSM-II (1968) and subsequent DSM editions, up to DSM-IV-TR (2000) continued this neglect of the topic, DSM-IV-TR noting a paraphilia is not diagnosable as a psychiatric disorder unless it causes distress to the individual or harm to others.  The DSM-5 (2013) formalised this approach, both the definitional and clinical distinctions now focused on harm to individuals rather than deviations from defined norms.

Some objects are so beautiful, people fall in love.  Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916-1993) looking at the Lamborghini Miura, Sant’Agata, Italy, 1966.

The Lamborghini Miura (1966-1973) first appeared (without the bodywork) at the 1965 Turin Motor Show when a rolling chassis was displayed, the packaging intriguing knowing onlookers, the mid-mounted transverse V12 engine the highlight of what was clearly a revolutionary design though even at the time, engineers speculated about how layout would affect its driving characteristics.  The interest at Turin however was nothing like the reaction the following year when the Miura was displayed at the Geneva Motor Show.  It had been at Geneva half-a-decade earlier when the Jaguar E-Type (XK-E) had created such a sensation but while the E-Type was the final stylistic evolution of the 1930s-1950s roadster, the Miura was a glimpse of the future, the influence of its lines seen still in the hypercars of the twenty first century.  Built in three distinct versions, the factory introduced changes designed to ameliorate some of the characteristics induced by the physics of unusual layout and while the behavior (laterally and at the very high speed of which it was capable) was to some extent tamed, a Miura at the limits was never a thing predictable in the manner of contemporary Ferraris.  None of that now much matters because the Miura is achingly beautiful and were it not contrary to the laws of man and God, there would be those who would marry one.

In the spirit of the rainbow banner which began as the symbol of the gay liberation movement (though it's now used generally by a number of the sub-sets in the LGBTQQIAAOP aggregation), the objectum community has its own flag.  Blue represents physical objects, whether man-made or nature based; gray references abstract or non-tangible inanimate objects; yellow is eye catching and bright, representing public objects; purple is muted and calming, representing personal objects; white represents the animistic belief held by many of the OS & OR; the red circle represents the objectum community and is filled in with the flag’s core color of white to represent the spirit the objectum sense in their beloved objects.

A tactile relationship: Mr & Mrs Eiffel.

Erika Eiffel (née LaBrie) was probably the woman who brought objectum sexuality to a wider (if not wholly receptive) audience when in 2008 the documentary Married to the Eiffel Tower appeared online.  It "celebrated" a long-term relationship which dated back a decade although Mrs Eiffel changed her surname only in 2007 after a commitment ceremony and she heads Objectum Sexuality Internationale (OSI), a 400-strong association of object-oriented individuals.  The documentary might have been interesting had it not focused on the least interesting aspects of OS & OR: The sexual nature of the relationships and the notion that the inclination is a quest for control attributable to prior abuse and mental illness.

Just good friends: Lindsay Lohan in polka dots with la tour Eiffel, Paris Fashion Week, 2019.

Being click-bait, that was of course as inevitable as the ferocity of the reaction but whatever the feelings of YouTube viewers, the profession has moved on and for some time has not diagnosed objectum sexuality as a psychiatric disorder and both the definitional and clinical distinctions now focus on harm to individuals rather than deviations from defined norms.  The basis for the change in view appears to be that OS & OR should be thought of as just another fork of the human condition, the logical (if not commonly pursued) conclusion for those (like Henry Ford (1863-1947) and others) happy to admit they are at their most content when alone with a machine.  That was certainly Mrs Eiffel’s profile.  A world-class recurve archer, while never attracted to romantic associations with people in her lifetime there have been many significant relationships with inanimate objects including a Japanese sword, her archery bows, a bridge, machinery she’s operated and of course, la tour Eiffel.

Velvet

Velvet (pronounced vel-vit)

(1) A fabric fashioned from silk with a thick, soft pile formed of loops of the warp thread either cut at the outer end or left uncut.

(2) In modern use, a fabric emulating in texture and appearance the silk original and made from nylon, acetate, rayon etc, sometimes having a cotton backing.

(3) Something likened to the fabric velvet, an allusion to appearance, softness or texture,

(4) The soft, deciduous covering of a growing antler.

(5) In informal use (often as “in velvet” or “in the velvet”), a very pleasant, luxurious, desirable situation.

(6) In slang, money gained through gambling; winnings (mostly US, now less common).

(7) In financial trading, clear gain or profit, especially when more than anticipated; a windfall profit.

(8) In mixology, as “Black Velvet”, a cocktail of champagne & stout (also made with dark, heavy beers).

(9) A female chinchilla; a sow.

(10) An item of clothing made from velvet (in modern use also of similar synthetics).

(11) In drug slang, the drug dextromethorphan.

(12) To cover something with velvet; to cover something with something of a covering of a similar texture.

(13) In cooking, to coat raw meat in starch, then in oil, preparatory to frying.

(14) To remove the velvet from a deer's antlers.

1275–1325: From the Middle English velvet, velwet, veluet, welwet, velvette, felwet veluet & veluwet, from the Old Occitan veluet, from the Old French veluotte, from the Medieval Latin villutittus or villūtus (literally shaggy cloth), from the classical Latin villus (nap of cloth, shaggy hair, tuft of hair), from velu (hairy) and cognate with French velours.  The Latin villus is though probably a dialectal variant of vellus (fleece), from the primitive Indo-European wel-no-, a suffixed form of uelh- (to strike).  Velvet is a noun, verb & adjective, velvetlike & velvety are adjectives, velveting & velveted are verbs & adjective; the noun plural is velvets.

The noun velveteen was coined in 1776 to describe one of first the imitation (made with cotton rather than silk) velvets commercially to be marketed at scale; the suffix –een was a special use of the diminutive suffix (borrowed from the Irish –in (used also –ine) which was used to form the diminutives of nouns in Hiberno-English).  In commercial use, it referred to products which were imitations of something rather than smaller.  The adjective velvety emerged in the early eighteenth century, later augmented by velvetiness.  In idiomatic use, the “velvet glove” implies someone or something is being treated with gentleness or caution.  When used as “iron fist in a velvet glove”, it suggests strength or determination (and the implication of threat) behind a gentle appearance or demeanor.  “Velvet” in general is often applied wherever the need exists to covey the idea of “to soften; to mitigate” and is the word used when a cat retracts its claws.  The adjective “velvety” can be used of anything smooth and the choice between it and forms like “buttery”, “silky”, “creamy” et al is just a matter of the image one wishes to summon.  The particular instance “Velvet Revolution” (Sametová revoluce in Czech) refers to the peaceful transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from in late 1989 in the wake of the fall of Berlin Wall.  Despite being partially in the Balkans, the transition from communism to democracy was achieved almost wholly without outbreaks of violence (in the Balkans it rare for much of note to happen without violence).

Ten years after: Lindsay Lohan in black velvet, London, January 2013 (left) and in pink velour tracksuit, Dubai, January 2023 (right).

The fabrics velvet and velour can look similar but they differ in composition.  Velvet historically was made with silk thread and was characterized by a dense pile, created by the rendering of evenly distributed loops on the surface.  There are now velvets made from cotton, polyester or other blends and its construction lends it a smooth, plush texture appearance, something often finished with a sheen or luster.  A popular modern variation is “crushed velvet”, achieved by twisting the fabric while wet which produces a crumpled and crushed look although the effect can be realized also by pressing the pile of fabric in a different direction.  It’s unusual in that object with most fabric is to avoid a “crumpled” look but crushed velvet is admired because of the way it shimmers as the light plays upon the variations in the texture.  The crushing process doesn’t alter the silky feel because of the dense pile and the fineness of the fibers.  Velour typically is made from knit fabrics such as cotton or polyester and is best known for its stretchiness which makes its suitable for many purposes including sportswear and upholstery.  Except in some specialized types, the pile is less dense than velvet (a consequence of the knitted construction) and while it can be made with a slight shine, usually the appearance tends to be matte.  Velour is used for casula clothing, tracksuits & sweatshirts and it’s hard-wearing properties mean it’s often used for upholstery and before the techniques emerged to permit vinyl to be close to indistinguishable from leather, it was often used by car manufacturers as a more luxurious to vinyl.  The noun velour (historically also as velure & velours) dates from 1706 and was from the French velours (velvet), from the Old French velor, an alteration of velos (velvet) from the same Latin sources as “velvet”.

US and European visions of luxury: 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman in velour (top left), 1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham in leather (top right), 1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in velour (bottom left) & 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in leather (bottom right).  Whether in velour or leather, the European approach in the era was more restrained. 

In car interiors, the golden age of velour began in the US in the early 1970s and lasted almost two decades, the increasingly plush interiors characterized by tufting and lurid colors.  Chrysler in the era made a selling point of their “rich, Corinthian leather” but the extravagant velour interiors were both more distinctive and emblematic of the era, the material stretching sometimes from floor to roof (the cars were often labeled “Broughams”).  The dismissive phrase used of the 1970s was “the decade style forgot” and that applied to clothes and interior decorating but the interior designs Detroit used on their cars shouldn’t be forgotten and while the polyester-rich cabins (at the time too, on the more expensive models one’s feet literally could sink into the deep pile carpet) were never the fire-risk comedians claimed, many other criticisms were justified.  Cotton-based velour had for decades been used by the manufacturers but the advent of mass-produced, polyester velour came at a time when “authenticity” didn’t enjoy the lure of today and the space age lent the attractiveness of modernity to plastics and faux wood, faux leather and faux velvet were suddenly an acceptable way to “tart up” the otherwise ordinary.  At the top end of the market, although the real things were still sometimes used, even in that segment soft, pillowy, tufted velour was a popular choice.

1989 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D'Elegance in velour (left) and a "low-rider" in velour (right).  The Cadillac is trimmed in a color which in slang came to be known as "bordello red".  Because of changing tastes, manufacturers no longer build cars with interiors which resemble a caricature of a mid-priced brothel but the tradition has been maintained (and developed) by the "low-rider" community, a sub-culture with specific tastes. 

At the time, the interiors were thought by buyers to convey “money” and the designers took to velour because the nature of the material allowed so many techniques cheaply to be deployed.  Compared with achieving a similar look in leather, the cost was low, the material cost (both velour and the passing underneath or behind) close to marginal and the designers slapped on pleats, distinctive (and deliberately obvious) stitching, extra stuffing, the stuff covering seats, door panels, and headliners, augmented with details like recessed buttons, leather grab-handles and the off chrome accent (often anodized plastic).  By the 1980s, velour had descended to the lower-priced product lines and this was at a time when the upper end of the market increasingly was turning to cars from European manufacturers, notably Mercedes-Benz and BMW, both of which equipped almost all their flagships destined for the US market with leather and real wood.

The Velvet Underground with Nico (Christa Päffgen; 1938–1988) while part of Andy Warhol’s (1928-1987) multimedia road-show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966-1967 and known briefly as “The Erupting Plastic Inevitable” or The Exploding Plastic Invisible).  Unusually, the acronym EPI never caught on.

The (posthumously) influential US rock band The Velvet Underground gained their name from a book with that title, published in 1963, the year before their original formation although it wouldn’t be until 1965 the band settled on the name.  The book was by journalist Michael Leigh (1901-1963) and it detailed the variety of “aberrant sexual practices” in the country and is notable as one of the first non-academic texts to explore what was classified as paraphilia (the sexual attraction to inanimate objects, now usually called Objectum Sexuality (OS) or objectum romanticism (OR) (both often clipped to "objectum")).  Leigh took a journalistic approach to the topic which focused on what was done, by whom and the ways and means by which those with “aberrant sexual interests” achieved and maintained contact.  The author little disguised his distaste for much about what he wrote.  The rock band’s most notable output came in four albums (The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), White Light/White Heat (1968), The Velvet Underground (1969) & Loaded (1970)) which enjoyed neither critical approval nor commercial success but by the late 1970s, in the wake of punk and the new wave, their work was acknowledged as seminal and their influence has been more enduring than many which were for most of the late twentieth century more highly regarded.

Digisexual & Fictosexual

Digisexual (pronounced dij-i-sek-shoo-uhl (U) or dij-I-seks-yoo-l (non-U))

(1) A person who is sexually attracted to robots or other technologically-mediated forms of sexuality.

(2) The predilection to or the practice of digisexuality.

Circa 2017: The construct was digi(tal)- +‎ -sexual.  The digi- prefix was from the Latin digitālis, the construct being digitus (finger, toe) + -alis (-al), the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).  Originally vested with the meanings “having to do with digits (fingers or toes)” & performed with a finger etc, it came to be applied to computing in the sense of “property of representing values as discrete, often binary, numbers rather than a continuous spectrum”, the link being the used of base-10 mathematics and the ten (fingers & thumbs) digits of a human’s hands.

Sexual was from Latin sexuālis, from sexus (sex), from the Proto-Italic seksus, from the primitive Indo-European séksus, from sek- (to cut) (thus the sense of “section, division”, the binary division into male and female).  The generalized meaning “arising from the fact of being male or female; pertaining to sex or gender, or to the social relations between the sexes” dates from the seventeenth century, the specific use in the biological sciences (capable of sexual reproduction; sexed, sexuate) not current until the mid-1800s although the familiar sense “pertaining to sexual intercourse or other intimate physical contact was common a century earlier.  The meaning “pertaining to the female sex” is noted by etymologists as enjoying currency only between the seventeenth & nineteenth century and being obsolete but a specific sense did survive as a literary device, the novelist Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) often using the phrase “my sex” to refer to her own genitals.

In some sense, what is now understood as digisexuality may have been around for a while but the neologism was coined in 2017 (there are references to some use of the term in 2014) to describe people for whom the primary and preferred sexual identity and experience of sex would be mediated by or conducted with some form of technology.  Interestingly, the researchers who authored the paper (Sexual and Relationship Therapy 32(1):1-11 (November 2017) by Neil McArthur & Markie L C Twist (Blumer)) positioned their concept as predictive, noting that while “radical new sexual technologies” which accommodated what they termed “digisexualities” already existed, it was advances in the technology which would see a growth in the numbers who would come to identify themselves as digisexuals, those whose primary sexual identity comes through the use of technology.  In one sense it was just an aspect of applied technology, much of the hardware and software a specific adaptation of developments in robotics for fields as diverse as the military, production line assembly and aged care but the social, legal, and ethical implications were many, including the need for clinicians working in mental health to become familiar with the challenges and benefits associated with the adoption of such sexual technologies.

Legal issues involving the representation of some of the machinery recently produced have been publicized by law enforcement bodies but one ethical matter which may in the future emerge is that of consent.  A Google software engineer who describes himself as a “Christian mystic” was recently placed on administrative leave after claiming LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications, a Google artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on which he was working) had become sentient.  The engineer’s posts on the matter indicated he used sentient in one of its more modern senses (possessing human-like awareness and intelligence) rather than the traditional "experiencing sensation, thought, or feeling; able consciously to perceive through the use of sense faculties; self-aware”.

LaMDA is computer code running on a distributed machine made from silicon, metals, plastics and such.  The code was written by humans and, even if some was self-generated by the machine, the parameters within which that’s possible were also human-defined and the consensus remains that such an agglomeration cannot become sentient; there’s no reason why it could not attain a capability to appear sentient to those with which it interacts but that’s different from being sentient.  It’s a convincing emulation which many computer scientists have for some time predicted is inevitable although not all agree all people can be fooled all of the time.

A digisexual relationship with something like LaMDA, although something which may be a matter of concern for some reasons, seems not to raise the issue of consent; LaMDA is a machine and can only appear to grant or withhold consent although there will be those who find disturbing the notion of someone performing a digisexual act on a machine which has said no.  Whether this is any worse than first-person shooter games isn’t clear but it’s certainly something which will attract more attention, sex seemingly more upsetting than violence.  However, there’s much interest in bio-computing (computers which use biological molecules (DNA, proteins etc)) to augment the traditional silicon-based platform.  At that point, the machine becomes in some way alive with the possibilities that implies and, although such a device remains hypothetical, it may be it become possible to create a machine with a brain (as conventionally understood).  At that point the right of a machine to say no presumably might become an issue and one which courts may have to discuss.  While a US court recently ruled a elephant can’t at law be a person a New Zealand court decided personhood could be conferred on a river.  How a court would deal with a machine which claims to have been violated is not predictable and may vary between jurisdictions.

Fictosexual (pronounced fik-toh-sek-shoo-uhl (U) or fik-toh-seks-yoo-l (non-U))

An identity for someone for whom the primary form of sexual attraction is fictional characters.

Circa 2014: The construct was fict(i)o(n) + sexual.  Ficto was a clipping of fiction, from the Middle English ficcioun, from the Old French ficcion (dissimulation, ruse, invention), from the Latin fictiō (a making, fashioning, a feigning, a rhetorical or legal fiction), from fingō (to form, mold, shape, devise, feign). It displaced the native Old English lēasspell (literally “false story”).

Sexual was from Latin sexuālis, from sexus (sex), from the Proto-Italic seksus, from the primitive Indo-European séksus, from sek- (to cut) (thus the sense of “section, division”, the binary division into male and female).  The generalized meaning “arising from the fact of being male or female; pertaining to sex or gender, or to the social relations between the sexes” dates from the seventeenth century, the specific use in the biological sciences (capable of sexual reproduction; sexed, sexuate) not current until the mid-1800s although the familiar sense “pertaining to sexual intercourse or other intimate physical contact was common a century earlier.

Flag of the fictosexual.

The black and grey stripes represent the lack of attraction towards non-fictional individuals, the purple stripe represents sexual attraction and the asexual spectrum, the black circle represents a portal to the fictional world in question, and pink represents attraction to fictional characters.

Fictosexuality (fictoromance & fictophilia are related) is an umbrella term for anyone who experience sexual attraction toward fictional characters, a general type of fictional characters, or whose sexuality is influenced by fictional characters.  As a noted behavior in mental illnesses with a delusional component, there’s doubtless a long history but the word seems first to have come into use circa 2014 but none of the documents which discuss fictosexuality appear to address the technical point of the status of the fictional depiction of a historic character.  Like digisexuality, fictosexuality is not dissimilar to Objectum sexuality, a condition in which people have a primary interest in objects.  The categories included under the fictosexual umbrella are not mutually exclusive and definitional overlap is noted:

Animesexuality: An exclusive attraction to anime.

Cartosexual: An attraction to cartoon or comic characters.

Booklosexual: An attraction to the characters in novels.

Visualnovelsexual: An attraction to the characters in visual novels.

Gamosexual: An attraction to the characters in video games.

Imagisexual: An attraction to fictional characters one can never see (book, audio characters etc).

Inreasexual: An attraction to characters from live-active genres.

OCsexual: An attraction to original characters.

Teratosexual: An attraction to monster-related characters.

Tobusexual: An attraction to vampire-related characters.

Spectrosexual: An attraction to ghost-related characters.

Nekosexual: An attraction to neko-related characters (usually in anime).

Anuafsexual: An attraction to other animal and human hybrid characters.

Multifictino: A mix of exclusive fictional attraction.

Aliussexual: An attraction for fictionkin; the attraction to fictional characters from their source.

Fictosexual Akihiko Kondo san with Hatsune Miku san doll.

Advances in materials, computer processing and software mean that fictosexuals can now allow their love to manifest digisexually though such relationships are not without their ups and downs.  Fictosexual Akihiko Kondo san (b 1984), a employee of Tokyo’s local government (and self-described otaku (one who is obsessed with something, especially Manga or anime)), had for ten years maintained a fictosexual relationship with Hatsune Miku san, depicted in pop culture as a 16-year-old with turquoise hair before their (unofficial) wedding ceremony in 2018.  The wedding was, by Japanese standards, a modest affair on which Kondo san spent about 2 million yen (US$14,750) but his family, not approving of the computer-synthesized, pop singer bride, choose not to attend although several dozen others, including other fictosexuals, witnessed the ceremony.  Unfortunately, although still deeply in love with Miku san, he finds himself now unable to communicate with his wife because support for the Gatebox (a US$1000 device which enabled owners interact with holograms) has been dropped.  It was through the Gatebox that in 2017 Kondo san proposed marriage and after he popped the question, she replied "I hope you'll cherish me."

Kondo san with Miku san hologram with Gatebox connectvity.

Miku san was created as a synthesised voice using Yamaha’s Vocaloid technology and entered mainstream media as a fictionalised human character in Manga, anime series and video games.  Her appeal cut across many demographics and proved cross-cultural, joining Lady Gaga on her 2014 Artpop Ball tour.  Kondo san first became acquainted with Miku san in 2008 while suffering depression after being bullied at work and the presence in his life proved therapeutic, bring him acceptance that human relationships were not right for him and spending days at a time in his room watching Miku san videos saw the relationship blossom.  Since oral communication became impossible, Kondo san carries with him a life-sized Miku san doll.

Hatsune Miku san, texting and resting.

Cisgender

Cisgender (pronounced sis-jen-der)

(1) Noting or relating to a person whose gender identity corresponds with that person’s biological sex assigned at birth (also as cisgendered in this context) and the prefix cis- is used variously as a modifier (ciswoman, cismale, ‎cisnormativity et al) where the practices of chemistry are followed when forming names of chemical compounds in which two atoms or groups are situated on the same side of some plane of symmetry passing through the compound.

(2) A person who is cisgender.

1994:  A compound word, modeled on the earlier transgender, the construct being cis- + gender.  Cis is from the English preposition cis (on this side of) and the earliest known gender-related use of the prefix in any language was in a 1914 German language book on sexology.  In English, the first use of the prefix in the context of gender dates from 1994.  In English, cis was an abbreviation, presumably from either cosine and sine and the number i or translingual cos, i, and sin.  Latin gained the word from the primitive Indo-European ḱe (here) and it was cognate with ce-dō, hi-c, ec-ce, the Ancient Greek ἐκεῖνος (ekeînos) the Old Irish cē (here) and the Gothic himma (to this).  Gender is from the Middle English (where it at times co-existed with gendre), from the Middle French gendre from the Latin genus (kind, sort) and is a doublet of genre, genus, and kin.  The verb developed after the noun.

The Cisgender List

The word cisgender became a technical necessity when, in the late twentieth century, gender ceased to be a binary with a meaning essentially synonymous with sex; as expressions of gender fluidity became increasingly common, cisgender emerged as the preferred term to describe what gender used to be.  With gender being re-defined from a binary to a spectrum, linguistic politics became important and the imperative was to create a category for those for whom the sex identity assigned at birth continued later in life to align with their perceived gender-identity.  If it wasn’t just another point on the spectrum, there was concern cisgender would become normative, the implication being those elsewhere on the spectrum being defined as abnormal or sub-normal.  Cisgender is distinct from but interacts both with the LGBTQQIAAOP spectrum and the pronoun wars.

Possible Cisgender Pride Flags: The practice of identity politics is the staking of a claim (or the digging of a trench depending on one's view) in the battlefield of the culture wars and one aspect of this is the flying of the "pride flag" of one's group.  There have been a few proposed but none seems yet to have emerged as the accepted version.  Displaying one might be considered a hate crime so it should be unfurled with caution.   

The spectrum evolved as quite a democratic construct, something which may have been at least partially technologically deterministic in that the proliferation of points on the spectrum was driven not by medicine or the social sciences but by interaction on social media platforms.  While the users might have felt validated or empowered (and on the social, empowerment is good) by being able to adopt or invent their own self-identities, the platforms liked it because it added another filter for their ad-targeting, very handy for delivering the product (the users) to the consumers (the advertisers).  Some social media sites now offer dozens of options but there is much overlap and many are micro-variations; there appear to be about a dozen definable categories:

Agender/Neutrois: These terms are used by people who don't identify with any gender at all — they tend to either feel they have no gender or a neutral gender. Some use surgery and/or hormones to make their bodies conform to this gender neutrality.

Androgyne/Androgynous: Androgynes have both male and female gender characteristics and identify as a separate, third gender.

Bigender: Someone who is bigender identifies as male and female at different times. Whereas an androgyne has a single gender blending male and female, a bigender switches between the two.

Cis/Cisgender: Cisgender is essentially the opposite of transgender (cis from the Latin meaning "on this side of" versus the Latin trans meaning "on the other side"). People who identify as cisgender are males or females whose gender aligns with their birth sex.

Female to Male/FTM or Male to Female/MTF: Someone who is transitioning FTM or MTF, either physically (transsexual) or in terms of gender identity; probably most closely related to the earlier transvestism, a word now unfashionable, objections to its use being associative rather than linguistic.

Gender Fluid: Like the bigender, the gender-fluid feel free to express both masculine and feminine characteristics at different times.  The category can be misleading because of the use of the term gender fluidity generally to describe these matters.

Gender Nonconforming/Variant: This is a broad category for people who don't act or behave according to the societal expectation for their sex. It includes cross-dressers and tomboys as well as the transgender; again overlaps with other categories probably exist.

Gender Questioning: This category is for people who are still trying to figure out where they fit on the axes of sex and gender.

Genderqueer: This is an umbrella term for all nonconforming gender identities. Most of the other identities in this list fall into the genderqueer category.

Intersex: This term refers to a person who was born with sexual anatomy, organs, or chromosomes that aren't entirely male or female.  Outside of medicine, intersex has largely replaced the term "hermaphrodite" for humans although it continues to be used in zoology.

Neither:  Used by those who probably could be accommodated in other categories but prefer the ambiguity, indifference or imprecision of “nothing”.

Non-binary: People who identify as non-binary disregard the idea of a male and female dichotomy, or even a male-to-female continuum with androgyny in the middle. For them, gender is not a lineal spectrum but a concept better illustrated in three or more dimensions.

Other: Probably the same as "neither" but an important thing about gender fluidity is the primacy of self-identity.

Objectum: Those attracted to inanimate (non-living) objects.

Pangender: Pangender is similar to androgyny, in that the person identifies as a third gender with some combination of both male and female aspects, but it's a little more fluid.  It can also be used as an inclusive term to signify "all genders".

Trans/Transgender: Transgender is a broad category that encompasses people who feel their gender is different than the sex they were born (gender dysphoria).  Technically, it’s probably most useful as a blanket term but the historical association of the trans-prefix make it a popular choice.  The term "assigned at birth" is now popular but misleading in that it applies some arbitrariness in the habits of the nurses ticking the boxes.  The transvestites (those (mostly men) who wear women's outerwear) are at least in some cases a subset of the transgender spectrum although the term is no longer in wide use. 

Transsexual: Transsexual refers to transgender people who outwardly identify as their experienced gender rather than their birth sex. Many, but not all, transsexuals are transitioning (or have transitioned) from male to female or female to male through hormone therapy and/or gender reassignment surgery.

Two-spirit: This began life as a US-specific term which refers to gender-variant Native Americans.  In more than 150 Native American tribes, people with "two spirits" (a 1990s term coined to replace "berdache") were part of a widely accepted, often respected, category of gender-ambiguous men and women.  Whether the term comes to be adopted by other defined ethnicities (especially indigenous tribes) or such use is proscribed as cultural appropriation, remains unclear.

Elon Musk FRS.  Mr Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018.

Not all are pleased with the linguistic progress.  Twitter owner Elon Musk (b 1971) in June 2023 declared the use of “cis” or “cisgender” on Twitter were “slurs” which constituted “harassment” and transgressors were subject to suspension from the platform, adding that what constituted harassment would have to be “repeated & targeted”.  Presumably that implies the terms can still be used on twitter but not as weapons.  At this time, Twitter’s guidelines define slurs and tropes as language which “intends to degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category”.  The notion of a “protected category” is from US law and refers to a specific group of individuals who are afforded legal protections against discrimination based on certain characteristics or attributes.  These categories typically include characteristics such as race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, and other similar attributes that are protected by anti-discrimination laws in various jurisdictions.  The categories are indicative rate than absolute.  The blind and infants for example can’t claim they are being discriminated against because the state refuses to permit them to hold drivers licenses and the race protections have tended to offer the most protection to minority groups.  As Mr Musk would have anticipated, his comments were quickly responded to by those recalling his asserting after assuming control of the platform the Twitter “believes in free speech” and that earlier in 2023 he’d quietly dropped from the hateful content policy the rule protecting trans people from dead-naming (the act of referring to a transgender person by their birth name, or the name they used prior to their gender transition) and mis-gendering.

Bipolar

Bipolar (pronounced bahy-poh-ler)

(1) Having two poles, as the earth.

(2) Of, relating to, or found at both polar regions.

(3) Characterized by opposite extremes in opinions, nature etc.

(4) In electronics, relating to a semiconductor device, such as a transistor, that exploits the electrical characteristics of contact between two substances, one with an inherent positive charge, the other with an inherent negative charge.

(5) In electric power distribution, a power transmission line having two direct-current conductors in opposite polarity.

(6) In physics, a region of magnetic flux having two distinct poles

(7) In psychiatry, of, relating to, or having bipolar disorder (a major mood disorder that is characterized by episodes of mania and depression; once known as manic-depression.

(8) In physiology, having two poles; used especially of nerve cells in which the branches project from two usually opposite points.

(9) In geopolitics, of or relating to an international system in which two states wield most of the cultural, economic, and political influence (ie two states with hegemonies exerted over their respective spheres of influence.  The companion terms are unipolar and multipolar and all are sometimes used by analogy in fields like commerce or sporting competition to reference instances of specific dominance.

1800–1810: The construct was bi- + polar.  Pole (in this context) was from the Middle French pole & pôle, from the Latin polus, from the Ancient Greek πόλος (pólos) (axis of rotation).  The –ar suffix was from Latin -āris (of, pertaining to) and was appended to nouns to create adjectives (it came increasingly to be appended to words of non-Latin origin).  The bi- prefix came directly from the Latin bi-, from Latin bis (twice) & bīnus (double), from the Proto-Italic dwi-, from the primitive Indo-European dwi- and was one of the sequence of Latin number prefixes (uni-, bi, tri etc).  In English, it can be confusing because it can used to mean either (1) two, pair, both, duo or (2) half.  In chemistry, the use meaning half has been discontinued.  In general use, the ambiguity remains, illustrated by the use when applied to measures of duration which can variously be interpreted as “once every two periods” or “twice every period”, the classic examples of which are this like biweekly, bimonthly, and biannual.  Style guides now often suggest choosing unambiguous forms such as “fortnightly” or, where no such elegant alternative exists, spelling it out explicitly (twice a month; every two years etc).  Using semi- as a prefix can work but is imprecise although acceptable if the meaning is in other ways made clear.

In English, as a clipping (a use of the prefix as a stand-alone word) of bisexual (used as both noun & adjective), the meaning was clear and effortlessly “bi” moved from LGBTQQIAAOP slang to the general vocabulary.  Potentially misleading however is bigender, a coining of LGBTQQIAAOP activists which became linguistically necessary when gender and sex were re-assigned as separate constructs.  It’s recommended it be used as the hyphenated bi-gender (to be consistent “bi-sexual” should probably also adopt the form) lest one might ponder if a bigend is LGBTQQIAAOP slang for something (and at this point one’s mind may wander) unbeknown to one.  Additionally in engineering, a big-end bearing in an internal combustion engine is the one located “big end” of the connecting rod and attached to the crankshaft.  Mechanics may use “bigender” (pronounced big-end-ah) as slang which in oral use won’t be confused with something pronounced as by-jen-dah but if transcribed, were the latter hyphenated, there’ll be no mystified mechanics.  Bipolar is a noun & adjective and bipolarization & bipolarity are nouns; the noun plural is bipolar.

Lindsay Lohan following Edvard Munch's (1863–1944) The Scream (1893).  Much art has been analysed by those seeking insight into the mental health of the artist, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder two conditions frequently identified.

The adjective bipolar dates from 1810 in the figurative sense of "of double aspect" and was by 1859 used in the literature of anatomy (having two processes from opposite poles) to refer to nerve cells while the sometimes hyphenated noun bipolarity (state of having two poles) emerged in 1834.  The earliest known instance of the now familiar use in psychiatry as a technical term to describe what was then known as manic-depressive psychosis appears to date from 1957 in a publication by German psychiatrist Karl Leonhard (1904-1988), noted in the history of the profession for his extensive (though now mostly forgotten) classification of psychotic illnesses (a nosology (the construct being nos- + -ology, from the Ancient Greek νόσος (nosos) (disease) + -λογία (-logia) (study of), the branch of medical science dealing with the classification of diseases)) although still used in structural linguistics is the system of classification of non-verbal communication.  As the term “manic-depression” ascended the linguistic treadmill (a process accelerated by the negative connotations which attached to the word because in popular literature and films manic depressives were often characterised as psychopathic murderers or other flavours or madness) “bipolar disorder” was positioned as a preferable term, the reason being that bipolar was separated from both the connotations of “manic depression” and the two elements (“manic” & “depression”), each loaded with negative associations.  Accordingly, in 1980, bipolar disorder replaced manic-depressive psychosis in the third edition (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  According to tracking by dictionaries, it was in the mid-1990s that bipolar (in the context of mental health) gained traction in general use and, inevitably, appeared on the linguistic treadmill although even forty-odd years on there’s little to suggest it has yet reached the level of opprobrium which might prompt the DSM’s editorial board to discuss the need for a replacement although their processes can take a while, the term “mental retardation” (long regarded in the community as offensive and in some cases misleading) not replaced by term “intellectual development disorder (intellectual disability)” until the release of DSM-5-TR (text revision) in 2022.

The bipolar world in 1980.  The geopolitical architecture of the Cold War (circa 1948-circa 1990) revolved around Moscow (the Warsaw Pact) and Washington DC (NATO).

Bipolar disorder was actually introduced to the DSM when the multi-axial system (Axis I to Axis V) was created:

Axis I: Clinical Disorders (including bipolar disorder)

Axis II: Personality Disorders and Mental Retardation

Axis III: General Medical Conditions

Axis IV: Psychosocial and Environmental Problems (stressors)

Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning

This structure was modified with the release in 2000 of DSM-IV-TR which, within the axis system, divided diagnoses and symptoms into sections or "decision trees," including which symptoms must be included for a diagnosis and which must not be present.  The sectional approach was carried over to the DSM-5 (2013) when the axis system was abandoned, replaced by 20 chapters containing categories of related disorders of which “Bipolar and Related Disorders” is one, others including Anxiety disorders, Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, Depressive disorders, Feeding and eating disorders and Personality disorders.  Within its category, bipolar disorder was subject to some refinements, including those reflected in other areas (such as objectum sexuality) that attempted to reduce the medicalization of behaviour that although statistically aberrant, was part of the normal human condition.  Childhood bipolar disorder for example, although long well-defined and accepted as a diagnosis, was effectively rolled into a new category of depressive disorders called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), reflecting the concern that the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder was being inconsistently and overly applied to behaviour better understood as variations of childhood irritability.  Possibly too, the editors may have been influenced by work in labelling theory which suggested the early appearance in an individual’s medical history of conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder could have life-long consequences.

In the DSM-5, the diagnostic sub-categories of bipolar disorder were extended to seven:

(1) Bipolar I disorder

(2) Bipolar II disorder

(3) Cyclothymic disorder

(4) Substance/medication-induced bipolar and related disorder

(5) Bipolar and related disorder due to another medical condition

(6) Other specified bipolar and related disorder

(7) Unspecified bipolar and related disorder

Other changes included (1) the elimination of “mixed episode”.  Instead, a manic, hypomanic, or depressive episode can be specified as “with mixed features” a specifier with its own DSM definition. (2) The bipolar II diagnosis in the DSM-IV excluded a history of mixed episodes and this exclusion has been removed, something many long advocated. (3) There was a standardization of the text.  The word “abnormally” was not included in the DSM-IV criterion A for a hypomanic episode, while it was in criterion A for a manic episode; in DSM-5 the same language is used for both, the full criteria for the two distinct types of episodes thus closer together. (4) Each type of bipolar disorder gained specifiers (such as “with mixed features”, “with anxious distress” & “with rapid cycling”) which serve further to clarify the illness.

The DSM-5-TR was released in 2022 and among the changes were amendments to the section covering disorder.  Criterion B in bipolar I disorder was refined to make explicit that a manic episode can't be “superimposed on” (ie bolted-onto to run simultaneously with) an existing diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, delusional disorder, or other specified or unspecified psychotic disorder.  A similar procedural clarification was made to criterion C for bipolar II.  The specifiers indicating the severity of a manic episode were also updated.  Under DSM-5, the bipolar severity specifiers were mild, moderate, and severe which certainly made sense when labeling depressive episodes but when of clinical significance, that was less helpful when categorizing manic episodes because, in the nomenclature of the DSM, “mild” indicated “no impairment in functioning” whereas manic episodes inherently impaired function.  The specifiers for manic episodes accordingly were updated in the DSM-5-TR to (1) Mild (the manic episode meets the minimum symptom criteria), (2) Moderate (the manic episode causes a very significant increase in impairment and (3) Severe (the patient needs nearly continual supervision to prevent harm from being done to themselves and/or others).

2:365 by Kim Rask & Missy Douglas (2014), Ucki Ood, pp 400 (ISBN-100615950620).  A collection of 365 works painted in 2013 as a document of bipolar disorder.

First diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19 while a student of art at Cambridge, Dr Missy Douglas (b 1977) in 2013 undertook for that year, each day to paint a canvas which would express her feelings at that moment.  To ensure the works reflected her condition rather than the effects of medication, during this year she went un-medicated, hoping the paintings would more accurately reflect the highs and lows of bipolarity.  When going to sleep each evening, Dr Douglas had no idea how she would feel the next morning, some days ecstatic, some days depressed.  Although the change in name to bipolar was probably helpful, Dr Douglas' experiment does illustrate why “manic depression” was so evocative of the condition.  Interestingly, on not one day was a painting not completed, not does the set include a blank canvas or one simply black or rendered otherwise monochromatically.  What this indicates would be something to ponder but is perhaps indicative of how a spectrum condition can manifest, Dr Douglas presumably a high-functioning bipolar.  For a BBC piece, Dr Douglas provided brief notes for six of the works:

Day 5: “I was really anxious, angry and feeling trapped.”

Day 177: “I was really in a dark place here. I was completely in a depressive phase.”

Day 236: “I was burying feelings and my emotions were all over the place.  Very turbulent.”

Day 242: “I was at the height of mania here, but there was a massive wave of white depression heading towards me.”

Day 314: “Mania.  I was buzzing and everything was technicolor and beautiful.  I was flying and felt invincible."

Day 359: “Christmas Day 2013.  I was feeling very depressed yet I completely compartmentalised and concealed it.  The twinkly forced jollity hid the sadness.”