tonsi

tonsi describes any divergence in gender from the expectations of a european patriarchy. people may choose for themselves if they exist within its semantic space, much like the other gender words in toki pona. tonsi, mije, and meli are not mutually exclusive at all. one can be one, two, all three, none, or even something else, if they can come up with it! It is frequently used for nonbinary people, and was coined to be a counterpart to "mije" and "meli." Sonja Lang has described it as a grassroots community made word.

Many ask, including myself: can tonsi be used to describe binary trans people as well? Here are some notes on usage, based on an ongoing study with a sample size of about 300, including 50 binary trans people:

• 7/10 binary trans people use "tonsi" to describe themselves

• 7/10 binary trans people use "tonsi" to describe binary trans people, in general

• only 1/10 binary trans people are upset when others use "tonsi" to describe them

• 3.5/10 binary trans people believe that "tonsi" should NOT be used to describe binary trans people as a group. 2.5/10 didn't care one way or the other. 4/10 believe that "tonsi" SHOULD be used to describe binary trans people as a group.

It's always good to check before calling someone "tonsi" directly, but know that most binary trans toki pona speakers won't be upset when called "tonsi." As for binary trans people generally or as a group, this usage is controversial among binary trans people. Use this data to guide your own usage. "should" has a slight edge on "should not," especially considering that the people who don't care are likely fine with the usage and just won't advocate that others SHOULD use it. A few respondants contacted me to share this sentiment.

A notable bias here is that a transmedicalist who believes that this usage of tonsi is transphobic sent the form out in her circles multiple times, encouraging people to "reject tonsi." I have done nothing of the sort to try to skew data either way.

Full analysis of data is pending, and the form is still open. The sociology of gender, transphobia, etc around this is not something I will get into here for brevity, so enjoy these cold heartless numbers.

tonsi is one of the only words on this list (in fact, it may be the only one) that is not featured in Toki Pona: the Language of Good by Sonja Lang. It's considered important because toki pona has ways of talking about men and women, but no easy way to talk about nonbinary people. This is why I included it. If you look up frequency of usage, frequency for tonsi may be lower than some other words that are not featured in Toki Pona: the Language of Good by Sonja Lang. This is because many speakers don't use tonsi, meli, or mije. If a speaker uses meli and mije, they will almost definitely also use tonsi from time to time.