tonsi

tonsi describes any divergence from the western gender binary of male and female. 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.

It's worth exploring what it means to be a binary trans person in toki pona. Even though trans women are women and trans men are men, transness is always in opposition to the western gender binary, which is founded in the constructed concept of biological sex. Hence, many people use tonsi for binary trans people with this understanding. It's good to check with someone if they identify under the umbrella of "tonsi," but it's rare to see a binary trans person in the toki pona community who doesn't identify with the word tonsi.

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.