A transgender and gender-nonconforming listener wonders if there’s a gender-neutral term for “aunt” or “uncle.” Some people have suggested pibling, meaning the “sibling of one’s parent.” Others have proposed baba, titi, bibi, zizi, unty or untie, or simply cousin. In the same way that kids often come up with a pet name for their grandparents, perhaps nieces and nephews (or nieflings, as they’re sometimes collectively called) will come up with their own term. The tumblr Gender Queeries has more suggestions for all kinds of gender-neutral words denoting kinship. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Gender Neutral Term for Aunt and Uncle?”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Dylan. I’m calling from San Diego, California.
And I have a question that I’ve been asked a lot lately.
And it’s regarding to, I am transgender and gender nonconforming.
And a lot of my friends who are having kids right now keep asking me what they should be referring to me as.
Because they want to either use a term like aunt or uncle, but they’re looking for a gender-neutral term for aunt or uncle.
And I was wondering if you have a response or something I can tell them.
Oh, what a good question.
Good question.
Do you have a preference?
I prefer something gender-neutral because I am gender nonconforming.
I go by they, them, theirs pronouns, and I don’t really know what to tell them, which is why I’m reaching out to you guys.
I figure you might know.
Yeah, there have been a bunch of proposed terms.
None of them, unfortunately, have caught on, though.
Just like the gender-neutral pronouns, there have been so many proposed.
I mean, hundreds have been proposed over the centuries.
And the only set that really has stuck is they, them, their, and so forth, is gender-neutral.
So a plural pronoun now used as a singular.
The best one that I’ve seen is in a journal article written by Neville Goodman.
He’s a British fellow, British Journal of General Practice.
And he proposes pibblings because you take the P from parent and the ibling from some other proposed familial relationship terms that have been kind of getting some popularity, which is the term for nieces and nephews.
I don’t know if you ever heard nibblings or nefflings or neiflings.
Okay.
So he’s proposing Pibbling.
So that’s Pibbling with a T?
P as in Pockets or Paul.
Paul or Polly.
So Pibbling.
That sounds really cute.
It is, yeah.
But then would a kid say my Pibbling Dylan?
Maybe.
That was my next proposal is can you just simply get them.
You know how sometimes kids will come up with a cutesy name for grandma that sticks?
Maybe the kids need to come up with a name.
Yeah.
Maybe it’ll be different for every family.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was leaning towards because growing up, I couldn’t pronounce like grandma or grandpa.
So I went with papa and nanny, which I don’t know where I came up with that.
And I know a lot of gender neutral parents who are having their kids call them baba and stuff like that.
But that’s more of like a parent endearment term.
So when it comes to like aunt or uncle, I was kind of.
Yeah, and baba is used.
I don’t know what to say.
Baba means father in some languages, too, which adds more confusion to it.
Yeah.
I would love to throw this out to our listeners and see, because I’m sure that other people have been facing the same question.
Yeah, we’ll find out if other people have a gender-neutral term for somebody who doesn’t want to be called aunt or uncle, but they still want the relationship, the familial title of it.
Yeah.
The other thing I would refer to you, Dylan, is there’s a Tumblr called Gender Queries, Q-U-E-E-R-I-E-S.
And they asked the question on there for gender neutral terms for aunt or uncle.
And they have, looks like about 10 different sets of possible terms to use with some notes about, you know, maybe they mean something in another language.
But look for that.
So gender queries Tumblr and look for aunt and uncle and you’ll probably find it.
All right.
Well, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you having me on.
Yeah.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Take care.
So some of these terms don’t really work.
Let’s hear it.
Uncle, which is a blend of the two words.
Some say cousin or TT, which is too close to a word for a woman’s breast.
ZZ, which means penis in French.
Nini, BB, auntie.
I don’t know.
It’s tough because I want a word that goes before Dylan, you know, and is an affectionate word.
Right.
And I’ve loved for many years the word neiflings for nieces and nephews, the collective.
And I’m wondering if Neve would be a word for the…
Oh, interesting. Neve.
Yeah. Neve Dillon.
Neve Dillon.
Kind of sounds like Neve or some other female names.
It’s a hard one.
If you know of a good word that’s being used in your community or in your family for someone who doesn’t want to be called aunt or uncle, but has that status as sibling to the parent, let us know, 877-929-9673.
In my family we use the term Unky or Unty (contraction of uncle & aunty), depending on one’s preference.
How about some variants with “kin” as the root? This word on its own already offers a way to describes one’s familial relations without any reference to gender.
Something like “kinner” or “kinny” could be used to describe an aunt/uncle. The latter seems well suited for forms of address, like Kinny Dylan or Kinny Diane.
You could also use this form to neutrally describe grandparents with words like “grandkin”, “grandkinner” and “grandkinny”.
For the other direction, just add a D into the mix, and the word “kinder” seems to work pretty naturally to describe one’s nieces and nephews (or any children a grown-up might feel responsible for).