I’ve been thinking about the kinds of experiences we don’t have neutral, everyday words for. Not insults, not medical terms, not jokes – just ordinary language that lets something exist without explanation.

The gaps aren’t random.

• Eunuch

An ancient word doing far too much work. Loaded with history, fetish, insult, and metaphor. There’s no modern, neutral alternative – which is striking, given that people like this still exist (hello!).

• Childfree adulthood

We have words for infertility, and words for selfishness, but no clean term for choosing not to reproduce that doesn’t invite judgement. The absence does a lot of moral work on its own.

• Gender that doesn’t aim anywhere

Not transitioning, not reproducing, not “figuring itself out”. Just gender that exists without a destination. We tend to treat this as confusion rather than a stable state. Often, non-binary states what something isn’t, not what it is.

• Bodies that opt out of legacy

There’s no neutral language for a life that doesn’t point toward inheritance, lineage, or continuation. We reach for pity, suspicion, or jokes instead.

It’s worth noticing that other terms have emerged over time. Words like “trans”, “non-binary”, and “intersex” aren’t perfect, but they’re usable. They allow people to speak without flinching.

Language appeared because there was pressure to make room.

What we can’t name neutrally, we’re not expected to encounter as ordinary.

Without words, it’s very hard to talk about something at all.

The silence here isn’t a gap in language – it’s a gap in our imagination.