MOGAI

MOGAI is an acronym for Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignment, and Intersex. MOGAI is an umbrella term for people who are not cisgender and/or heterosexual.

Etymology
The specific acronym "MOGAI" has been attributed to a Tumblr user who is currently under the username cisphobeofficial, otherwise known as cloud, who was fourteen years old when they proposed that variation.

A group discussion began with a Tumblr post by Kay under the username okaysional (now taodefensesquad) on December 13, 2013. He said "LGBATQUI+ is trying to be all encompassing whilst getting longer every time people realise it’s missing some", but the problematic "GSM" (gender/sexuality minority) needed an alternative. Initially, he proposed MGS for Marginalized Gender/Sexuality.

Discussions quickly progressed with support for creating an alternative while critiquing MGS itself. The user robotic-fish said it was not exclusive enough since "kinksters and poly cishets will try and claim that they can use it too", sxizzor raised concerns about being "a little more inclusive of ace and queer romantic orientations", and dont-spoop-yourself noted that "marginalized gender could probably just include cishet women". Under the username sxizzor, Zach suggested using the phrase "gender alignment", saying it referred to whether or not the gender(s) someone identified as equaled their gender assignment at birth. He proposed MOGA for Marginalized Orientation and Gender Alignment; this shift also changed sexuality to orientation to be more inclusive of romantic orientations. By January 1, 2014, the further discussions had led Kay to support MOGA over MGS, in part to avoid confusion of the acronym MGS with Metal Gear Solid.

Further debate about being explicit about romantic versus sexual orientation led to several suggestions from the user mr-moon-the-cisphobic-panda, including MORSGA, which was then revised by cloud (under the username sunsetfucker) to MORSGAI on February 21. Sometime by March 16, 2014, it had been changed again to MOGAI and relayed by cloud to other Tumblr users.

Identities under the umbrella
MOGAI is ever-expanding to encompass additional identities. Those listed below are in chronological order according to when they were first proposed.

Egogender
Egogender, also known as charagender, is a gender identity that was originally defined as "a gender that is solely based on yourself, and no words seem to define it other than me gender, [name] gender, i'm just who i am and my gender is mine". The label indicates a gender that is personal to one person's own experience and is described solely as that person. The name "egogender" is derived from the Latin or Greek prefix ego, meaning "self" or "I". It was proposed sometime by August 25, 2014 by the Tumblr user queerspike on the MOGAI-Archive blog.

The annual Gender Census is an online, international survey of people who do not strictly identify with the gender binary. In both the 2020 and 2021 Gender Census, four respondents in each year used the term "egogender" as one of their identity terms.

An egogender flag with unequal purple, cyan, and blue stripes was created by the Tumblr user same-memes on November 4, 2014, along with flags for "egoguy", "ego girl", and "egononbinary". An egogender flag with nine stripes was posted on August 28, 2019 by the Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx per the request of an anonymous user. The colors used were: shades of purple to represent individuality, shades of blue to represent peace and understanding, and a yellow center stripe representing clarity. The post was tagged "xenogender" by momma-mogai-sphinx.

Flag
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LGBTQIA+


As described by the Tumblr user bi-privilege, MOGAI is "meant to be an all inclusive umbrella term for asexuals, homosexuals, multisexuals, trans people, and intersex people", while also being "a bit easier to type than LGBTQIAP+". According to frostfangs, it addresses complaints about adding additional letters to LGTBQIAP+ and groups being forgotten when someone does not type the entire acronym, and could serve as an adjective replacing "queer" because "we should not forget that it is also a slur and not everyone is comfortable with being labeled or even labeling themselves as such". Many people are uncomfortable with the term MOGAI as well.

Controversy
The MOGAI community has been criticized by some LGBTQIA+ activists, such as Morgan Lev Edward Holleb, for conflating marginalized identities unrelated to gender identity and sexual orientation with those that are. For instance, mental illness is stigmatized and can intersect with identities based on gender or sexuality, but experiencing a mental illness does not mean someone has a queer identity. MOGAI labels have raised concerns about taking the complexity of human sexuality and categorizing it into increasingly specific types of attraction or repulsion. While it can be beneficial to have language that describes various aspects of sexuality, it may lead people to shape their identities around that language.

Perceptions and discrimination
Christine Feraday researched Tumblr's queer identity language for her master's thesis, completed in 2016, for her Master of Arts in Communication and Culture. She planned to use the term MOGAI, as it appeared to be a popular umbrella term at that time, but found in her call for participants that many people were uncomfortable with it. When Feraday switched her call to the more neutral "non-cisgender and/or non-straight" to make people feel more comfortable participating, she received many more respondents. She also noted their concerns that MOGAI would "be co-opted by cishet people who feel they fall under 'marginalized orientations' because of their interest in kink or polyamory".

Many supposed MOGAI labels are not created by people who identify as such, instead originating with "sock puppets" who are attempting to discredit and delegitimize the queer community by portraying it as perverse and dangerous. For instance, sock puppets have created false labels for non-consensual paraphilias that are not genuinely accepted by the MOGAI community.