Gender neutral pronouns-- is that all there is?

[gleek-boy.livejournal.com]

We are all aware of gender neutral alternatives to the he/she pronouns, but it's recently occured to me that that's about as far as it goes in terms of referring to someone in a gender neutral form.

It occured to me when recently asked if I have a boyfriend or girlfriend by an acquaintance. I wanted to respond "oh I don't know, depends how my partner is feeling today!" but I didn't want to baffle that person. I tend to just refer to my partner as such, but I was wondering, are there any gender neutral words you like to use when referring to your partners who may not wish to be called "boyfriend" or "girlfriend"?

Similarly, as an FtM more on the GQ side I've been thinking a lot about family names recently. More specifically, words such as "brother", "sister", "mother", "father", "husband", "wife" etc etc, and what some gender neutral alternatives might be. I definitely want kids in the future, and whilst at present I wouldn't mind being called "dad", I would prefer something less gender specific.

Does anyone have any original or favourite gender neutral words that they'd like to share?

x- posted