Prisma Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 As an asexual girl who happens to live in a not-too-chauvinist environment and who's also not a native English speaker, gender has exactly one meaning for me: Grammar. I acknowledge the fact that men and women are physically different and therefore tend to look different, have a different voice, and that there are statistical differences in physical ability. It is, however, meaningless for me when I encounter a specific person: a gender is meaningless, and a person is simply what he does and thinks. My gender is also meaningless for me: I am just fine with being a girl, although I can't say I like having boobs or uterus trouble once a month. I don't think I would mind being a boy either. I just don't care what my gender is. How about you? How do you perceive gender? And how is it related to your asexuality? Link to post Share on other sites
SorryNotSorry Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Pretty much the same way you seem to peceive it... a person is either male, female, or very rarely, a hermaphrodite. But a couple of weeks ago, everyone was beating up on this one poster who took issue with the way some people on the board expressed their gender identity (e.g. mystery, Martian, etc). Link to post Share on other sites
Ziggy_G Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I like being a girl just because I really love my body, I'm all soft and aesthetically pleasing and such, and I get away with a lot cos im 'adorable', but other than the fact my body is physically different I don't see anything that would prevent me from being a male. Like I could have been born a guy and it wouldn't change who I am. It may change some of the things I do, there is so much stuff I can see would appeal to me if I'd tried it and been surrounded by people who are into it things that guys like but I just wasn't really exposed to that I might be interested in or know more about, but those are just ways of expressing who I am in different forms. I see social differences in the way guys approach things, but the only reason I do it this way is that this is the way it has always been required of me to do it. While your sex is biological, gender seems to be a largely social thing. Of course there are those that identify only with one gender, (whether this is there own or not) but I really think people put too much emphasis on the divide. While I like that my sex is female (although sometimes I think how great it would be to be big and strong and such) I wouldn't even say I have a gender. I'm not saying im androgynous just that my gender means nothing to me. And others genders used to mean nothing to me either. Then I became more aware of other peoples more sexual thoughts and that sometimes me behaving the way I do around my female friends can be sexually arousing for my male friends, which I'm not really comfortable with and didn't really occur to me until recently so now I find myself more dividing people based on gender and which is weird. I hope this passes. Link to post Share on other sites
Satin Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I feel the same about gender. It has pretty much no meaning to me and to be honest I never understood why people identify as agender, neutrosis, etc. Not saying that this is nonsense, I personally just can't understand it (hope nobody feels insulted now). I don't feel female, I feel like myself and that I happen to be female is about as meaningful to me as also being blonde. I don't feel blonde but I am blonde because that's my hair colour. Link to post Share on other sites
Prisma Posted April 12, 2014 Author Share Posted April 12, 2014 I guess this hair color comparison would be perfect for me if gender, as hair color, wouldn't change the verbs and adjectives I have to use in my mother-tongue. I also don't really identify as female in a way of making this fact significant for my identity and how I see myself Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I'm just like you. Anatomically, I am a female. However I can really care less if people call me a he or a she. I also ask what another person's gender preference is when necessary. So I perceive gender more as a decision than anything else.Relationship wise I'd prefer to be the "male." For some reason I can't imagine myself playing the "girl part" in a relationship. I feel way more comfortable if I'm the one putting my arm around my partner's shoulder. Because of that my partners tend to call me "he," haha :lol: Link to post Share on other sites
Fire & Rain Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I feel female for the most part and I look feminine but if I really have to analyze "gender", I have to say that I don't care for it. Even when I was a kid, I always questioned my family on why it is inappropriate for me to do certain things while it's ok for boys to do it. I'm still confused by all these gender roles to this day. Link to post Share on other sites
Janus the Fox Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Generally, I don't perceive gender. There is someone's physical sex yes, but that has nowt to do with that. Otherwise I'm usually fine in my Male sex, I don't perceive/feel a gender and remain apathetic to myself and other males nor females. It don't or may have a very loose relation to Asexuality, I can find an attraction to both if not all genders, but not sexually. The attractions are experienced rarely but also these are apparent within fetish and fantasy as well... EDIT: found replica thread http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/101392-how-do-you-perceive-gender/. Feel free to merge :) Link to post Share on other sites
Whispearl Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I personally feel like gender is a trait that holds no more weight than the color of your hair or your height or something. I perceive it, yeah, but it's not important to me like it is to others. Even for me, I have no problem with the gender I was born but it means about as much to me as the fact that, say, I have brown eyes. I can't control it but I wouldn't say it affects the way I perceive myself or my day-to-day life. The only time gender becomes important to me is when it's important to the people I associate with, which confuses me but I accept it, of course. Link to post Share on other sites
noregrets Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I always thought gender was on a continuum. Link to post Share on other sites
runester Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 I always considered myself the philosophical side of an androgyne. A female with all the 'proper parts' (lady bits :P) in all the 'proper places', but that is the end of my identity with femininity. My thinking patterns have quite a positive masculine tendency and I am happy with that. So much for the topic of gender, as far it concerns me, as a person. I do sympathize with those who have a Transgender leaning. It is quite an arduous process to bring a wholeness to one's psyche, when there is difficulty accepting yourself in a foreign skin (so to speak)! My best friend in real life, has invested many years of 'her' life to the legal and medical aspects involved; they are many! :) Link to post Share on other sites
Chardog Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Gender may not be a big deal until you figure out that yours runs opposite to your given sex... As Satin put it, I just happen to be female- but I definitively got the opposite programming which has caused a lifetime of awkwardness until I finally figured it out and stopped trying to make my gender and sex match... My sex doesn't bother me in general and I have no plans to change it, but I can't be a woman... To the point that that is more likely what will keep me out of a relationship than being asexual... Link to post Share on other sites
Prairie Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 I like this thread. I relate to myself as a unique being, along with others I meet. To find out about people, I interact with them. This is a never-ending process, both learning more about myself, and about others. Nobody is ever summed up in a category. When I perceive things I see endless detail and patterns, making it difficult to see things in simple categories. Culture provides two main palettes of ways of being based on assigned gender that you can use to reinforce it. I never cared much for the "palette" of things for my assigned gender and eventually realized that I never had that identity to begin with. Watching sexuals from the outside, I see socially-created gender divisions as artificial and arbitrary. I've been working on seeing what was behind culture and expressing myself with the raw materials, without arbitrary divisions or restrictions. Link to post Share on other sites
Prisma Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 Generally, I don't perceive gender. There is someone's physical sex yes, but that has nowt to do with that. Otherwise I'm usually fine in my Male sex, I don't perceive/feel a gender and remain apathetic to myself and other males nor females. It don't or may have a very loose relation to Asexuality, I can find an attraction to both if not all genders, but not sexually. The attractions are experienced rarely but also these are apparent within fetish and fantasy as well... EDIT: found replica thread http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/101392-how-do-you-perceive-gender/. Feel free to merge :) I guess I mistakenly clicked "post" twice. How do I merge? Link to post Share on other sites
. . .but there are sounds Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 This thread was moved from Asexual Musings and Rantings to Gender Discussion.. . .but there are sounds,Asexual Musings and Rantings Moderator Link to post Share on other sites
Janus the Fox Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Generally, I don't perceive gender. There is someone's physical sex yes, but that has nowt to do with that. Otherwise I'm usually fine in my Male sex, I don't perceive/feel a gender and remain apathetic to myself and other males nor females. It don't or may have a very loose relation to Asexuality, I can find an attraction to both if not all genders, but not sexually. The attractions are experienced rarely but also these are apparent within fetish and fantasy as well... EDIT: found replica thread http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/101392-how-do-you-perceive-gender/. Feel free to merge :) I guess I mistakenly clicked "post" twice. How do I merge? Its done by a mod and appears to be done already. :) otherwise this type of posting glitch is common across many message boards. Link to post Share on other sites
bradbury Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 To me, gender is a social construct and nothing more. Sometimes I honestly feel people limit themselves to particular things just because they assign interests or characteristics to a set of sex organs, and it just seems like such a shame. I find it very hard to determine if people actually feel that way, or if they feel that way because society tells them to. But maybe that's just me; I identify as genderqueer so gender limitations aren't really an issue for me. I don't see gender in other people either; it's just a difference in grammar as others have mentioned above. I don't really think it's related to my asexuality in any way, although it might be related to my panromantic-ness. I can imagine it's a lot easier to seperate everyone into two genders when you're a guy who's only interested in women, for instance. Because then you'd get this "us vs them" sort of mentality, I guess. I feel weird just writing that down but I know that's how most of my friends think. Link to post Share on other sites
Lambda Corvus Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Generally, I don't perceive gender. There is someone's physical sex yes, but that has nowt to do with that. Otherwise I'm usually fine in my Male sex, I don't perceive/feel a gender and remain apathetic to myself and other males nor females. It don't or may have a very loose relation to Asexuality, I can find an attraction to both if not all genders, but not sexually. The attractions are experienced rarely but also these are apparent within fetish and fantasy as well... EDIT: found replica thread http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/101392-how-do-you-perceive-gender/. Feel free to merge :) I guess I mistakenly clicked "post" twice. How do I merge? Its done by a mod and appears to be done already. :) otherwise this type of posting glitch is common across many message boards. Yep, done by a mod. Seems some anonymous (lambda (post1 post2) (merge post1 post2)) did it all. *cackles maniacally* As a non-binary person, I perceive my gender as entirely different from my sex. The former I rejoice in, the latter I am troubled by. My gender is who I am. To that end, I perceive it only in the sense that I am not any other gender. Aside from the social aspects of "he" or "she" in mainstream culture, I do not tend to perceive others as being of any gender, unless they provide some sort of confirmation. If that turns out to be incorrect, or the gender of the other party changes, I find myself adapting easily, with no resistance. My gender is only related to my asexuality insomuch as I wouldn't have discovered my actual gender identity without having first recognised my asexuality. Thanks be to a friend here (you know who you are) Link to post Share on other sites
TheBellyMonster Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 I see gender as a social construct, nothing more than a classification system enforced by governments in order to divide and box people into more categories. My gender has never been a huge conflict for me. I was born a female, raised as a girl, but as I got older I found myself flipping from one gender identity to the next. One day I felt like wearing a mini skirt and some heels, next day I feel like looking totally tom, it's completely random. So like I would image most people, I classify gender as the socio-behavioral and asethics that society places to the two genders recognized by most of society. It's not a huge deal with me, so I just say I'm gender-neutral or gender fluid. And I would say it doesn't affect my orientation, but it would affect my relationships with other people who didn't view gender as fluidly as I would. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 How do you perceive gender? I don't like labels. That's why I leave the gender field of my profile on this forum (and unrelated internet forums) blank. I feel most comfortable simply being myself, regardless of whether my driver's license lists me as a man or as a woman. Link to post Share on other sites
Calligraphette_Coe Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 As an asexual girl who happens to live in a not-too-chauvinist environment and who's also not a native English speaker, gender has exactly one meaning for me: Grammar. I acknowledge the fact that men and women are physically different and therefore tend to look different, have a different voice, and that there are statistical differences in physical ability. It is, however, meaningless for me when I encounter a specific person: a gender is meaningless, and a person is simply what he does and thinks. My gender is also meaningless for me: I am just fine with being a girl, although I can't say I like having boobs or uterus trouble once a month. I don't think I would mind being a boy either. I just don't care what my gender is. How about you? How do you perceive gender? And how is it related to your asexuality? In much the same way as that joke about British folks and Americans: "Two people separated by a common language." And gender plays nothing but havoc with my asexuality-- seems as a femme biomale, it causes unwanted sexual tension misunderstandings with people with whom I prefer to be friends. I would be a lot happier in a world which included an asexual androgynous gender in the Roles kit. Link to post Share on other sites
1/100 of me Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Gender isn't something I'm consciously aware of. I realize there's some intrinsic aspect to gender identity but I think, for the most part, it's socially constructed. This is why I never felt very in touch with my gender identity and I don't consider it a core piece of who I am. It bothers me that people think once they know our gender, they can know us completely and intimately. Everyone's experience with gender is different. Link to post Share on other sites
R_1 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I don't get it... Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 And gender plays nothing but havoc with my asexuality-- seems as a femme biomale, it causes unwanted sexual tension misunderstandings with people with whom I prefer to be friends. I am in a similar situation since I am a feminine man who has mostly female friends (even when I was a child I rarely played with boys on the playground). I do not believe that I was born with the wrong body, however, nor do I desire to alter my body to make it look/function more like that of a woman. I feel most comfortable simply being me, because this is the brain/body I was born with. Link to post Share on other sites
Lenika Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 As an asexual girl who happens to live in a not-too-chauvinist environment and who's also not a native English speaker, gender has exactly one meaning for me: Grammar. I acknowledge the fact that men and women are physically different and therefore tend to look different, have a different voice, and that there are statistical differences in physical ability. It is, however, meaningless for me when I encounter a specific person: a gender is meaningless, and a person is simply what he does and thinks. My gender is also meaningless for me: I am just fine with being a girl, although I can't say I like having boobs or uterus trouble once a month. I don't think I would mind being a boy either. I just don't care what my gender is. How about you? How do you perceive gender? And how is it related to your asexuality? This is exactly me! I consider my self gender neutral. Because I just don't care. I personally like being female. I like my long hair, I do shave my legs and what not and wear makeup sometimes. But being a girl doesn't stop me from doing not so girly things either. I don't mind boobs but I like them to be small, size a or b. Just enough for shape. As for female organs. I plan to get those removed due to medical problems and the fact I despise children. But I love looking like a girl! I am bio female as well. I believe females or males can do what ever they please as an individual. That's what I do. My looks are female but activities range from female to tomboy/male. What ever interests me at the time. I don't see my self or anyone as a gender. I just see a person and if they look nice ext...:) Link to post Share on other sites
abacct Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 I personally get very, very upset over being biologically female. I never want to be a man either, but being female seems to be the worse option to me. I want to be completely neutral because I do not consider myself a girl or a boy. I'm not any gender, but when placed in gender stereotypes I tend to lean more towards what would be considered male, hence "transmasculine." But what a person considers their gender, I care not. I think gender is a fun, fluid subject. Link to post Share on other sites
AnomalyEternal Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 I perceive gender as the way someone thinks about themselves. To me (my opinion may be biased considering I'm non-binary myself) your gender has nothing to do with your biological make-up. Your gender is how you see yourself and how you wants others to see you. Your body shouldn't matter - if you see yourself as a girl and want to be a girl, then you're a girl, and if you see yourself as a boy and want to be a boy, then you're a boy; regardless of which dangly bits you have on the outside. Granted, there are lot more genders then just societies definition of 'man' and 'woman'. I mean, some people don't feel like they have a gender at all and just want to be themselves, or some people don't want to label themselves and try to fit into a box. Gender is fluid and definitely something that we'll probably never really completely understand.Your gender is your business, and how you present and act out your gender is also your business. No one should tell you how they believe you should think and act because of your body. Link to post Share on other sites
TheStarrySkai Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 For me gender is unimportant. When I go shopping I don't see girl clothes and boy clothes. I see clothes that I want and clothes that I don't want. People should dress and act however they want regardless of gender. Unfourtunately for a lot of people gender is very important and if someone doesn't act like their gender then they're weird. Hopefully that will change. Link to post Share on other sites
iamphoenixfire Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 I don't get it... same. i really do not notice it, at least not like other people do. i look more at expression and who the person is, not the what. Link to post Share on other sites
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