sir octepus tea Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 So about half a year after coming out to myself, I started to question my gender. I still haven't figured it out, and don't think I'll be doing it in the near future. I know I'm neither feminine nor masculine, which is what maverique describes, but I have a weak feeling of gender, barely there, so I might also be agender (plus that word sounds really cool amirite :p). the way gender is affected by asexuality is like this: -I am very repulsed, so I don't want to present as sexually available or even fertile -I have also had dysphoria about being able to reproduce, so I'm considering getting sterilized and having top surgery. -considering these things, I no longer felt the need to identify as a "desirable" gender, ie cis and binary -I've had thoughts of being gender neutral when I first heard of it at the age of fourteen, but I suspect I've been in extreme denial about those feelings for several years Anyone else experienced this or something similar? Link to post Share on other sites
Qwerty321 Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Partially. I felt discomfort of thinking I might be desired sexually as a woman, when I was young (now I don't care), but I've never been sex repulsed, I only didn't want to be desired as a woman. Link to post Share on other sites
dissolved Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Gender identity and sexuality are certainly tightly intertwined for a lot of people. I know what you mean... I get pretty weirded out by the prospect of being pregnant, and so I was rather relieved to find out I'm naturally infertile. I also intend to have top surgery as soon as possible. I'm probably the other way around though. Once I became truly accepting of my gender, the possibility of transitioning in the future and finding someone who was very accepting of who I am, I realised I was further away from asexuality than I first thought. Link to post Share on other sites
nerdperson777 Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 It's possible. I also don't like the thought of being pregnant, or being impregnated. I was raised in a somewhat sex-repulsed family which would explain a bit. What I mean by somewhat sex-repulsed is that I was mostly influenced by my mom who was really disgusted with sex and organs used for those purposes. But we would laugh about boobs a lot. With my slightly autistic brain, I sometimes don't know what kind of those jokes aren't allowed outside the family. My parents frowned upon me when I told a dick joke that happened at school which made me a bit confused. Apparently, people were allowed to be perverted but not horny...pfft society. But since I'm not on the binary and asexual, I have no desire to have genitals really. I want a sexless body. I was never interested in having a penis or anything. I just want to be a bit muscular in build, which has nothing to do with being sexual, in my eyes anyway. Link to post Share on other sites
Kappamaki Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 Kinda, yeah! I think for me identifying as ace was a major step towards figuring out my gender, and possibly a requirement. Beforehand I vaguely didn't trust myself - I thought I'd develop into a more sexually active person, even if I hated the idea now, and that I'd do so as a gender that I hated now but would surely grow into. Once I'd realized I was ace, it took the huge question of sexuality and solved it with a "Nah, I don't want to do this and don't have to." So it became a non-issue for my gender. And also, I'd come to accept that the standard hetero-cis life wouldn't apply to me. Being queer in one way made it easier to figure out I'm queer in another way. So I had a pretty similar experience of identifying as agender about a year after identifying as ace. Learning to exist as myself instead of try and be someone else in one way led to doing the same in another way, if that makes sense. Link to post Share on other sites
KuraiTsuki Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 In my case, I had never considered being anything other than female, until I learned about non-binary genders through AVEN. I think just the awareness of other genders gained through learning about asexuality is what can lead people to discovering what they are, instead of gender being directly affected by sexuality. Although, I can certainly see how some people's genders and sexualities are connected. I believe it could be possible for gender to be affected by sexuality as well. Link to post Share on other sites
Mezzo Forte Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 I don't know if my asexuality affected my gender, but discovering my orientation is what made me start questioning my gender identity. I saw myself as "straight by default" and used "girl by default" as an extension of that. Once that went out the window, I found enough reason to question my identity, even if it not enough to stand on a solid label. All those odd details of your past and personality that you dismiss can really add up once you actually give them a look. Link to post Share on other sites
sir octepus tea Posted November 27, 2015 Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 interesting that lots of you, like me started questioning your gender after coming out as ace. I've also heard that there are disproportionately lots of trans people within the ace community, but don't quote me on that since I read it years ago somewhere on tumblr, cant remember where exactly... from what I've seen on tumblr, it seems pretty correct. I'm considering starting a wider discussion both here and there, since there is probably some correlation, at least for some people. someone also noted that people really deconstruct things in this community, like romantic orientation, types of attraction etc, so of course deconstructing gender only comes natural. thoughts on this? Link to post Share on other sites
Qutenkuddly Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 This thread has been moved from Intersectionality to Gender Discussion, which is a better fit for this topic. Qutenkuddly, Intersectionality Moderator Link to post Share on other sites
cato Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I think being asexual has made gender identity much less important to me. I'm not interested in either sex, so what I am to myself or to other people doesn't matter. I'd see much more of a point identifying as one gender or another if I was attracted to one gender and, in turn, wanted them to be attracted to me. That being said, I don't identify as anything other than cis. Gender matters so little to me that I really couldn't care less about taking the time or effort out to define myself any differently than the status quo. I look female, I've got all the parts, so I'm female, sure, I'll be that and not give it a second thought. Link to post Share on other sites
Skycaptain Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I'm another one who never questioned gender identity until after asexuality. However in my case gender identity was brought into question following a diagnosis of hypogonadism resulting in undervirilisation. There was a long period of consideration as to whether this caused my to shy away from sex because of physical development issues before concluding, ultimately, that I have just never been attracted to anyone. Development might have caused sex revulsion or phobia, but not a lack of attraction in the first place Link to post Share on other sites
Emery. Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 -I have also had dysphoria about being able to reproduce, so I'm considering getting sterilized "Fertility" is quite often a point of dysphoria for DFABs, I think... I'm sexual as hell and I had that one too. Hm, maybe if I was more lesbian, then I wouldn't question my gender. "Butch lesbian" would explain everything, at least fr the next 10-20 years. But I'm straight and hence I dove into gender questioning. Link to post Share on other sites
Chardog Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 The ace/gender thing was concurrent for me... I'd be Demisexual if I was had the body of the gender that matched my internal programming.. but I want nothing to do with my body sexually as is. Link to post Share on other sites
Heart Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 interesting that lots of you, like me started questioning your gender after coming out as ace. I've also heard that there are disproportionately lots of trans people within the ace community, but don't quote me on that since I read it years ago somewhere on tumblr, cant remember where exactly... from what I've seen on tumblr, it seems pretty correct. I'm considering starting a wider discussion both here and there, since there is probably some correlation, at least for some people. someone also noted that people really deconstruct things in this community, like romantic orientation, types of attraction etc, so of course deconstructing gender only comes natural. thoughts on this? If you look up the statistics from the AVEN census, you do in fact find that genderqueer people are disproportionately represented in the asexual community. Let's see if I can find a link.... Here you go! They have all the data from the 2014 census here: https://asexualcensus.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/preliminary-findings-from-the-2014-aven-community-census/ That blog also has some general articles you may be interested in, so browse around. There are a lot of theories as to why the asexual community has more people who identify as queer in their gender as the population at large, if done via percentages, but non of them are scientific. Link to post Share on other sites
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