How you figured out you were agender

[Night-Juice]

Recently I've been questioning wether or not I may be agender or not so I thought maybe hearing (or reading lol) about how you figured it out would help me a bit, maybe some of you could give me some input as well. 

 

I'm 13, female at birth, and I only just started questioning it. I've been finding that when I call myself 'he' or 'she', or 'I'm a girl' or 'I'm a boy', that it just doesn't stick. I don't get the same validating feeling I do like when I tell myself I'm Ace, it's just, doesn't feel true, or false. I'm used to being referred to with feminine terms, so I lean towards those because it's what I'm used to. I don't think I would care if someone were to refer to me with a masculine or gender neutral term though because I don't really feel like it's all that important. I also don't try to dress or look masculine or gender neutral at all, I look feminine in the way I dress, but I don't wear dresses or skirts. I would wear heels but I feel it would attract too much unwanted attention to me. 

Am I too old to be questioning it now? Would I have known when I was younger? 

 

Anywho, that's just kinda how I feel about it, not sure if it helps for you to understand, but I hope I can get somewhat of an explanation. I know that I'm the only person who can say for sure, but I can't just decide, I need someone else's input, even if they're a stranger. Ask questions if you need!

 

[sageq]

I'm a lot older than you (33) and I don't have a good answer as I'm still struggling with this. But thought i'd write out some of my thoughts about my own confusion about my gender, so you'd know you're not alone. Right now I just call myself nonbinary but I'm leaning towards agender. The thing is i'm also female at birth and i'm fine being called by female pronouns. But I don't really feel like a female or male. I dunno, it's so confusing. Sometimes I sort of relate to being a female. But a lot of times I can't. Most of the time I don't feel like a male either but there are certain male traits I can relate to a lot. I don't dress very feminine or masculine. Usually wear loose comfortable clothing (never skirts or dresses) and no makeup, so I guess it's almost more masculine but my features mean that I'm usually still recognized as "female" in appearance. I have been mistaken as a man a few times from a distance. One time I was walking down the street carryingsomething very heavy and dressed in my hoodie so from a distanceit's easy to see how I could be mistaken as a guy.And it didn't bother me. Like being called a guy was fine with me same as when people refer to me as a woman (don't like being called girl or lady though but that's my issue with how the culture infantilizes women I think). But I dunno maybe it's not just my political beliefs, maybe there is a more personal element to it than I realized. 

 

Anyway, sorry I can't be more help but wanted to validate your confusion. You've got time to figure this out and if you think you are one thing and later change your label as you grow and learn more about yourself that's completely ok too. 

 

Hope some agender people will chime in and help you untangle the confusion. 

[SeeYa]

Hi,
I realized I am an Agender Ace at 13 also. I can't really tell you how to tell if you are or aren't. I just found I don't feel/think particularly male or female. Like I had all the parts (in the figurative sense, not literal) to make a person but not to tick those boxes. I only gained that feeling at that time, so I don't think that you should have already known. There are plenty of people who don't gain a sense of these things until a fair way into puberty. So you are in no way unusual. 
Life is a journey of discovery, in time you may find more answers and get a better sense of who you are. And in the end that's pretty much what it comes down to, only you can determine your identity, and there is no need to rush to find it =)

[Guest]

It was always obvious to me when i was in my teenage years. I've only discovered the term for it when i visited AVEN for the first time back in 2015 when people started to mention things i could definetly relate to.

[Shadow007]

I know how you feel, @Zoedster. I'm used to being referred to by feminine pronouns because that was how I was raised, and before my teenage years it never really bothered me that much. I was essentially a tomboy, although not completely, who would have days where I either didn't care about what I wore, or felt uncomfortable with looking feminine (sometimes I reveled in the femininity, but not often).

I never actually called myself a girl willingly, and after finishing high school I found that I never called myself a woman (unless filling out important documents for work, etc); it never felt or sounded right, and I always thought of myself as just me. I'd had moments in my teenage years where I was incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin, which I realize now may have been a mild form of dysphoria, and other days where I didn't care at all; it just depended on the day or how I was feeling in that moment. 

I hadn't considered any of this until very recently, though, after going through a few of these gender threads and reading other people's experiences. Suddenly everything just clicked.

I recently had a discussion about this with my mum, and I used several scenarios regarding my love/hate/don't care relationship with dresses to help her understand my revelation. It was a huge relief when she got what I was explaining for her, and an even bigger one that she accepted it, too.

My situation is a bit different from yours, since I identify with being both genderfluid and agender, but I can certainly understand the confusion you're going through. I'm not sure if those terms were even available 10-15 years ago - if they were, and I'd known about them, maybe I'd have been more content with myself back then.

My best advice for you would be to go with whatever feels right for you. If nothing does, don't use a label until you find something that fits.

[InfiniteNull]

amab enby here, and 36.. just now starting to define myself as questioning my gender for the first time. I've been on my gender journey most of my life though. So 13 is definitely not too old. Neither is 73 in my opinion. 

 

So part of my questioning is considering that agender might be a label that works for me. Specifically I have some difficulties with defining and understanding my gender because my neurodivergence plays a role in the masculine traits that I have, and my presentation of neurodivergent traits are more feminine than masculine. The thing I find myself coming to the conclusion more and more of is that my gendered traits almost all have root causes. None of them are my core identity. So I am starting to think that maybe my basic personality/identity is agender and the gendered traits that I have are just what I choose for myself. Causing my agenderness to lead to a certain amount of genderfluidity. the only thing that really seems to explain all of that for me personally is neurodivergent gender labels like gendervague. But I am not committing to that one yet  I just am trying it on... like all the rest of them. 

 

So probably not great at helping you figure yourself out, but hopefully it at least helps you to see the old-lady version of identity analysis 

[Janus the Fox]

Early teens is about the normal time to question any difference.  For me, at any teen age, I never made the realization of sexual or gender difference at all until I was 25, about 26 for asexuality and LGBT difference, 28 for gender.  For the more it's thought about, the more it's obvious to me there's differences.  Over 4 years later found I can really gender express as anything, while feeling anything about the 2 sides of the gender spectrum.  30 now and got the rest of life to find how far I can gender express differently, while still feeling nothing toward a gender in particular.  Pronouns can be anything to me, I don't generally like to refer to people to their genders, people are human not genders to me.

[Guest]

When I started questioning my gender I realized that when I try to actively examine my gender, my thoughts just kind of slide off; I always used to assume I was a girl by default because being referred to that way only started bothering me this past fall, but most of the time it feels like my brain has an empty space where gender is supposed to be.