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I don't care about my gender, what's my gender?


elanlb

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I was thinking about this recently because I had to tell some people my pronouns.

 

Background:

 

I've always known myself as a cis male and have always used he/him because it's easy. I am definitely male-looking. I use the men's bathroom. I have short hair, although I'm trying to grow it out some. My clothing could be any gender. It's mostly button up shirts, dark pants, and boots. Everyone knows I am male.

 

I do get along with girls better than boys and I feel kind of disconnected from most other boys I know. That's probably irrelevant but I thought I'd say it anyway.

 

Now:

 

I recently realized that I really don't care what pronouns people use for me. He, she, they, I don't care. While I understand that for most people this isn't the case, pronouns are kind of meaningless to me. It's similar with the genders. If someone asked if I'm male, I'd say "sure," just because it's easy and would satisfy them.

 

I guess I am trying to ask two things. 1 is if there are any people who share my feelings. And 2 is if I could be agender or something else. I've never thought about this because I don't have a problem with being male, but I also have a hard time pointing to the specific things that make me male besides having an X and a Y chromosome.

 

Thanks in advance.

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Ha, this is so similar to what I've been feeling, but for me in a cis female but would be happy with they or she. But, slightly different, I outwardly look female and prefer that (eg I put lots of effort into my hair looking really feminine, curly and flowy) but don't really dress 'girly' all that much (your outfits sound so similar to mine 🤣) and I don't care too much about being female inside (and when I'm by myself I put my hair up and ignore it and anything else that suggests a gender).

 

So yeah I'm not really sure I can answer no. 2 ie a label, but for 1 yeah I think I have similar feeling to you. It's so annoying, if we are comfortable enough in the gender we were assigned should we be allowed to question it?? (That was my thinking until I saw your post at least. Good to know others are questioning.)

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Sarah-Sylvia

Hii.

You're defniitely not alone, but I wouldn't say you're necessarily agender, because agender people can care about not being male or female. It's still broad enough that you could use it if you feel it fits as an identity though.
How much do you care about having a gender identity? You could say you're non-binary if you do care, like if you don't identify only as male. Else, you could look into gender neutral identities, or genderqueer.

In any case, it comes down to you, exploring how you are and how you wanna define yourself. ;)

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I've been feeling similarly. Pronouns, gender identities, names, none of it seems to connect with me. I guess the only thing I can really say about myself is that I don't want to be boxed in by whatever those may be. My name is pretty gender-specific by current society's standards and I've been (casually) looking into other options but I just don't have any strong feeling towards anything. It's certainly possible that this will change in the future, so I'm just playing it by ear at the moment. I have no idea what it means, but it is nice to see other people in a similar position.

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I think about it as a difference between "not caring what people call you" isn't always meaning you aren't the gender you were born as. Pronouns are just things invented by humanity anyway. So it's usually a difference for people "not being able to stand" just being the gender they were born as that usually makes them have a different, multiple, or no gender at all.

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1 hour ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

How much do you care about having a gender identity?

This is the reason I'm not sure about agender. I feel more indifferent than anything.

 

1 hour ago, Red Ivy said:

I've been (casually) looking into other options but I just don't have any strong feeling towards anything.

Yeah I get that. I'm just not feeling anything. I'm not pulled toward any gender, but I also don't feel like I have none at all.

 

1 hour ago, GingerRose said:

So it's usually a difference for people "not being able to stand" just being the gender they were born as

This makes a lot of sense. I'm fine with being male and he/him but only because I'm used to it. Pronouns are less tricky because I can say "whatever," but there isn't really a "whatever" gender.

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oh, hell yeah!

letting the folk around you who want to care about gender deal with however they'ld like to deal with you is easy. it takes no effort to get them humans to make assumptions

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Sarah-Sylvia

Another question for you @elanlb is, how do you feel about your male body. And how would you feel about if you had a female body for your life instead? And what about an androgynous or genderless one?

The reason I ask is that as a trans person, we know the body is tied to gender. Pronouns and all that is the cultural side, but the body is still the most important, and why someone being trans is usually based around how they feel about their body's gender most of all .
Anyway, you can add that to things to wonder about. But you really have to make it a thought experiment, because lots of people say they'd be fine in whichever gender, but that's because they havent lived being in the wrong gender like trans people.

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4 minutes ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

And how would you feel about if you had a female body for your life instead? And what about an androgynous or genderless one?

I have thought about this a lot in the past. It's come up with my trans friends when they try to explain to me how they feel.

 

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't care. My thought process is: If I were in a female body, everyone would see me as female in the same way that they see me as male. I'd still be me. It seems like another "ok, sure?" I don't think I'd change much at all. Same thing if my body didn't have any gender.

 

On a side note, even though I completely support trans people (and anyone who has a strong gender identity), I just cannot understand how gender is that important to people. I guess it's something people feel that I (likely) do not.

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Sarah-Sylvia
15 minutes ago, elanlb said:

I have thought about this a lot in the past. It's come up with my trans friends when they try to explain to me how they feel.

 

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't care. My thought process is: If I were in a female body, everyone would see me as female in the same way that they see me as male. I'd still be me. It seems like another "ok, sure?" I don't think I'd change much at all. Same thing if my body didn't have any gender.

 

On a side note, even though I completely support trans people (and anyone who has a strong gender identity), I just cannot understand how gender is that important to people. I guess it's something people feel that I (likely) do not.

Ok. Well, if it doesnt matter either way to you then maybe you really are a type of gender neutral person.

Would you feel better if you had no gender? Most of the tems i've seen around that are more for someone having no gender, or a neutral gender idenity. In your case it sounds  maybemore like you're ok with any gender (or none).
I havent seen any term for that, but maybe someone could call it Gender Flexible. I dunno. Ultimately it comes down to you and if there's a term you like you can use it to describe how you are. Agender could work too if you feel a pull to use it. Or you could just use or do nothing, lol. Whatever works for you.

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Rainy Robin

@elanlb I've had a pretty similar experience as you. I'm female but am pronoun-indifferent and didn't start thinking about my gender that much until joining this site and learning about different gender identities. I ran across someone using the word "cassgender" to describe someone who doesn't think their gender is important, which may or may not be a commonly used term (I haven't seen it often, which leads me to believe it isn't a common label). Maybe that would describe your experience? 

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Just now, Rainy_Robin said:

I ran across someone using the word "cassgender" to describe someone who doesn't think their gender is important

I did see this a few days ago. It could describe me but like you said, it's not well known or common.

 

29 minutes ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

Would you feel better if you had no gender?

It's hard to say because my gender doesn't cause me any distress or discomfort. I just don't feel it.

 

Quote

I dunno.

Yup. I start laughing whenever I think about this because it's kind of comical how it makes no sense. I made the title a contradiction to reflect how I feel. Gender neutral? Non binary? Genderqueer? I have no idea! Thanks for the responses everyone. I now have some thinking to do I guess. I'm still open to any new ideas or comments.

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AmusedSkeptic

I’m agender, AFAB, and absolutely don’t care about gender. Being female doesn’t feel wrong to me, it just doesn’t feel completely right, and I think I would feel the same if I was AMAB. This is probably one of the main reasons I decided to go with the agender label. I also relate to you in sometimes feeling a little disconnected to people assigned the same gender as I was. Sometimes I do get a little bit dysphoric about my chest, but otherwise I’m fine.  Here’s a good site that sums up agenderness pretty well if you’re curious: https://gender.wikia.org/wiki/Agender

 

a little beside the point, but remember gender expression is different than gender identity. Presenting masculine doesn’t invalidate you as not-male :D 

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Sarah-Sylvia

Good luck on your ponderings ;)

If "cassgender" fits, then it's probably the only term that has any amount of traction for how you are, though that doesnt mean you have to use it. you can just say you're gender indifferent or flexible, or 'dont care', if anyone asks :P

Also, as to what it's like to have a gender, I would say it's hard to describe unless you get an impression of what it's like to be a man or a woman. It's probably different for everyone. Part of it related to the body, like how it feels more 'right' for me if I'd have a vagina than male parts, but the other side is more of  a feeling based on roles and traits. Feeling macho isn't strictly male, but it's part of the whole thing that gives a sense to one gender or the other. There's tons of ones like that, that adds to the feel and identity, I think. Just my own perspective tho :)

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Thanks.

 

I always thought gender was like "I have a penis, so that means I'm a boy and I have to dress this way and I'll have a deep voice" and blah blah blah. I guess I was very wrong. Another thing I learned from this is that my gender never really got into my head. It is mostly on the outside. Does this make any sense.... Instead of giving off gender energy 🙃 I absorb it from other people?

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5 hours ago, elanlb said:

On a side note, even though I completely support trans people (and anyone who has a strong gender identity), I just cannot understand how gender is that important to people. I guess it's something people feel that I (likely) do not.

My experience (and the experience of many others) is that being perceived as any gender but our true gender is deeply traumatising and dysphoria-inducing. If you said "cannot understand" as hyperbole, that's fine, but if you're actually interested in learning why many people deeply value gender, I can explain more. Like many others, I almost ended my life because of dysphoria.

 

I think my life would've been much easier if I were utterly chill about gender and pronouns... You're right in the sense that some of us feel strong pulls to gender, whereas you specifically don't. I'm almost envious, that would've made my early transition days much easier 😂

 

2 hours ago, elanlb said:

I always thought gender was like "I have a penis, so that means I'm a boy and I have to dress this way and I'll have a deep voice" and blah blah blah. I guess I was very wrong. Another thing I learned from this is that my gender never really got into my head

Sounds like you're starting to explore stuff, that's awesome. Try changing up the way you're dressing, or having trusted people address you with different pronouns, if you want to. Quite often, gender euphoria is what pulls people most strongly at the beginning of gender journeys. Whether you end up as a gender non-conforming dude or a non-binary person or whatever 😃

 

But, trans stuff aside, you could just be on a journey to reclaim manhood as your own identity. Redefining what it means to be a guy, and discovering what that means in your own life, is something a lot of cis dudes go through. Especially if they don't feel connected to displays of masculinity or machismo from relatives/role models/friends. I've met many men who feel disenfranchised within structures of maleness.

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Purple Red Panda

I'm indifferent to my gender. I accept that being male has no doubt had an effect on my experience of life and I possess male privilege but I find little or no meaning in  being male and I don't feel connected to the concept of masculinity as it has been traditionally understood in western society.

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Rainy Robin
13 hours ago, elanlb said:

Another thing I learned from this is that my gender never really got into my head

I totally relate to this. Until I started exploring gender identities on this forum, I didn't realize that I never think of myself using gendered language (like in my internal monologue of thoughts, I never identify myself as a "girl" or "woman"). Not sure if this is what you meant in the quote, but it articulated something I've tried to say for awhile!

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20 hours ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

agender people can care about not being male or female.

Yeah this^. Being seen as female + female parts both give me a bunch of dysphoria. I care enough to be on the waiting list for a gender therapist, because I need top surgery. That's what being agender means to me personally.

 

@elanlb Maybe look into cis-genderless? Those are people who don't have a problem with their gender, but who wouldn't really care if they woke up as a different gender the next day either, basically.

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54 minutes ago, Laurann said:

Yeah this^. Being seen as female + female parts both give me a bunch of dysphoria. I care enough to be on the waiting list for a gender therapist, because I need top surgery. That's what being agender means to me personally.

 

@elanlb Maybe look into cis-genderless? Those are people who don't have a problem with their gender, but who wouldn't really care if they woke up as a different gender the next day either, basically.

Oh interesting. As I said before, my gender doesn't cause me any stress, so I don't have a problem with my gender as it sounds like you do. Cis genderless sounds like me. Even though it's another gender that no one knows about, it is easy enough to say I'm male if people ask.

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19 hours ago, elanlb said:

On a side note, even though I completely support trans people (and anyone who has a strong gender identity), I just cannot understand how gender is that important to people. I guess it's something people feel that I (likely) do not.

it makes sense to me, in that the folk who care mildly about gender, you know average folk, think I am just as crazy to not even care in the slightest about gender as the folk who care so much that it causes them distress.

both outliers but for us we are lucky as it is a lot less visible when we rock the boat.

seriously, not caring about gender to the degree that you don't even think about it further than what others assume of you, is valid.

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Alawyn-Aebt
On 7/17/2020 at 9:20 PM, elanlb said:

I recently realized that I really don't care what pronouns people use for me. He, she, they, I don't care. While I understand that for most people this isn't the case, pronouns are kind of meaningless to me. It's similar with the genders. If someone asked if I'm male, I'd say "sure," just because it's easy and would satisfy them.

 

I guess I am trying to ask two things. 1 is if there are any people who share my feelings. And 2 is if I could be agender or something else. I've never thought about this because I don't have a problem with being male, but I also have a hard time pointing to the specific things that make me male besides having an X and a Y chromosome.

Basically that is how I am. I do not feel wedded to my gender either. I don't care about pronouns, I am not dysphoric, I don't care if people think I am female, etc. The interesting thing is I have found many seemingly-cisgender-males people share this outlook, so you are by no means uncommon among homo sapiens. Ultimately it, along with basically everything about gender, comes down to how you define gender. There are at least three definitions that contradict each other but the entire arguments around what exactly is gender are long and confusing and just when you discover an understanding of gender that makes sense it often comes with less-than-ideal strings of logic attached.

 

I, because it is easy, because I don't care, and because I can logically defend it if needed, personally say I am cisgender male, since that is what the world sees me as and I don't care if they see me that way. Perhaps you are cisgenderless, but that in of itself brings up debates around the definition of gender since to be cisgenderless assumes one definition to be correct over others.

 

tl;dr: Boils down to definition debates of gender, good luck, you are not the only one.

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5 minutes ago, Alawyn-Aebt said:

I, because it is easy, because I don't care, and because I can logically defend it if needed, personally say I am cisgender male, since that is what the world sees me as and I don't care if they see me that way.

This is how I feel too. Maybe I would talk about how I feel if someone really wanted to know, but it's easy enough to say I'm male right now.

 

I had a feeling this would be common in cisgender men because it seems like most of the definitions of masculinity are about what it is not, instead of what it is. This isn't why I feel detached from my gender, but it could have something to do with how other people feel. Like "yeah I'm male I guess."

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Similar here. If I woke up as a man one day I'd be startled but it would be no big problem (apart of the fact that I've been socialized as a woman and my behaviour would maybe irritate some people). But also I am totally fine with being a woman. Like. I don't care.

 

But since I have no problem with myself and my gender/sex I am as cis as I can be.

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DarkStormyKnight

This is quite similar to how I feel as well! I've been using non-binary mostly just because I don't feel strongly about being genderless (so not agender) but I see myself as androgynous or genderless rather than female. I like it because since NB is a common term it doesn't take a lot of explaining and means I can present however I want really. There's a lot of flexibility with it that I enjoy.

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On 7/18/2020 at 3:20 AM, elanlb said:

I've always known myself as a cis male and have always used he/him because it's easy. I am definitely male-looking. I use the men's bathroom. I have short hair, although I'm trying to grow it out some. My clothing could be any gender. It's mostly button up shirts, dark pants, and boots. Everyone knows I am male.

 

I do get along with girls better than boys and I feel kind of disconnected from most other boys I know. That's probably irrelevant but I thought I'd say it anyway.

 

Now:

 

I recently realized that I really don't care what pronouns people use for me. He, she, they, I don't care. While I understand that for most people this isn't the case, pronouns are kind of meaningless to me. It's similar with the genders. If someone asked if I'm male, I'd say "sure," just because it's easy and would satisfy them.

 

I guess I am trying to ask two things. 1 is if there are any people who share my feelings. And 2 is if I could be agender or something else. I've never thought about this because I don't have a problem with being male, but I also have a hard time pointing to the specific things that make me male besides having an X and a Y chromosome.

 

Most of the things you're mentioning are very similar to my experiences as an AMAB agender, and I'm also called he/him and are treated as a male. I've always been disconnected from gender and felt alienated by the entire concept. I get along with it as long as people don't expect me to do things, or behave in a certain way, based on my sex. My gender expression are somewhat masculine and neutral, but not necessary androgynous.

 

During my entire childhood I had a complete lack of interest in questioning my gender identity. I'd always assumed that I was a cis-gendered male, but when I used the term to describe myself it felt deeply wrong. It wasn't until then I began to explore my gender. "If I can't identify as a cis male, then I can't be a cis male", I thought. I started to identify as genderfluid, mostly because I didn't care about pronouns and felt just the same amount female as male. Then I realized that I couldn't identify with any gender at all, and came out as agender. This was just a few months ago, and I'm still 17. I might even consider myself me-gendered 😉 I also came to the conclusion that I have gender dysphoria, which I've had since my early childhood without even realizing it.

 

Based on the experiences you've shared I believe that you might be agender, or at least gender apathetic. Remember that agender doesn't necessary mean that you're genderless, It can also mean that you have a neutral gender identity. At the end of the day it's up to you to determine your gender identity, or choose not to define it. I wish you all luck, and remember that it's perfectly fine to experiment with different labels and pronouns! 😃

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3 hours ago, DarkStormyKnight said:

I've been using non-binary mostly just because I don't feel strongly about being genderless (so not agender) but I see myself as androgynous or genderless rather than female.

I was thinking about this too. I'm not right-smack-in-the-middle of male and female, I just don't feel strongly toward any gender. When people see me, they say I'm male. Non binary seems more like "whatever I don't really fit the conventional genders," and that's kind of how I feel.

 

1 hour ago, EnbyAce2 said:

Based on the experiences you've shared I believe that you might be agender, or at least gender apathetic. Remember that agender doesn't necessary mean that you're genderless, It can also mean that you have a neutral gender identity.

Agender is tricky because the definitions online often don't match up with people's experiences. I think I don't have a gender identity, but I also don't feel like I have to emphasize that. I don't feel a need to distance myself from my assigned gender. A neutral gender seems more like a gender in between other genders. Is this correct? I feel like mine is just not there, anywhere on the spectrum.

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22 minutes ago, elanlb said:

A neutral gender seems more like a gender in between other genders. Is this correct?

A gender between male and female should probably be described as androgyne, a mix of female/femininity and male/masculinity. But many self-identified agender and/or neutrois people don't identify themselves on this scale (male-androgyne-female), me included. Having a neutral gender doesn't necessary mean it's a balance between masculinity and femininity, it can be outside that spectrum.

 

29 minutes ago, elanlb said:

I think I don't have a gender identity, but I also don't feel like I have to emphasize that.

And that's the paradox with the agender label and related labels; you want to describe a lack of gender identity but at the same time you create a gender identity.

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Janus the Fox

I'm quite the same and afterward, I've come to realise feel I can freely express gender in any way, male or female.  I am in the process of a transition though, perhaps I'll come to an Agender/genderless self the more of my male features are changed.

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On 7/23/2020 at 6:58 PM, elanlb said:

I think I don't have a gender identity, but I also don't feel like I have to emphasize that.

I can relate to that in some way. (But, unlike you, I often feel the need to distance myself from my assigned gender in terms of how I want to be seen and treated in society) I don't feel like I have to emphasize the lack of anything that is supposed to be part of my identity, whether it be religious affiliation, cultural background, or gender. But I guess that this only applies in contexts where religion/culture/gender isn't an issue at all. When attention is drawn to any of those things, I often find myself feeling the need to explain myself. And I can get very defensive ...

The thought of being put into this box "female" feels suffocating, but putting myself into a different "gender box" might feel just as suffocating. That's why I let it be, at least for the time being.

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