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5 Questions for Agender People


chris_error

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1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

3. When did you realize you were agender?

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

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5 minutes ago, error101 said:

1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

I'm sorry if this is repetitive for some people, but I'mma say it again :). For me 'agender' is a negative identity, defined by what it is not. I am very much not a man, not a woman, and not in between. 

 

Assuming that with 'femininity, masculinity and androgyny', you meant gender expressions, I feel dysphoric about both femininity and masculinity, but more so femininity because I'm afab so due to experience, that cuts deeper. So yeah, I tend to distance myself from both. I like androgyny. It's the goal.

 

But because I've been socialized to be female, and have been treated like one for my entire life, I still feel like I understand that experience better than what it's like to live as a man, so in a way I am both more distant (dysphoric) to femininity, and at the same time closer to it (experience). It's why I put 'afab agender' in my bio, and not just 'agender'. This feels more true. Does that make sense?

 

8 minutes ago, error101 said:

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

I don't think any gender identity really 'feels' like anything. We use the word 'feel' because that's the closest equivalent we've got in the English language, but it's not like an emotion or a sensory experience. It's more of a knowledge, I guess. So I don't know how to answer that.

 

9 minutes ago, error101 said:

3. When did you realize you were agender?

20 years old, so 5 and a half ish years ago.

 

10 minutes ago, error101 said:

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

I've told people I'm nonbinary. I've never felt the need to go into more specific labels. It's not like people will have a clue what any of the specifics mean anyways. Also, a lot of people think being agender basically means cisgenderless, no dysphoria, nothing. That's the opposite of true for me, so telling people I'm agender would be counterproductive. It would make them understand me less. I tend to start with 'I have gender dysphoria' and follow up with 'I am nonbinary,' in that order, because a lot of people don't think nonbinary people can experience dysphoria, so yeah, I lead with that.

 

People's reactions to me coming out as nonbinary have been mostly positive. People being happy for me. But also a lot of people being performatively accepting, but not actually believing it and still just grouping me in with 'girls', you know what I mean? And some people just flat out told me I was confused and should stop being on the internet. On the whole people wanted to understand and wanted to try to be accepting though.

 

16 minutes ago, error101 said:

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

Yeah all of those you listed. I can put a checkmark on the name change already. I still have to work up the courage to be more assertive about my pronouns. It's harder in Dutch.

 

And top surgery, my God I'm just about ready to pull my hair out. I want it yesterday. I've known I wanted it since the day I learned it was an option. I still have to wait another year and a half. 😭

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Purple Red Panda

1. Complicated. I'm biologically male and I'm always going to be regarded by society as a whole as being a man. I don't feel any innate sense of masculinity but at the same time don't feel I'm female. It can be a bit confusing so I try not to overthink it.

2. Yes. It feels like I am neither male or female and I'm ok with that, although I still have a certain amount of male cultural programming.

3. Recently, although gender issues had been flairing up periodically for a number of years. It's only in the last few years that I have become aware of non-binary gender identities and I feel like that being agender is more authentically me than being a man.

4. I don't make a big thing about but the few people I have discussed it with have been supportive.

5. I may try to using They/Them pronouns irl more at some point. Possibly I might experiment with what is considered female types of clothing in the future but I am slighty worried about negative reactions if I choose to wear them.

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Galactic Turtle
47 minutes ago, error101 said:

1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

I think these are interesting topics... but that's about it.

 

47 minutes ago, error101 said:

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

I don't identify with gender identity. Within the terminology of gender identity discourse, to some people this means I am "agender" and to others means I am "cisgender." Ultimately, these words mean nothing to me either way. 

 

47 minutes ago, error101 said:

3. When did you realize you were agender?

I realized gender identity discourse existed and this made me wonder how others perceive themselves and experience the world around them. Because obviously, we are not all on the same page. Kinda the same thing as when I found out that people legitimately want to have sex.

 

47 minutes ago, error101 said:

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

No. I think gender identity, for my purposes, is irrelevant. In fact I feel rather insulted when people insist that I declare one.

 

47 minutes ago, error101 said:

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

No.

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1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

(toxic) Masculinity sucks.  It's probably the single biggest reason why I never felt like I could relate to fellow male peers, and quite possibly why I gravitated toward the opposite sex instead.  Hell, it might even be the reason I turned out heteroromantic.

 

I don't particularly care as much about the others.

 

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2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

For me, it mainly feels like not giving a crap about my gender.  Most of the world at large doesn't care, so why should I?

 

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3. When did you realize you were agender?

A few years back, over the course of discussions on this site.  I was never really aware of sex/gender being separate concepts before AVEN, due to how often they get conflated (many, many times "gender" is used, when what they really mean is "sex")

 

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4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

Well, in just the past few days, the last person here (on this site) I've talked with about being agender just completely stopped talking to / ghosted me for seemingly no particular reason.  So lately, not particularly great. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Offline, nobody really knows aside from my spouse, and they basically knew from the start, so I doubt they particularly mind.  Usually the most other people tend to find out from me is that I have difficulty relating to most other male peers.

 

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5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

No.  For me the whole point of being agender is that there is nothing I could "transition" to that would be desirable or an improvement.  If there was, then that would imply that I actually did have a gender.

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Janus the Fox
2 hours ago, error101 said:

1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

3. When did you realize you were agender?

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

  1. Femininity preferred, 'd like to transition and cross dress femininely, no genital preference as AMAB.
  2. I feel no tug or pull, nor a sense of Gender at all as described from various definitions of Gender
  3. About 5 years ago or so now, I've discovered the gender difference of myself.
  4. The BF knows in more detail than my family do.  It's more attractive to them that I have a more than fetish interest with genderisms discovered, family having trouble otherwise.
  5. I plan to transition through HRT to see how I feel, how far into masculine neutralization and feminine transition feels more natural to me, clothing may feel more connected with body and mind, I already wear feminine clothing.  Pronouns are already anything to me He/She They/Them, the legal name I'm not sure of wanting to change yet.
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18 hours ago, error101 said:

1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

3. When did you realize you were agender?

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

1. As social roles I’ve experienced, and as physiological states.

 

2. Yes-ish? No-ish? I don’t have a sense of internal gender identity beyond physiological experience, which I consider to be something I’m allowed to change.

 

3. I guess when I knew I didn’t want to keep being “female” and tried to understand non-binary identities, I concluded I didn’t have an internal sense of gender — just that I didn’t want to be boxed in, which was very distressing. Late 30s; starting in my mid 30s I started wearing men’s clothes & became really upset about having to be female (generally socially, work, and home; I’m a parent too).

 

4. I just told people I’m non-binary. They either didn’t take it seriously for the most part (pre hormonal transition), or it’s confusing. It’s easier now to just say I’m trans & transitioning.

 

5. I’ve changed my name & I’ve been on testosterone for nearly a year and a half. I enjoy being more physiologically male, glad I didn’t have to be female my entire life.

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  1. In many of my posts I have already talked about how we try to make our lives easier by thinking in boxes and how important it is to manually reorganize them (aka self-reflection). So all I have to say to this is: We should get over the two classes we created, because at the moment I can only pity those who are completely masculine/feminine.
  2. I feel more like what others might call genderfluid, so I have more feminine days and more maskuline, but I am never in one extreme. I feel like I just really don't care, not about asthetics, not about my role, not about the roles of others. I think being agender even helps me treating everyone more equal and as the humans they are.
  3. I always fell out of the raster. But the realization hit me when I read the label and informed myself about a year ago here on Aven, so shoutout to AufKlo for spreading the good word about this platform!
  4. Only about two people know and they were really supportive and instantly asked my pronouns, but in the german language it is quite complicated, so for now I stick with amab
  5. I like my name(s), but I regularly think about surgery. It would be really cool to actually be agender, like not having anything in between your legs. It would also help me with my autochoris-/aegosexuality
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1- I don't have any connection to any of them, I'm just me

2,3, it's not so much feeling agender, as not feeling male, female, flux, ergo probably none, thus agender, and since teenage years 

4- I haven't told them that I identify as agender, but I'm open about being within the clinical definition of intersex, so there's no point confusing them further 

5- No surgery, none needed. I haven't used pronouns this millennium. I do use a more gender-neutral name than the one I was born with 

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Genderflux here. But i experience mostly agender state, so

 

20 hours ago, error101 said:

1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

Idc bout gender, gender roles and gendered things

 

20 hours ago, error101 said:

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

Can't say. I just know that i'm neither female, nor male, nor someone in between

 

20 hours ago, error101 said:

3. When did you realize you were agender?

I started questioning my gender just 8 months ago and compared my past experience with info from internet. I realised that i experience agender state, almost at the start of researching

 

20 hours ago, error101 said:

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

I came out only to my close fr and they accepted me

 

20 hours ago, error101 said:

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

I think about FtN (female to neutral) transition. Yeah, if i'll do transition, i'll legally change my name and will have top and bottom surgery

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16 minutes ago, Zimmermikeee said:

I think about FtN (female to neutral) transition. Yeah, if i'll do transition, i'll legally change my name and will have top and bottom surgery

@Zimmermikeee What does it mean to have a neutral bottom surgery? (Sorry if this is too personal, you don't have to answer.)

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19 minutes ago, error101 said:

What does it mean to have a neutral bottom surgery?

For me (afab) it means hysterectomy (removing the uterus)

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1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny? I've always had a hard time figuring what exactly femininity and masculinity are aside from a collection of stereotypes, so at this point I mostly don't consider them and let people that they're important to do that. Certainly being perceived as either female or male makes me feel dysphoric, and so in that regard androgyny is what I prefer.

 

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like? ... It feels like being me? I don't think it feels anything in particular. I don't know how to describe this. I feel that I'm definitely not female, definitely not male, and what that is to me is more 'no gender' than 'some other gender'.

 

3. When did you realize you were agender? I probably should have realized as far back as my early teens, but I only really did when I was 25 or so (so about six years now). It took me longer than that to actually come out to people.

 

4. If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions? Everybody that I've told has been accepting and great, but the few people that I haven't told are the ones I'm concerned about the reactions of, so... yeah. I still need to work on telling people I don't know well also, because I know it'll make me feel a lot better if I do (assuming they're cool about it). Mostly I tell people that I'm nonbinary rather than agender specifically, because it's not a hugely important distinction to me.

 

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc... I've already done the pronoun switch, although I need to get better about telling new people and not freezing up with that. I really want top surgery, because my chest is a major source of dysphoria for me (although it'll take me a while yet to get the funds together and talk myself up enough to get past my medical anxiety to get it done). I may change my middle name at some point; I'm happy with my first name, which is already neutral and which I feel fits me, so no need to change that... but I've never liked my middle name. It seems like maybe too much of a hassle to go through just for the middle name, though, so I'll probably leave that off until my state allows neutral options for driver's licenses and what (assuming it does someday). Not sure about more than that.

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Well I don’t identify as agender 100% but I’d say I’m pretty close so ...

1. Eh ... meh ... ugh ... djfjagxhcgxjbk

I prefer to be perceived as female because that’s the gender I feel the most connected to, even if the connection is very weak and sometimes fluctuates. I don’t really care about any of these concepts beyond that in much of a meaningful way though.

2. To me agender can either mean actively feeling neutral or a lack of “feeling”. For me personally, I feel the lack of gender. Which makes little sense, but language can only describe so much. The fact that I can identify feeling a dull connection to femininity makes it more confusing. Ultimately I just feel like a person who prefers she/her pronouns most of the time and not much more.

3. I can’t even remember why I felt drawn to research gender stuff in the first place, but I stumbled across a list of “signs you might be agender” or something like that, and I realized that I resonated with it a lot ... like a LOT. But not 100% which led me to researching and questioning more and ultimately settling on the term greygender.

4. When I was still questioning I just told a couple close friends that I thought I was equally comfortable with she/her and they/them pronouns. They were accepting, but I said they didn’t *have* to use they/them so nothing really changed and I felt kinda weird about the whole thing. 
Then I participated in a virtual youth writing workshop, and it seemed like a very accepting environment so I requested to be referred to as both she and they interchangeably. It went smoothly and I appreciated it a lot, but it made me realize that they/them didn’t feel much better or more right for me than she/her. I have my pronouns listed as she/they on here because I wanted to acknowledge both sides of myself in a place I felt secure doing so.

Other than that, I haven’t officially come out as anything gender-wise and have no plans to. I don’t know what I’d get out of it right now. I mainly use greygender as an internal label to understand myself with, and don’t feel much of a need to share it with anyone irl.

5. Well the pronouns thing didn’t turn out the way I expected. I’ve thought about experimenting with binding my chest in the future to see if I like it, since I sometimes have weird feelings towards my chest. Sometimes I daydream about being simply called by the first letter of my name, but I don’t know if I’d ever request that from anyone. I’ve also daydreamed about not using pronouns for myself at all, but that seems kind of unreasonable to ask that of people for me personally. Other than that, my body, name, and pronouns are what they are and I don’t think I feel strongly enough to change anything about them, at least for the time being.

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verily-forsooth-egads

1. I don't feel that gender is a useful concept for describing my identity. I try to present neutrally in ways that are easy to achieve, but it's not worth bending over backwards to get others to perceive me a certain way. I may resist certain gendered terms and assumptions that make me uncomfortable though.

 

2. I wouldn't really say so, no. I just don't feel male or female. I have experienced each gender on occasion, but most of the time I just feel like me.

 

3. Somewhere around five years ago now. I was questioning my romantic identity around the same time, and at some point I had the epiphany that it was all meaningless. Of course there are times I still question, but I'm mostly at peace with the answers now.

 

4. I've only really told my immediate family. I told them they could keep using whatever pronouns they wanted, and they have. They do try to ask me what I'm comfortable with from time to time though, and I appreciate that.

 

5. I might start asking for they/them pronouns a little more consistently eventually. I'm pretty used to my given name and don't have anything ideal to change to, so I've mostly accepted that, while heavily gendered in most people's eyes, it belongs to me and is therefore an agender name. My body is fine and I see no need to fix what isn't broken.

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On 12/20/2020 at 9:07 PM, error101 said:

1. What is your relationship with femininity, masculinity, and androgyny?

2. Do you "feel" agender? If so, what does that feel like?

3. When did you realize you were agender?

4.If you have told anyone about being agender, what were people's reactions?

5. Do you plan on transitioning in any way? Name change, pronouns, surgery etc...

1. I like being feminine and dislike being masculine

2. For me it's like not wanting to have a gender/sex or have to care about it. Sometime, I want to be feminine, sometimes nothing at all.

3. Pretty much when I heard there was a term for it. Maybe two years ago.

4. Haven't really told anybody.

5. I hope I can get HRT and body hair removal. Not sure about surgery yet. My nickname on AVEN is the name I would use if I was out. Don't care too much about pronouns. Don't care too much about the administration and bureaucracy surrounding it either. Couldn't care less if there is a M or F on my passport or drivers license (Why do even gender has to be on those?)

 

 

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1. Mostly, I present masculinely, which fits with my birth gender. I do wanna experiment with "feminine" stuff, to see if it's my thing or not.

2. I feel that outside I am a cisgender boy. But I don't care about internal identity, or I don't have one in the first place.

3. I started questioning my gender around August 2020, just before I became 14 years old. I always knew I was some kind of agender. I used to identify as demiboy and demigirl too. But then I felt those didn't fit me, so in November, I decided I was agender.

4. I am out on online spaces like this one. My best friend knows and he respects my decision. My little brother also knows, but he does not know about singular they, so he still uses masculine language for me. Two of my younger cousins are in the same boat as my brother.

5. I know my name (Mahir) is a purely masculine one, but I don't want to change it. And I'm not seriously considering HRT or surgery. Probably I'll only transition by telling people about my identity and pronouns.

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