Get Gendered, Idiot
May. 6th, 2025 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elyusionI was going to post nothing today, but I came across this and then later this, which seemed to me like the world really wanted me to not ignore this exercise. I normally don't like talking about my gender so openly, so please clap.
* How would you describe your gender?
This question made me re-realize that I'm agender, because my honest response to this is "???"
I always felt confused by things asking to describe my gender with nouns or adjectives. I would wonder how others can do that too. My gender doesn't feel like the moon, flowers, blood, bones, wild animals, nothing. It feels like nothing. If I was held at gunpoint, I'd say it feels like a pitch-black room.
I identified as agender in 8th and 9th grade. Not sure why I stopped. Relatedly, I saw someone online once say like "how can I not have a gender but be agender? Isn't agender a gender? Then I would have a gender!" At that time I thought they were overthinking things, but now I'm thinking I stopped liking the agender label because that's a Label for a Gender... and I don't really have a gender, so what is the label labeling??? lmao
You have to think of it as labeling your feelings on gender (not having one) rather than labeling your gender itself (which doesn't exist), I think.
* What makes you feel that way?
I have no desire to move through the world as a man nor a woman, pretty much. When I'm in a room full of the one group that sees me as "one of them," I feel like an infiltrator. And I don't feel like nor really want to be a secret third gender; I just don't relate to anything. I wanna do me 💯
* What attributes are prescribed to your gender, and how do you (or do you not) align with those?
Well, I'm not white.
That's all I got... there's no stereotypes for agenders (I think), but there are for nonbinary people in general. Me not being white excludes about 80% of them.
* How about those around you?
How the people around me align or unalign with gender norms?
I got this one friend that looks like a stud on a tropical vacation sometimes, plus she's bisexual, so there's that. Besides that, it'd take a long time getting into how others ALIGN, wouldn't it? I'd have more to say about people not aligning if I were to get into gender as defined by white supremacy, but naturally I think of how we define gender first and consider it much more important. (Honestly the internet is the only place where I interact with white people for more than 10 seconds. There's just not a lot of them in this town!)
* How do others perceive your gender?
They don't. I don't leave the house. (Okay sometimes I do, but I can't answer this question without wanting to lay on a bed of hot coals.)
* How would you change how others perceive your gender?
I'm not sure if it's possible for the average person to perceive someone as third-gendered in a way that isn't just "this person has a 'kick me' sign on their back," so I'd like to be seen as a man when convenient and as a woman when convenient 👍🏾 Which is impossible unless I learn mind-altering magic lol
Ideally, or in a situation where everyone is so well-versed in queer stuff (lol) that they really can perceive someone as non-binary in a not-violent way, I still don't imagine myself as desiring to "pass" as non-binary, just hot. I want to be hot in a way that makes me feel satisfied with my body. That's all.
* How would you describe your gender?
This question made me re-realize that I'm agender, because my honest response to this is "???"
I always felt confused by things asking to describe my gender with nouns or adjectives. I would wonder how others can do that too. My gender doesn't feel like the moon, flowers, blood, bones, wild animals, nothing. It feels like nothing. If I was held at gunpoint, I'd say it feels like a pitch-black room.
I identified as agender in 8th and 9th grade. Not sure why I stopped. Relatedly, I saw someone online once say like "how can I not have a gender but be agender? Isn't agender a gender? Then I would have a gender!" At that time I thought they were overthinking things, but now I'm thinking I stopped liking the agender label because that's a Label for a Gender... and I don't really have a gender, so what is the label labeling??? lmao
You have to think of it as labeling your feelings on gender (not having one) rather than labeling your gender itself (which doesn't exist), I think.
* What makes you feel that way?
I have no desire to move through the world as a man nor a woman, pretty much. When I'm in a room full of the one group that sees me as "one of them," I feel like an infiltrator. And I don't feel like nor really want to be a secret third gender; I just don't relate to anything. I wanna do me 💯
* What attributes are prescribed to your gender, and how do you (or do you not) align with those?
Well, I'm not white.
That's all I got... there's no stereotypes for agenders (I think), but there are for nonbinary people in general. Me not being white excludes about 80% of them.
* How about those around you?
How the people around me align or unalign with gender norms?
I got this one friend that looks like a stud on a tropical vacation sometimes, plus she's bisexual, so there's that. Besides that, it'd take a long time getting into how others ALIGN, wouldn't it? I'd have more to say about people not aligning if I were to get into gender as defined by white supremacy, but naturally I think of how we define gender first and consider it much more important. (Honestly the internet is the only place where I interact with white people for more than 10 seconds. There's just not a lot of them in this town!)
* How do others perceive your gender?
They don't. I don't leave the house. (Okay sometimes I do, but I can't answer this question without wanting to lay on a bed of hot coals.)
* How would you change how others perceive your gender?
I'm not sure if it's possible for the average person to perceive someone as third-gendered in a way that isn't just "this person has a 'kick me' sign on their back," so I'd like to be seen as a man when convenient and as a woman when convenient 👍🏾 Which is impossible unless I learn mind-altering magic lol
Ideally, or in a situation where everyone is so well-versed in queer stuff (lol) that they really can perceive someone as non-binary in a not-violent way, I still don't imagine myself as desiring to "pass" as non-binary, just hot. I want to be hot in a way that makes me feel satisfied with my body. That's all.
