In the last few posts, I’ve talked about how seemingly opposite ideas can be true at the same time. In the latest one, I wandered into the topic of gender, which is something I think about now and again. Why? Because it’s an anathema to me, yet it’s something many people take as a given. And, especially now, it’s being talked about, villified, and scrutinized under a very powerful lens.
I have checked in with myself from time to time to see how I feel about gender.
Oh! Before I get into that, I want to expand on something I mentioned in yesterday’s post–how identity is not static.
When I was in my twenties, I realized I was attracted to women as well as men (only two acknowledged gender identities thirty years ago). The emphasis back then was that sexual identity was not a lifestyle or a choice, but something you were born into. I didn’t agree with that entirely. I mean, I was born being attracted to people of various genders, but I could have chosen to go one way or the other.
Also, I didn’t like the narrative that we should be tolerated because we can’t help being non-straight. “It’s not a choice,” so the saying went. “I was born this way!” While I agree that this is true, I also hasten to add that I would have absolutely chosen to be this way. I love being bi because it means that I can romance/sex up anyone of any gender. Theoretically, that just opens up my possibilities, which I’m all for.
This leads me to my current tentative label of agender. I feel it’s the spiritual cousin to bisexual in that it’s about shedding gender labels or realizing they are just one of many different traits a person can have.
I want to be respectful of people whose genders are integral to who they are and who feel their gender in their very bones. I know that I have it easier than many others (trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer folk). It’s the same as being bi is easier than being gay, and being Asian is easier than being black.
But in both of the latter cases, there are ways in which it’s really hard precisely because of the lesser difficulty thing. What I mean is that racism against Asian is ignored, and biphobia is glossed over. Agender isn’t even a thing most people recognize. I would throw areligious in there, but that’s not a big deal at all. Mainly because I don’t ever have to mention it.
The few times I’ve talked about agender is mixed company, I’ve either gotten nothing in response (as in total silence) or a negative reaction. Like, a really outsized negative reaction. It shocked me, frankly, because to me, I was making a fairly tame comment and nothing to get upset about. But the reactions from these women (and, yes, it’s always been women) have been so over-the-top.
I think it’s for the same reason that when I was in my twenties, women would get mad at me for saynig I did not want children. I have to be clear that I never brought it up because it simply wasn’t important to me (any more than not, say, buying a ukelele matters to me). When women would ask me if I had/wanted children, I would simply say no. I never explained it or gave more than a simple response because I didn’t see it as a big deal (or anyone else’s business, frankly).
I never once got a positive response. I got incredulity; I got suspicion (that I was lying? i don’t know); and I got nervous laughters. All of that, I could deal with. What took me by surprise was the anger. Yes, some women got angry at me for not wanting children and not having them. They got even angrier when I didn’t seem remorseful about it. I didn’t understand. Why should I be remorseful or apologetic that I did not want children? And why the hell was it any of their business?
That was my crash course in the lesson of society getting all up in my business and how the patriarchy will often enlist women to do the dirty work of oppressing women. Not on purpose, but because patriarchy is so omnipresent and brutal.
If I wasn’t going to have children, I could at least have the decency to abase myself and be ashamed for my deficiency as a woman. But, again, this is where my suspected neurodivergency held me in good stead. It simply did not enter my mind that I should be ashamed for not wanting to have children. Even when my mother told me it was my duty as a woman, regardless of whether I wanted to have children or not, I did not feel ashamed/apologetic about my lack of a womanly nature.
That was also my first inkling that maybe I should not align myself with womanhood. Not because I did not like women–I love women. I think certain women are terrific. But, so are some men. I don’t believe any one gender is better than another, and I can get along with people of any gender. I can also dislike people of any gender.
So. Here are a bunch of statements that might not seem to gel with each other, but do in my mind. I don’t feel like a woman. I don’t feel like a man. I feel more agender than anything else because I don’t understand what gender feels like. I like my body fine (well, the parts that make it up, anyway. I’m not happy about the shape of it right now). I don’t mind being called a woman/she. I would prefer not to be called any gender or pronoun. I forget sometimes and call myself ‘she’. I don’t think of myself as ‘she’ in my brain beacuse I don’t truly understand what ‘she’ is.
I don’t think identities need to be neat and tidy. In fact, I don’t think they are for most people. I think people feel pressured to be one thing or another, and our world (American society) is very much a binary one.
That’s all for today. I may write another post about this tomorrow.