In talking about my health, I went way off the rails as is my wont. But, it’s related to my health in a way. Yesterday’s post was about gender identity and how I have been shunned by womanhood all my life. Here’s the reason I call myself agender for now. In an ideal world that did not care what a person did in regards to their gender, I would be fine with being labeled a woman. My issues with my body are solely societally-based and not anything to do with my body itself. I love my boobs and my ass (now that I have one!), and I’m fine with my pussy. I like having curves, and the mixture of hard and soft that is my body. I have no issues with the fact that I am not feminine at all (except for my long hair and the shape of my body, the latter which I have no control over). I have mostly masculine interests (weapons, video games, and I used to be very into sports), which bothers me not a whit. I don’t wear makeup or a bra, and I strride rather than walk.
I am more comfortable–let me put it this way. I have been mistaken on the phone for a man–well, all the time. I’m called sir, and I’m fine with that. It’s usually me calling customer service so it did not matter in the least. I have an exceptionally low voice–double alto–and I like it that way.
This is the thing. I like myself for the most part. At least the parts of me that are considered problematic for other people. I am perfectly fine with not wearing a bra, with not wearing makeup, and with being ‘masculine’. If I didn’t find the word androgynous to be stifling (basically, it’s like unisex–it means like a man. Why can’t androgynous include parts of the feminine? Fortunately, it seems to begoing more in that direction these days), I would embrace it.
Side note: This is one of my problems with the English language and the way I think. There really is juust no way for me to explain myself in the common vernacular without sounding precious/pretentious. There’s a group in America (don’t know if they’re still around) called ‘No Labels’. They tried to claim that they wanted to move away from the Republican/Democrat binary, but it was just billionaires who wanted to head an oligarchy.
I really don’t like labels, though, because none of them fit for me. Asian American? Sure, in the technical sense. My heritage is Taiwanese, and I was born in America. But I’m more American who looks Asian. Religion-wise, I’m areligious in that I just don’t give a shit. Sexuality? I would like to just say I’m queer, but that’s been coopted to mean gay. Same with BIPOC meaning black. I always preferred minority, anyway.
Then, there’s gender. I have thouught long and hard about it. I would like to go with genderqueer (because I really, really like the word ‘queer’ for a variety of reasons), but that’s been taken to mean nonbinary–which is not what I would choose for myself. If I was thirty years younger? Maybe. But now, it just doesn’t fit. Agender is the closest in the same way areligious is the closest to how I feel about religion. I just don’t give a shit.
I know that to most people, gender is very important to them and intrinsic to who they are. It’s not for me. I’m not male. That is improtant to me. But other than that, I just don’t care. Again, as I said in the beginning of this post, in an ideal world, I would be fine with being called a woman beacuse I don’t have issues with my body or who I am per se.
This is where we get into the weeds–and very much into my own head. I would like to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m a woman” and be done with it. However, Ih ave had so much opposition to that my entier life, I’m tired of fighting back. It’s funny because I know several AFAB people who have had similar feelings that I do about gender, but have dealt with it in very different ways. My Taiji teacher defiantly reclaims ‘woman’ for herself and stands her ground that she is just as much a woman as anyone who is stereotypically feminine (which she is not). She has been called not a woman all her life, too, and she’s fierce about the fact that she is one.
My BFF, K, is more on the ‘if I were thirty years younuger, I would be nonbinary’. She has similar feelings to mine abouut gender, and she believes that in our lifetime, we will see ‘they’ become the default for gender. This was before the recent election results, by the way. She doesn’t feel gender much, either, and she does not do performative femininity.
My Taiji teacher wears lipstick and a spritz of perfurme, but that’s it as far as feminine touches. My bestie used to wear lipstick as well, but I don’t think she does any longer. She also used to dye her hair red, but has let it go completely white. Neither of them wear skirts or dresses. My nibling is open to any and all pronouns. I call them they because that’s my default if someone is open to it. Yes, I have the agenda of trying to broaden gender definitions, and I fully admit that.
It’s interesting that the AMAB people I know don’t have those same questions about their gender identities. I do think women and women-adjacent people are more flexible in their gender identities than men and men-adjacent people in general. Ever since I was twenty, I’ve known more women who were fluid with their gender identities than men. I have my hunches as to why that is, but that is neither here nor there.
So, yes. If people were more chill about gender, I would not have an issue with being called a woman. But because people are most emphatically not chill about it, I would rather stick to agender for now. That’s it for today. More tomorrow.