I’ve been thinking about gender lately for obvious reasons (it’s in the societal zeitgeist at the moment), and where it ends for me personally is the same place it ends for me on many issues. A massive shrug, a loss of interest, and a sense of frustration because nothing quite gets to the heart of matter.
I’ve done the same thing with religion (not a theist or an atheist, uneasily call myself an agnostic), sexuality (not gay or straight, reluctantly labeled myself bi), and to a lesser extent, ethnicity/nationality (not Taiwanese and not American, so I guess Taiwanese American).
Now, it’s gender. Here’s my thought process on gender. I’ve always felt like I use woman by default because it was my gender at birth. I hated it when I was a kid because I was told there were so many things girls weren’t allowed to do. Climb trees, for example. I used to pray to a god I didn’t believe in that He (yes, a He, of course) would turn me into a boy as I sleep. I also prayed He’d give me blond hair, which was the result of being an Asian kid in a white suburb of Minnesota in the ’70s.
I don’t want to be/think I’m a man. I want to make that clear up front. My issues with ‘woman’ are more because of the societal expectations than the actual equipment. I mean, I don’t love my boobs (way too big and distracting), but I don’t hate them, either. They’re just there. I accept them much like I accept my legs. I mean, I love boobs in general, but I’m indifferent towards mine. I do find it amusing how much attention they used to get (alternating with annoyed), but I’m meh towards them on the daily.
I used to pride myself on messing up gender expectations. I’ve lesbians inform me that they didn’t know where to put me on the butch/femme spectrum (yes, I’m that old), which always made me happy. I’m not androgynous but more a mishmash of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits. Physically, I look like a woman. Long hair past my ass, big boobs, wide hips, etc. Yes, I’m been told I have good birthing hips. That always made me laugh heartily because I knew from my early twenties that I most emphatically did not want children. Vocally, I sound like a man. I get called sir/mister on the phone all the time. The advice from my father when i was fifteen on how to get a boyfriend was to raise my voice a few registers and let them beat me in games/sports/fix my car/whatever. I am inordinately proud of myself for retorting that I’d rather be single than do all that bullshit which had no effect on my father (he’s a narcissist), but at least I stood up for myself.
When it comes to traditional male/female activities, I fall more on the male side. I like reading (neutral), writing (neutral), taiji (neutral, but weapons are seen as more masculine), and video games (masculine, unfortunately). More to the point, I’m not typically feminine in that I don’t care about makeup, clothing, cooking, or crafts. I do love cats, which is viewed, weirdly, as more feminine than masculine. I guess it’s because dogs are more athletic and energetic, but personality-wise, cats are what I would consider more traditionally male (aloof) versus dogs (friendly/pack-minded).
Personality-wise, I’m wildly conflict-avoidant and a people pleaser (coded female), but I’m becoming more blunt in my older age when I reach my limit of patience. Which is less and less these days. I prefer my own company to that of most others (neutral), and I have difficulties doing things in general (depression).
So my issue with ‘woman’ is more about what a woman is supposed to be rather than with the word/term/concept itself. Which is the same with bisexual and agnostic. At this point, I start wondering what’s the point with all my navel-gazing. I throw up my hands and metaphorically walk away because it’s too frustrating to keep chewing it over only to come up with ‘I DUNNO’! As with many things in my life, it’s more a question of who I’m not than who I am. I’m not a man. I’m not non-binary. I’m not genderfluid. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.
Then, I read a list of current genders and one really stuck out to me. Gender apathetic. Here’s the definition:
Someone who does not identify particularly strongly with any gender, including their gender assigned at birth, and doesn’t really care about their own gender or gender identifiers. A gender apathetic individual may identify as cis-apathetic (they do not really care, but are happy to work with and be perceived as their gender assigned at birth), or they may identify as non-binary and/or transgender.
Although, I just read this thread and now I’m back to thinking, “Dafuq?”, though I’m glad there are some people who think the same way I do. Someone suggested agender, which I can see. Sort of. Someone else suggested nonbinary because not being binary or gennderqueer, but I don’t relate to either of those two terms.
Side note: This might just be a me thing. It’s the same with the million-and-one different ways to describe sexuality (demisexual, in particular). If we’re talking shorthand, the increasing wide variety isn’t helping. The point of labels or pronouns is for a quick heuristic, and it’s not meant to include every single aspect of each individual person. Otherwise, why have them at all? But I also get how only have two pronouns is so restrictive. Where is that line drawn? I don’t know.
Here’s where I get caught, though. Personally, I mean. I don’t feel ‘he’ or ‘they’, but I also don’t feel ‘she’. I have some soft affiliation for it but more because I’ve used it for nearly fifty years. Yes, I do feel affiliation for other women but that’s because of societal factors (being treated as a woman and all the downsides to that therein). It’s frustrating to try to explain because what it boils down to, what is being a woman? I don’t know. I don’t have the markers. I’m not married and don’t want to be. I don’t have kids and NEVER wanted any.
This is where I think I get too into the weeds. I can talk myself into knots about anything. My last therapist said that I thought I could think myself into a solution for my issues but it didn’t work because it was part of the reason FOR my issues. I want to believe if I think out all these issues (not the same as my depression and anxiety, but same principle), then I can come to some neat and tidy conclusion.
It doesn’t work that way. I can lay out all the factors for why I don’t feel comfortable with ‘woman’, ‘she’ and ‘her’, but that doesn’t mean I can automatically come up with something that fits better. It’s a default, much like the rest of the labels I use for myself. Much like how I feel about my life in general. Which makes it a bigger issue than just which pronouns do I use.
It is a problem, though. Using pronouns. Or would be if I worked in a place that used them as a way to signify comfort for trans people. I’ve seen this debate at AAM, and I don’t know where I fall on the spectrum. I fully agree that people who want to use their pronouns in support of trans people and are comfortable with their own pronouns should do so. My worry is that the pressure to do this makes it seem like people who don’t aren’t supportive of trans people and their usage of their own pronouns. This is actually something some trans/questioning people have pointed out. The pressure to disclose your pronouns at work might be uncomfortable for the people who don’t want to or are questioning.
I imagine myself feeling pressured to use pronouns and feeling profoundly uncomfortable. I guess that means I’m not gender apathetic (though I do think it’s closer to describing my feelings than any of the pronouns), but it leaves me again thinking that there’s nothing out there for me. When it came to religion, I finally just stopped at the point of there’s probably something bigger, but I don’t really care what it is. So apathetic works there. With sexual identity, I would prefer to say that I’m just sexual, but that sounds too twee/hipster. But it’s really the closest to how I feel about my sexuality. I just like sex. Certain people kick off that lust and certain others don’t. If we’re talking purely physical, I don’t have a type. It can be a voice or traits or physical appearance, and there’s not really a throughline.
So for gender, I’ve reached the point where I just don’t care any longer. Now, maybe that’s because I don’t feel there’s any space for me, but it’s where I am. I don’t hate my body (well, the ‘womanly’ bits, that is). I do hate the way I look, but that’s different from hating my body for being specifically female. Sometimes it hurts because I don’t fit easily into any category in any area of my life, and this is just one more example of my distance from the rest of the world.
I’ve used this example before, but I’m too normal for the freaks and too much a freak for the normals. I prefer hanging out with artistic/creative type of people, but I’m very straitlaced when it comes to drinking/drugs. I don’t do any of that and more to the point, I don’t want to be around people doing that. Being the only sober person in a crowd of drunk/high/stoned people is not fun and at this point of my life, it actively angers me.
I also feel like I’m twenty years too late for the gender revolution. At this point in my life, who the fuck cares? I don’t work in an office and I never have to specify my gender. If I did, I’d probably just–not. At some point, it’s just making me feel worse about myself to keep musing about this when I can’t come to any conclusion. Or rather, the conclusion is me throwing my hands up in the air and going, “DA FUQ?” If I had any hope of actually figuring this shit out, maybe I’d decide the journey was worth the pain.