Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: agender

Stick your labels where the sun don’t shine (part three)

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I’m back to talk more about labels. I know they’re needed and useful, but I would prefer to do away with them. Here is the post from yesterday in which I veered hard into talking about horror games for a bit. Why? Why not. Because it was spooky season, and while I enjoy it, I don’t get scared by most pop media.

I have said this many times before, and I don’t quite no why. I want to emphasize that I don’t count jumpscares in that my body jerking involuntarily is not fear; it’s a startle response. Also, it’s the cheapest way to get a ‘scare’, and I don’t approve. Making my body jump is not the same as scaring me; I will die on that hill. I will also add that I don’t recoil; I don’t screech; and I don’t freak out in any way. In fact, sometimes, I don’t even externally jump.

It’s not a flex; I swear. I’m just born different. I always have had weird responses to things (again, probably a neurospicy thing) so I just don’t process things the same way other people do. I used to wonder why, and it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I realized it was something with my brain. Not that it was broken, but maybe ADHD?

Side note: I’m glad we’re moving away from just citing the stereotypical symptoms that happen to white boys when talking about neurodiversity. I’m bitter that I might have clocked onto it sooner if I had known that the oft recited symptoms weren’t the only ones, by any mean.

I think that’s one of the reasons I’m chary about labels, too. They put you in a box, and they don’t allow for any wiggle room. It’s one of the reasons I want to opt out of all the usual labels. I’ve said this in terms of ‘woman’. It’s like wearing an ill-fitting raincoat when it’s pouring out. Sure, it’ll keep much of the water out, but I’m still going to get wet. And I’m not going to feel good about it, either. I can’t wait to get out of it and dry off.

In other word, it’ll do in a pinch, but I don’t love it.

That’s how I feel about most labels. They’yll do in a pinch, but I don’t love them. Even the ones I choose.

When I was in college, I loved having tests that had essay questions. I can bullshit my way out of anything because I am good with words. It’s a gift, and it’s something I’m grateful for. If it’s a multiple choice quiz, though, I do horribly. Why? Because I overthink it. I can see situations in which each of the answers would be correct. That’s because most multiple choice quizzes/tests are poorly written, but that’s neither here nor there.


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Labels have limited use, part two

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In yesterday’s post, I was listing all the labels I use that are close enough, but not quite. I acknowledge the need for labels, but I don’t like them. Not in the deceptive ‘no labels, but, really, labels, but no, we won’t call them labels’ way of certain billionaires in this country.

I pretty much listed all the labels that I have used reluctantly. I’m scanning to think if there are others. I will say that I call myself fat without reservation. I am not chubby, zaftig, plump, or fluffy. I am fat, and I have no issues with that. I don’t see it as a bad thing, and I have worked hard to reclaim it. I now see it as neutral, and it amuses me when people rush to assure me that I’m not fat. Yes, I am, and I am not upset about it.

I understand the need for labels, but I think that we have to remember that they are not still shots of a person. They are living, breathing things, and they can change over time. I think that’s another way people can get tripped up–in thinking that identity is static. Or that if one aspect of a person’s identity changes, the prior ones are null and void.

Now, of course, there are times when this is true. Or rather, when a person’s change in identity is permanent and complete. Like me and Christianity. Once I realized what a fraud it was (at least the version I was indoctrinated with), I wanted nothing more to do with it. I have not changed my mind at all about that, and I highly doubt I ever will.

When it comes to my gender identity, though, it’s squishier. I have always known that I’m not very womanly. Many of the things I prefer to do are coded male, as is the way I dress. However, my hair is down to my mid-thighs, and I would grow it longer if I could. I have huge boobs, and I definitely read as female. My voice, on the other hand, is masculine. Deep as fuck, and I constantly get called ‘sir’ on the phone.

In college, I used to cut my hair every four months or so. I would just go to my hair dresser and tell her to do whatever she wanted. She never steered me wrong, and she gave me some great haircuts. One time, I went for a super-short cut (think Rachel Maddow) and wore a long black trenchcoat when I walked around the campus. I got mistaken for a guy from the back, which never bothered me.


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The core of my identity is “fuck it! That’s close enough”

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Let’s talk gender identity. This is something I’ve thought a lot about in the last five years or so. I’ve never felt a burning need to identify with ‘woman’; it was just the easiest way to define myself. It’s the gender/sex I was born into, and it was…fine. At least, if I did not look too closely at it. Once I gave it more than two minutes of thought, though, it all fell apart.

I’m going to be completely frank here. When I think of gender as it relates to myself, I come up empty. I have heard/read people who identify deeply with their gender and how important it is to them. I can accept that it’s a vital core of their identity; I just wish others could accept that about me as well. Meaning, my lack of attachment to my birth gender. And I wish that it weren’t so threatening.

But that’s me in general. I think a lot about many issues. I go deep, research, get obsess, and then I throw up my hands and go, “Fuck! That’s close enough, I guess” because nothing fits exactly.

Let me quickly run down the list.

1. Bisexual. I tried on pansexual and omnisexual (hey, this was thirty years ago), but I did not like either of those. Honestly, my favorite is queer, but people invariably think gay (both gays and straights) when they hear queer. Nowadays, I use bi out of habit, and I think of it is ‘people like me and people not like me’ when it comes to gender, but it’s very much an “eh, it’ll do” label rather than one I embrace or one that fits.

2. Areligious. I used agnostic for awhile. I never liked atheist because that’s way too arrogant and confident for me. I did feel like there is something out there, but my medical crisis showed me that ultimately, it doesn’t matter what it is. My mother and I used to argue about free will versus predeterminism all the time, and I could never wrap my brain around the concept that an all-knowing god allowed us free will. I mean, if He (in her religion, it’s a He) knows what I’m going to do before I do it, then it’s not free will, is it?

I had a friend who was Jewish. She wrote an article about how she believed god was all-loving, but not all-knowing. It was a fascinating article, and while I couldn’t quite accept that, either, it made much more sense than my mother’s version of god.

At some point, I realized that I was tired. And I just did not care if there was a god or not because that god had no affect on my life. If pressed, I would say that I believed there was something that was bigger than all of us, but it’s not something that directs the day-to-day goings on so I just let it be.

I used ‘apathetic’ for some time to describe my religious belief before stumbling on areligious. Once I read up on the latter, I knew that was for me. I just don’t care about religion (for me), and that’s that.


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Let’s talk about gender, part three

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One issue with being agender is that there are times when gender does need to be noted. I was having a conversation in the Discord I’m in about guys and their heights. For whatever reason, there are several guys who are very tall–like 6’4″ tall and taller. I wanted to say that as a non-male person of 5’6″, anything over 6′ tall is very tall to me. Except, that sounded weird, even to me.

I don’t mind if other people call me ‘she’, but I don’t want to apply it to myself–or woman. I thought that I was a weirdo in that, but I discovered that it’s not uncommon for someone who is agender to feel that way. Which makes sense, really. Oh, this is the post from yesterday, by the way.

I struggle to explain what agender means to me because it’s a lack of something rather than a pro-anything. It’s the same with areligious–the word focuses on what isn’t there rather than what is. With agender, it really is the right word, though, because I don’t feel gender strongly. Or even mediumly. I would say I don’t feel it hardly at all, but that isn’t possible in a highly gender-focused society as ours.

I still call myself she once in a while despite my best efforts, which I am not fond of or proud of. K mentioned that I was really good at pronouns–and I am. When someone has pronouns, that is. As I mentioned before, since gender is a loose construct to me, I don’t have a problem adapting to new pronouns. Or to put it another way, since I have very little clue what gender actually is/feels like, I can accept when people change their genders.

Every time I try to drill down what gender is, I come up empty. In the old days, there was a slew of characteristics that were designed male or female, and never the twain shall meet. I was called a tomboy because I ilked to climb trees, run around, and laugh too loudly. Until I was five or six. Then, a slew of things happened to crush that out of me until I was nothing but a depressed lump of flesh.

Though I did not know it then, that was the beginning of my dissatisfaction with my gender, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about it. Except. It wasn’t my gender I had an issue with–it was how I was treated because of it. When I learned about sexism in college (along with racism, oh, and that I was bi and didn’t want kids. Yes, this was all within a year or two. It was a very rough time), it was like a light bulb went off in my head. Well, kind of.


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Let’s talk about gender, part two

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If I could live in the ideal world when it comes to gender, I would not mind being a woman. I would be ok with being called ‘she/her’, and I would accept it as an incidental part of me. I would shrug and say, “Yeah, I’m a woman,” without it being fraught with so many hidden (and overt) messages. It would be an interesting tidbit without it having any deep meaning because that’s how I view my gender.

Even when I considered myself a woman, it wasn’t that big a deal to me. Not in a ‘I wish I weren’t one’ way, but in a ‘I don’t really think about it’ way. Of course, that’s not possible on a daily basis with how deeply sexist/gender-hyperaware this society is, but if I was left to my own devices, I would shove it in the smallest corner of my mind and go on with my life.

In yesterday’s post, I ruminated about how identity is not stagnant, and I have no isuse with mine changing over time. It’s hard in this society, though, because people are wedded to the static idea of who a person is. You see it in the celebrity world all the time. If someone declares something about themsleves, say that they are gay–then that is what they are forever and ever. And forget about being bi.

Cynthia Nixon got in some hot water a decade-and-a-half ago when she said that she chose to be in a gay relationship. She later clarified by saying she was bisexual by birth, but she had chosen to be with (and eventually marry when she could) another woman.

That’s how I feel about being bisexual, too. Yes, I was born into that, but it would be my choice who to date. The difference is that I’m aromantic and don’t really feel the need to be in a romantic relationship. Nor limit myself to just one. Which I don’t talk about, either, because it’s not really relevant to my life right now.

I felt empathy for Cynthia Nixon when she got shit for what she was saying, but I rejoiced when she elaborated by saying that she had chosen to be in a gay relationship, and why shouldn’t that be celebrated? I’m paraphrasing, obviously, but it’s how I feel as well. I get that back then, we did not want straight people to have any weapon to use against us, but I think it’s a folly to be so concerned about being acceptable that you cede too much territory.


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Let’s talk about gender

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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.


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Genderblender, not gender bender

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Talking more about gender. And about dating. Because that’s where I ended up in the last post. And why I am done with cishet white dudes.

I had an argument decades ago with a white dude about reading material. This was when I first realized that I was Taiwanese American and wanted to read literature by Asian American women. This was in college so over thirty years ago. I spent a year solely reading literature by non-white non-men people, so not even just Asian American woman. The white dude I was talking to sniffed and said that I was just practicing reverse discrimination, which really set me off. First of all, that’s not a thing. It just isn’t. Secondly, discrimination in the purest sense of the word is not positive or negative–it just is. And we all discriminate on the regular. When someone chooses to eat burgers for dinner, for example, that’s discrimination (in that they aren’t eating anything else).

We all make choices. No one notices when the choices align with the norms. It’s only when the choices are outliers do they raise an eyebrow. What I said to that obnoxious white dude was that I would bet any amount of money he wanted to bet that even with my then-current year of reading non-white dudes, I had read way more dead white dudes than he had people of color. I was 100% sure of that. Thatt shut him up, much to my smug pleasure.

It’s gotten better. In the year of our whatever, 2024, people are aware that there are more than white dudes out there. And yet. Still. Look for a list of ‘best of’ any kind of pop culture, and still, the preponderance of the people on the list are white men. Music, especially. And video games? There is literally a website that tracks how woke a game is, and something as minor as having a Pride flag in the game gets it labeled woke.

When I heard of this, I thought it was some kind of joke. It was not. When I looked at the list, I just had to shake my head and  feel both pity and disgust for the people who are so threatened by these kinds of things. I mean, seriously. A Pride flag?? Also, these are the same people who told us to make our own games if we were such special snowflakes that we could not handle mainstream games. And when we did that? Or developers realized that they could get good money out of us? (Or, less cynically, developers share those progressive viewpoints and want to include these things in their games! No way. That can’t be true, can it??)

You can bet that most of the people whining about diversity in games are white straight dudes. Again, I will bet any amount of money on this. All the monies.

I have heard it all. It’s pandering. It’s giving into the minority. They don’t want pronouns in their game. They don’t want to play as a black woman or anything other than a white straight man. Hell, they don’t want it to exist in their games (probably their real lives, too). Awwww can the poor widdle baby not handle the mere existence of a trans person in their game? Or having to actively choose ‘he/him’ as their pronouns when he starts the game?

Who’s the fucking snowflake now?


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Let’s talk about gender…again

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Let’s talk about gender, shall we? We shall because it’s my blog and I can do what I want. Also because gender is important–and yet, I wish it weren’t. Let me hastily add that I don’t want to take gender away from anyone for whom it’s important. My BFF, K, and I have discussed whether or not ‘they’ will take over gender proclamations in our lifetime (instead of he and/or she). This was before the election, by the way. All bets are off now.

We were both hopeful that we were moving towrds a society in which gender was not as emphasized as it is now. Or rather,, that the toxic, sexist ideas of gender would subside.

I can’t help but laugh bitterly at that idea now after said election. Never in my lifetime has equality seemed more like a dream. I have read about queers hastily marrying before the exchange of power because they fear that marriage equality would be repealed.

This should not even be on the menu. Civil rights should never be able to be voted away/legislated. And yet, here we are. Marriage equality became law in 2015. Almost a decade later, we are fearing that it will be whisked away again. Before it became the law of the land, I was talking about it with K. I did not think it would happen in our lifetime (I was the doubting Thom in our friendship) while she was convinced it would. I begrudgingly said maybe, but only when we were in our seventies or eighties. It was less than five years later when it became a reality. I was stunned, in a good way. It honestly happened faster than I could comprehend, but I willingly accepted it as a positive thing.

I did not care about marriage equality persosnally because I don’t believe in marriage (for me), but I cared about it from a social justice perspective because I firmly believe in equality. If straight people get to be miserably yoked together, then so should queers! I kid, but not exactly.

I honestly do not understand why straights are so against marriage equality when it has nothing to do with them. But wait. This post was not going to be about that–but it’s related. Those who have rigid ideas about gender are more likely to be anti-queer, too.

See how I tied it back to the point of this post?

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Gender on my mind redux

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Still thinking about gender. I wish I could quit it, but I just can’t. In the last post, I ended by saying that I didn’t know what feeling like a woman meant. I wasn’t being snarky because I really don’t know. I probed my insides quite thoroughly and came up with nothing. Again, I am not railing against being a woman because I don’t feel my body is wrong–at least not for the so-called lady bits. Yes, I hated it for other reasnos, but nothing to do with the perceived gender of it.

Or rather, not for the reason of gender itself. What I mean is that I got flack for being a woman. A lot of it. Very different from men than from women, but it was definitely based on me being perceived as a woman.

In tandem with this, I struggle with the ‘cool girl’ syndrome and if it’s always as toxic as people say it is. If the woman who is  saying, “I’m not like other women.” and “I just don’t get along with any women.” is also saying, “Women are so full of drama!” and “Women are the worst”, then, yes, it’s ‘cool girl’ syndrome.

However. There are women or AFAB (like me) who aren’t very feminine at all. Bull dykes are a thing (even if they no longer go by that. That’s what they called themselves in my heyday), which is not what I am. I just read up on stone butches and stone femmes, and I don’t fit into those categories, either.

Here’s the thing. I n general, I don’t care about categories. I do have a type when it comes to physical looks that I find attractive (kd lang, Alan Rickman (first as Snape and then as himself), and my new favorite, Erika Ishii). Dark hair, androgynous, and wicked smart/into social justice. I have not dated many people with that look, though.

I know how this is going to sound, but I’m going to say it, anyway. I really don’t understand…hm. I don’t know exactly how to say this. Let me muse it out. As I mentioned, I do have a type, but it’s not hard and fast. I am attracted to someone for many different reasons, some of them more healthy than the others. Looks are but one, though, and probably low on the list of traits that I really care about.

That’s not the controversial thing. That comes when we’re talking about sex. I know we weren’t, but I’m going to, anyway. When I was looking up stone butch, I was shocked to read that the definition definitely meant that they did not receive sexual pleasure on their genitalia from their partners. Ever. And a stone femme (which I didn’t know even was a term) does not give sexual pleasure.


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More about gender just because I can

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I want to muse more about gender because I can. In the last post, I was all over the place as usual, but I mostly talked about how I view gender and how others view me (and my gender).

The reason I started questioning my gender was not because of all the ‘you’re not a real woman’ comments I got. I didn’t love those, of course, but I pretty much just shrugged them off. It’s because when nonbinary became more into the collective consciousness, I started thinking seriously about my gender. Before, I was default woman and, as I’ve said several times before, it’s like an ill-fitting raincoat. Yes, it keeps the rain out, more or less, but not completely. And it’s uncomfortable. I can’t wait to get home and take it off.

Just before my medical crisis, I decided that agender was the best term for me. Why? There are several reasons. One, I was reading several posts from women who were deep in their feels about being women. How important it was to them as people and a major part of their identities.Then, there were other AFAB people who said it wasn’t important to them at all. Of course, there were people everywhere in between as well.

Agender is hard to explain in part because it’s not any one meaning. It’s similar to nonbinary in that way. I think that’s another reason cis binary people are so threatened by it–it’s amorphous in a way that is disconcerting and perhaps even threatening.

Anything that fucks with the status quo is going to get pushback. I’ve known this since I was young and a weirdo in almost every way. I’ve learned to keep my opinions to myself for the most part because I…am just tired. And I’ve leaned to mask so well. That’s why when I inadvertently trip the ‘wtf’ wires, it’s doubly hard on me.

You see, I’m going into every interaction with my guard up. I know about a hundred things to keep to myself and how to do small talk. I’m so good at masking, I didn’t even know I was doing it until I was well into my forties. I just thought I was a weirdo and had to hide it.

Anyway, these women were talking about how core to their identities being a woman was. I reached deep down inside myself to visualize how I felt about being a woman and came up with–nothing. I felt nothing about being a woman.

I have feelings about my experience whilst being viewed as a woman, yes. I feel solidarity with women for the shared experiences. But, I also feel impatience and frustration at cis het white women who think their experiences as women are the official definition of womanhood. And for standing by their cis white het male counterparts with all their fucking white supremacy bullshit.

You know what? I’m going to immediately add something to this. I have already decided that I’m not going to date cis het white men when I start dating again, and I think I might add cis white women to that. I’m tired, y’all. The fact that this election is as close as it is has led me to a very dark place about my fellow Americans.


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