AGender? Cannot relate to gender identity

[CogentPursuit]

1) Do you think AGender is a real thing?
2) Do you feel your gender is a part of your identity or just an attribute that is non-essential to your identity but may have had a part in its formation in the same way society has formed you?
3) What is it like to identify as a gender assuming you are transgender or have a gender and you are trying to explain to someone who has never experience this before.

http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Agender
**************

I used to think everyone was like me and that they just felt like person with identity being entirely separate from their identity. After reading the definition of A-Gender and hearing all the transgender people talk about how the 'feel' like a different gender, I am questioning if the majority is actually different than me.

I really would love if if anyone transgender could explain to me what it is means to them personally to be a specific gender and what it means to identify with that gender and how they know it is so right to who they are. Non transgender people would be great too!

 

[Faye]

Hi [MENTION=9860]Grayman[/MENTION]

So there aren't many transgender people on this forum, and I'm new to transition. But I'll answer. If you want a lot of answers, you'll have to go elsewhere (PM me for specifics).

1. I think being agender is real; although, I don't fully understand it since it can mean different things when it comes to practical considerations. I've met someone who considered themselves gender neutral and thought of myself as genderqueer prior to realizing that I'm a trans woman. Those terms were easier to understand.

2. For this, you have to make the distinction between gender and gender roles. Gender is biological and is basically a synonym for brain-sex. Gender roles are psycho-social. So I'm a woman regardless of whether or not I identify one as a part of my biological reality; however, my gender plays a part in the gender role I want to embody. The various gender roles in a society are a type of identity. So I do not feel that my gender is a part of my identity, but I do believe it plays a role in determining my identity that is culturally dependent.

3. Are you asking me to describe the experience of gender dysphoria?

I really would love if if anyone transgender could explain to me what it is means to them personally to be a specific gender and what it means to identify with that gender and how they know it is so right to who they are. Non transgender people would be great too!

Once I came to understand my gender dysphoria better, me being a woman that is transgender made much more sense. Obviously, figuring out your gender can be difficult. Being a man, woman, or non-binary does not mean anything in particular. With gender dysphoria, there is a feeling that things are off that manifests in various ways. There is usually a great deal of anxiety and even depression that develops when people hit puberty. For me personally, I really hated my body as I went through puberty and afterward for many years. I thought about it obsessively, and I would compare it to women's bodies and feel horrendously ugly. I reached a point where I wouldn't think about it, but now I'm back to hating it. I also hated the male gender role for a variety of reasons, especially the stoicism of it. I never, ever liked being called 'bro', 'man', or 'dude', and now I know why. At some point before I started medically transitioning, even being called 'sir' started to really sting. So it might be easier for me to say at this point that I can't tell you what it means to be a woman so much as I can tell you what it means not to be a man. Then there are the more basic things you'd expect like clothes I want to wear, how I interact with others, and how I want others to see/treat me.

There are some more difficult to talk about aspects of this as well having to do with my body, so I'll not say those here.

 

[Curious IxTP]

Well I don't understand emotions all that well, but...

Doesn't this just sound like a massive grab for attention or something? Or a desire to externalise an inner identity crisis that may not be related to gender?

 

[CogentPursuit]

[MENTION=834]Dragon[/MENTION]

Thanks this is helpful.

I was also hoping to get non-transgenders to give their feel on how they identify with their genders. I don't think I was clear on what I was asking because I haven't got any replies except you. I am hoping to draw a comparison between the two in order to determine if my own identity would be best described as AGender or sex aligned.

I don't recognize myself as having a gender. I am exploring if a sex aligned person is capable of recognizing their gender being that they feel no issues with gender identity. If that makes any sense. For me I feel apart from everyone in a lot of ways so gender is hardly a definable factor in the prospect. I cannot tell if I would fit the definition of AGender or if I just cannot see my gender. Perhaps, being that I feel comfortable in my body I am gender aligned in a biological sense. In a social sense I just feel different, unique, and not really gender oriented.

The fact that you 'feel like you are not what you should be' vs 'feeling like you want to be this' seems an important variable in my understanding.

I appreciate you putting yourself out there to reply.

 

[CogentPursuit]

Well I don't understand emotions all that well, but...

Doesn't this just sound like a massive grab for attention or something? Or a desire to externalise an inner identity crisis that may not be related to gender?

I posed my questions in the new thread because there was just a previous thread related to your concerns and I didn't want to hijack it. You are moer than welcome to post there about transgender intentions if you like but I want to keep this thread aligned to the topic in which I started it as.

 

[barbad0s]

I believe that hormones, your personality, your sexual orientation, and your body, are all connected and equalize in some way, and from that you compare your own inside sense of your own gender to everything else external about you. I've noticed that sex hormones in people tends to manifest in a four-way balance between personality development, gender identity, sexual orientation, and body development.

Using myself as an example.. Although I have many feminine features, testosterone manifests in both my thinking style and body in many ways, and I think that IF my body were to be more feminized in development than it is now, maybe I would have ended up as non cisgendered/sexual, because those hormones would have had to be put *somewhere* while I was developing.

It has been difficult for me to adjust to society's gender role expectations for girls, but I've learned to do it and over time have become more comfortable with it. I can say that it worried me a lot growing up and continues to bother me from time to time. I actually find comfort in dressing up and looking girly because it allows me to express who I am on the inside and own being a girl and just having a sense of empowerment over myself rather than feeling trapped by it. It may be hard for people who don't readily notice any desire in themselves to express themselves to the outside world in some way to understand. It may also be hard for people who in general feel that their insides have always matched their outsides in every way to understand. But it's not about being socially pretentious or overly dramatic. Whether we like it or not, everyone is judged by external factors, and we live in a world where many aspects of our lives are governed by our externals while our internal selves are often readily cast to the side and it feels dehumanizing. Being able to change it to make it "right" feels like when you know you picked the right career or right place to live. It's just another aspect of harmonizing your environment to what feels right for what you want in your heart.

 

[Faye]

@Dragon

Thanks this is helpful.

I was also hoping to get non-transgenders to give their feel on how they identify with their genders. I don't think I was clear on what I was asking because I haven't got any replies except you. I am hoping to draw a comparison between the two in order to determine if my own identity would be best described as AGender or sex aligned.

I don't recognize myself as having a gender. I am exploring if a sex aligned person is capable of recognizing their gender being that they feel no issues with gender identity. If that makes any sense. For me I feel apart from everyone in a lot of ways so gender is hardly a definable factor in the prospect. I cannot tell if I would fit the definition of AGender or if I just cannot see my gender. Perhaps, being that I feel comfortable in my body I am gender aligned in a biological sense. In a social sense I just feel different, unique, and not really gender oriented.

The fact that you 'feel like you are not what you should be' vs 'feeling like you want to be this' seems an important variable in my understanding.

I appreciate you putting yourself out there to reply.

Most cis people don't think about their gender at all... ever. A few might to some extent. They most definitely will question their gender roles, especially all the nonsense associated with them. But to find a cis person who really deeply probed into gender itself would probably be impossible because they'd have no incentive to due to not feeling that fundamental offness that trans people face.

I love your question though.