i figured it out last year. I was working in harm reduction and the place I was working also has a trans advocacy group. so we got a presentation about trans acceptance and how to deal with it in our workplace. part if the presentation was on what it means to be trans, saying that the only requirement was identifying differently than what you were assigned at birth.

thru my 20s I often thought something like “I would totally identify as non binary now if I was aware of the concept when I was younger.” I could nor relate to cis people who were confident in the gender binary, but more importantly I couldn’t relate to trans people who were assigned a gender at birth but KNEW they were a different gender. Like if someone was trans and said “I always knew I was a boy” it was completely alien to me, having grown up AMAB I never once felt like I was a boy. Trans people were having gender certainty I had never experienced.

Non binary never hit quite right tho, I felt like there was still some level of gender occurring, and I didn’t understand it. So…

I’m agender. No gender here lol. I’m not trying to do anything about it. In life I go by he him and it doesn’t bother me at all. It correctly identifies my physicality, my male privilege, etc. Sometimes I think maybe I should insist on they them because it would help normalize different pronouns, but honestly just like not really feeling being nonbinary, it doesn’t bother me at all when I’m referred to as him. Its a word, that doesn’t reflect my lack of gender but doesn’t matter to me.

I’ve never told anyone this before lol. So I’m still new at thinking about what this means.

  • whogivesashit@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    8 months ago

    Yessss always been my experience as well. Also AMAB and still very masculine presenting so I relate very heavily. Also in a deeply conservative area and don’t feel very comfortable presenting the way I want most of the time.

    I’ve always been very masculine in a lot of ways (a lot of it intentionally trying to fit in the masculine box) and was praised a lot for it in different ways but it always felt so wrong to me. Hard to think of a specific example but just hearing words like “wow you’re so manly” just makes me want to puke. I don’t feel as bad about comments about my feminine side other than that from a lot of people there’s an underhanded meaning that the feminine is lesser.

    For so much time I thought I was just a guy who really hates any references to gender, but as soon as I learned about the concept of agender I was like “ah fuck that’s what it is”. Felt so much better knowing why I struggled with the concept of gender for so long.

    Idk I’m just rambling cause I never talk about this with anyone, but it really made my day to see someone who I could relate to so much. Thank you for posting and I hope you’re doing well friend ☺️