11mo ago

Non-cis people of hexbear, what does being your gender mean to you?

Inspired by this dorky exchange I had, thank u BountifulEggnog.

I want to know what your gender means to you, how you define it, what it means for you to "be" that gender and how you define it. Don't fuss about 'correct definitions' or anything, this is about your experience, I want to know what it means to you. How you relate to that gender, perceive it.

Genders have a social construction aspect and is very subjective, so I think people's subjective, personal views of their own are both important and interesting. Inquiring mind wants to know!

18 comments

I'm nonbinary AMAB leaning masc but I'm very much gender-agnostic on a personal level, which I think is quite common for autistic people.
I tend to prefer spending time with women and enbies but I think that's because I live in a pretty patriarchal society and there's a lot of weird proscriptive masculinity that's applied to people who present as men here and I'm not interested in all that and I don't vibe with it, so a lot of men don't take kindly to me being a weird little guy who doesn't care for whatever gendered rules I'm supposed to be adhering to. Some women here are also rigid in their expectations of people who present as men but generally they exist in circles I don't move within so it's much less of a thing in my experience.
I haven't really had a chance to sit down and hash out my gender identity seriously because of other more pressing concerns so I just settle on being on the enby spectrum somewhere. I think that also speaks to my attitude of gender agnosticism - for other people gender is a very important or pressing issue and I 100% respect and support this but for me, I have never addressed the higher priority stuff to get down to my own experience of gender.
- Aw hell yeah. Goes without saying that being a weird little guy is cool, we support that around here. The point you bring up about (cisnormative-ass) women's expectations of anyone who presents "male" fascinates me too...
  Hopefully someday the pressing concerns will be less pressing and you can get down to your own experience, generally speaking though it seems to me like autistic people are either not very into gender or really really into gender. I adore how being neurodiverse broadly interacts with gender!
  
  autistic people are either not very into gender or really really into gender.
  I feel like both at the same time
  
  The point you bring up about (cisnormative-ass) women's expectations of anyone who presents "male" fascinates me too...
  It's really interesting because most women are genuinely cool with me being a queer oddball but there's a particular type of cisnormative women who are really judgy and averse to me being me. I'm not bothered; I'm the type of person who is better suited to a refined palate and I get that I'm more of an acquired taste (lol) so I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.
  But yeah, I'm just doing my thing and a fair few men find it off putting but occasionally some women do too. I don't need their approval though.
  I think in some respects I must feel "more" transgressive to people with traditional gender norms because I pass as a man pretty well, especially if you don't know me, because I'm not really out there and camp or loud or performative about being enby so I think it lulls some people into a false sense of complacency but then I will effortlessly transgress gender norms as it suits me and I think more conservative-minded people get a bit of whiplash from it because I'm "supposed" to be a man or because they put me in the box labeled Man but sometimes I do things outside of that because I don't have any regard for that stuff, whereas for example if I was a really camp gay dude then people would sorta anticipate more transgressive behaviour with regards to gender and stuff so those transgressions are seen as less of an affront comparatively (if that makes sense).
  Hopefully someday the pressing concerns will be less pressing and you can get down to your own experience
  Thanks, I really appreciate it!
  I'm not sure if it's just such a non-issue for me that it's never going to be a priority at all because I'm actually agender deep down or whether making sense of my gender will make it to the top of my to-do list some day. Either way, it doesn't feel like a burning issue for me and that is its own privilege so I tend to keep quiet about contributing to spaces like these since I'm not even really an expert in my own gender so I don't have much to contribute and I also don't really need anything from this space on a personal level (e.g. support or guidance). That probably sounds a bit weird but it's not internalised queerphobia afaik - I am definitely part of the community, I identify with it, and I'm fine with that, but I don't need much and I don't have much to provide either so I mostly stick to the sidelines.
I don't know if this is uncommon among nonbinary people or not (certainly seems to be in this thread at least), but I have a gender. I actually have a very strong experience of my personal gender. But my gender is just an extremely subjective personal lens through which I experience the world. Idk if I can encompass all of it in a verbal description, but I will try my best.
Gender is estrogen to me and the more estrogen I have the more gendery I am
If my estrogen is off I pretty much go nuts. Vision gets blurry and I become very sensitive and irritable and prone to dysphoria
I've worn all sorts of clothes and stuff since transitioning, and I've found my comfort zone, but if my estrogen is off I feel like shit in anything
- I'm the same way. But, Injections are the only methods that have worked for me. Unfortunately they make my estrogen levels look like Mavericks. (A beach with very large waves). I had to switch to taking the injections once every 3 days. When I did the injections once a week I had ~2 days that were ruined by having low E.
  
  I had to do the same thing switching to every 5 days injecting rather than every week. Those last two days were often terrible.
  
  You could try doing pills or patches maybe to even the low out
I don't have a gender. I experience dysphoria at things that feel like attempts to gender me, though as i get older i have become more comfortable with dressing in ways that lead strangers to perceive me as a gender. though i don't think i would ever be comfortable with people who know me using gendered terms for me etc.
but yeah. no gender for me. i don't even really feel nonbinary, even though the term technically applies since i am not binary. you could say i'm a kitten instead of a man or a woman, though i don't consider kitten to be my gender either.
i am post-gender. i am just myself. someone forgot to install the gender software in my brain. also i'm intersex, and i feel like this has impacted how i responded to the gender roles society threw at me, because i just sort of assumed none of it applied to me. and my mother, while i was assigned a sex, was very opposed to raising kids differently based on gender so i never really got much of it from my family.
i've always been curious about what gender feels like to other people, so i've asked a lot of people, cis and trans, and what i find curious is that they all tell me different things. there is no one unifying thing that all women or all men will tell you makes them a woman or a man. and i think that is a good thing. gender is very personal, and we all resolve the trauma of gender being imposed on us very differently, and reclaim it in whatever way feels best.
i remember talking to a cis-lite friend of mine. she told me that she only identified as a woman because she was so often pushed into the roles of caring, cleaning etc, and so she identifies as a woman for the convenience of that.
- the trauma of gender being imposed on us
  this is my answer to the question. that's all it is to me. i was just telling someone how like, being always taken in by the women & being mocked by the guys kinda eventually led me to this situation where i'm owning all the vile garbage from my past, but also the affirmation of the ladyfolk. if you want a label, non-binary woman makes the most sense to me. i'm so over labels, though. just. Gender Chaotic.
  be confused, cissies; be afraid of the feelings you have perceiving me.
  
  something i have been feeling lately. us just, existing. in a public space, with our own bodies. often feels like gender warfare. people are going to perceive us, react to us, struggle with their own concepts of gender because we don't fit into them. and that can be dangerous, yeah. it's no fucking wonder we venture into the outside world so rarely. but just existing, and excercising control over our own bodies, is a fuck you to them. and i'm proud of that i guess.
  and that means far more to me than a label - though i don't begrudge anyone who finds labels comforting or useful.

18 comments