Gender Thoughts - part 2 - Happy Pride Month

Will I ever properly come to terms with myself? Am I now part of the queer community too? Is this a ‘coming out’ post?

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Hello ‘life’ people,

So first off, please be gentle with me. It’s Pride month now and so this is appropriate to post now, and I have only a few subscribers so this post will probably fall into obscurity quite quickly, and as I hate being the centre of attention that’s fine by me, completely fine. Okay, so here goes.

Many, many posts back right at the beginning of my life on Substack I explored some thoughts about gender, incompletely and imprecisely. That bit of turgid waffle can be found here. I’ve struggled a bit to move on from a position of burying my head in the sand, hence why this is many months later being written and will probably many months more until I get the courage to press submit. I don’t want to think about what might change, what should change, why change may happen. I want everything to just be easy and not an issue. I want everything to stay the same. I want equilibrium. I’ll just have to get used to new one.

I live with trans people, 2 are my now adult children, and one is a lodger. My husband is very happily cis and also lives in this house. I am very happy with my husband. I am very happy fulfilling the role I have as his partner. I dislike the word wife though. I dislike most female gendered words. I’m a Ms. Not a Mrs. I don’t like being called a lady, or a woman. Girl is meh. Physically I am a woman, I have female body parts, they work reasonably well and have function (feeding babies, birthing said babies, having sex etc.) I’d rather I could rid myself of the boobs as they are just in the way and hubby has never been a boob man, so what’s the point. I cringe when other women talk about their wombs and boobs as an important aspect of their femininity. They are body parts that perform a function, my ‘being’ isn’t wrapped up in them, they are ‘extra’, add ons. My personality is not bound by my body or its gender. Having gone through menopause I didn’t feel lesser, less me, like many I talk to seem to, but those pesky monthly’s stopped, thank goodness. I didn’t mourn my lack of fertility, my no longer having an ability to birth, it meant nothing on an emotional level. Physically I could have done without the side effects though (treated by HRT now).

My middle child basically told me I am trans, but that I don’t need to declare or use the word if I don’t want. And I don’t want because I don’t want change (hello autism). I don’t want my husband to worry or desert me (not that I think he would, he’s heard quite a few of these conversations now). They said I am trans because I consider myself on the middle of the scale - I just am - non binary, almost a-gender. It’s not that I feel I have no gender, but that the gender I have is almost unnameable, so tiny and insignificant, that I feel it’s really not important to the essence of me. They said that many autistic people feel this way. Maybe they do.

It’s really difficult to express. I just ‘am’, I am me, I am my personality, my beliefs, my morals my actions. What I am not is my gender, it’s completely unimportant to me. I like me (most of the time) I want to be me, whatever me is.

I have been looking at words that might describe how I feel. A-gender¹, gender void², non binary³, gender apathetic⁴, gender neutral⁵, grey gender⁶. I look at these words and their definitions and I feel a bit of some of them and also want none of it. I feel a void or more a nothingness, not a lack of, but just a never was there anyway, but I’m also rather apathetic, I don’t really care either, expect when I do. I don’t want to change my pronouns, I don’t really like my name but I can’t be arsed to change it this late in life. It’s not offensive, I don’t have gender dysphoria from it even though it’s quite feminine, it is just a name, a label people know the outer of me by. The inner is a different kettle of fish.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

So looking at those definitions I am a non binary, grey, apathetic, void. Well that explains a lot 😂. I’m still heterosexual and monogamous, but also ‘other’. So (dear husband), I’m still the same person I’ve just possibly collected a few more labels. And I really don’t know what to make of them. Apparently, I belong to another colourful group of people now. Happy to be here and know you.

But then I cycle back, and wonder if I’m just riding on the coattails of my children, who seem so sure, so confident and able to deal with all of this. And after all that, what does it matter? So I have yet another label, but what does that mean, and I probably won’t use them unless really pushed?

I’m still me. I’m still always just me. Can we please just keep everything the same? But also hello. Words of affirmation, wisdom, and kindness gratefully appreciated below.

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1. Agender is an identity to describe someone that entirely lacks a gender or with complete genderlessness. They may identify most strongly as just an individual, rather than as any given gender.

2. Gendervoid refers to a gender which is an absence, a blank space or void where a gender might otherwise be.

3. Non-Binary or nonbinary (sometimes shortened to NBY or N.B.) refers to someone whose gender does not fall strictly within the category of the binary genders (male or female) that are used in western society. Anyone who is not always, solely, 100% male or always, solely, 100% female can be considered non-binary. Some non-binary individuals may identify with one or both of the binary genders, at least in part, while others are completely unrelated to the binary genders.

Non-binary can be a gender identity on its own, or it can be used as an umbrella term for anyone whose gender is something other than male or female. Some individuals may also use the term genderqueer interchangeably with non-binary or something else entirely.

4. Gender Apathetic describes those who are apathetic towards their gender identity and do not care what gender they come across as. It is different from agender in that one may have a gender and/or feel gendered, but it's unimportant what that gender is or whether it's even there at all. One might use labels such as trans apathetic, non-binary apathetic, cis apathetic, etc; however, this would just be what the individual leans towards, and it isn't necessary for one to use these terms. One might say "I don't really think about it, but I guess I'm..." to those who ask about their gender.

5. Neutral or gender neutral refers to the act of having or showing qualities that are not associated with masculinity or femininity, or anything in between- a set of behaviours, presentations, and roles which were/are not strongly culturally associated with being a male, nor a female. Neutral can be used to describe one's gender, one's gender presentation, or both.

6. Greygender is a gender identity in which one identifies as completely or partially outside the gender binary, and has a strong ambivalence about their gender identity or gender expression. They feel they have (a) gender(s), as well as a natural inclination or desire to express them, but it’s weak and/or somewhat indeterminate; they don’t feel it constantly, or they’re not invested in it. One will know they have partial gender(s)/expression, but they are not fully connected/disconnected from it.