On Gender

I got mine from LimeWire in October of 2006.

December 22, 2024
Category: Theory
Content Warning // Politics (World), Transphobia, Slur Reclamation, Language

Introduction

I have changes a lot in the last three years, like, visibly so. For the better, that is. I've learned (mostly) who I am and what I want to do with that information. I largely think that I have found the elusive "real me," but am smart enough to know that it is subject to change. We are all work-in-progress after all.

Growing up, I had really no reason to question my own self. I was told I was a boy and had shorter hair, therefore I am a boy, yes? Class dismissed.

This was largely the thinking I had up until I started interacting with queer people on Twitter. A few years prior, I had started down the fascist rabbit hole of right-wing YouTube, which eventually gave me my not-so-proud memories of making fun of "Social Justice Warriors" and that one time I asked my parents why there are men who think there are women (this was asked in a rather condescending tone).

Over time though, as I just, hung out with people and learned of the horrible things that conservatives do to people, I started to seriously question myself. I think the true catalyst for it was one time at the beginning of 12th grade, when I got really upset over the part where trans people that I thought were cool didn't really like hanging out with cishet people, not out of hate, but just a general "meh" kind of feeling.


(This actually happened. It went on for at least thirty minutes.)

Ultimately, this newfound curiosity about myself led to a handful of discoveries:
1) My asexuality and demiromanticism.
2) I am non-binary, but in a boy way.
3) I feel little to no connection to masculinity. It's partially a burden to me. That doesn't make me a trans woman, however.
4) I like women, and the adjacent. Certified girl kisser. I considered myself straight but it's like. Gay now.

To build on that third bit, I'm soft. I am passive. I'm emotional. I'm as empathetic and compassionate as I can be. I like looking cute. I enjoy expressing femininity. Yet I am not a woman. I am a boy, not a man! I make the rules, ergo I declare that anyone with interest in me is certified big gay, regardless of gender.

But now I offer you: some other things people told me they describe themselves as:
Disclaimer: This section of this page contains quotes using reclaimed slurs. To view this content, click here.

"male (v1.25: System stability improvements and other adjustments)"
"literally just a dog"
"female fox"
"silly girl"

"i only really care about gender nowadays as it relates to me dating a gay male, i guess 'fag-aligned'"

"cybergirl"
"uninitialized memory but the last thing that was written there was a girl"

"a terrified girl on the verge of freezing to death in the harsh night of winter, kept alive only by the flame of her will. a gown made of keys. dreams without sleep. a knife's edge, razor sharp. the iron lay lines that cross the city. an endless gallery of unfinished projects. a vase of dead roses. 10,000 red LEDs spilled like blood. street lights reflected upon a rainy road. colors that can only be seen with eyes closed. a song you can't remember."

"silly transgirl puppy thing idk"
"i'm just zis guy, you know?"
"Boy (experimental)"
"none gender with left dog"

"like a sticker that's lost its stickiness. Or a newsletter I keep trying to unsubscribe from, but it still keeps coming to my inbox"

"girl with a lot of non-binary. or just faggot, that works too."
"femboy demiboy"
"gender anarchist"

"I've always been attracted to trash girl and girlfag. Though girlfag has some connotations, which, i want to be clear, are accurate but I'm uncomfortable with that accuracy. These days I guess it's more 'robogirl' though, I consider it adjacent to dollgender and woman."

"amorphous creature dyke :3"
"i do not care, until i suddenly do"
"Masc/femme bigender"
"autism wolf, fae creature, also gendervoid"
"A little bit of everything, all of the time"
"woman (with a bit of catgirl (not in a furry way))"

"ig mist - there's probably something there but as soon as i try to grab it it slips through my fingers"

"Error: insufficient clearance given. Access denied."
"professional faggot nerd"
"Femme Tractor Faggot"
"i have No Idea™️"
"creature, one half femme, one half undefined"
"Hella Fruity. Strives to be less masc overall. Varying degrees of fem."

"aromantic-asexual average fox-wolf-person-hybrid-thing-whatever-the-hell-kind-of-anthropomorphic-abomination-this-is; probably a wee bit fem-leaning despite being A Guy"

"cisgender, nothing to really see here :P"
"half man from my dad's side and half woman from my mom's side"

Rather empowering, is it not? There are virtually infinite ways for one to describe themself.

What gender are you?

Gender Identity: n. One's internal sense of identity. Does not inherently correlate with biological/physiological factors.
Gender Expression: n. How one expresses themself using clothes, makeup, accessories, behavior, etc.

Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who do you want to be?
- How do you want to be treated?
- Do I like my pronouns, or do I want something different?
- Is my gender, or potentially lack thereof, important to me?
- Am I open to evolving over time?
- What emotions come up when I think about this?
- How do I relate to other people, depending on their gender?
- Does your gender feel like a prison? Or does it feel liberating?
- Do I alter my presentation depending on who's around?

Ideally, these questions would be carefully examined over a long period of time. There are no right or wrong answers.

Screw the Rules

If you feel like strict labels are rather prisonic, then welcome to the club. I think there's a place for labels to have their definitions, and they work for most people. But I must say, that continuing to subjugate ourselves to rules like that almost makes it pointless. Paradoxically, it tears down existing roles and norms only to write new ones.

Here's some wonderful ideas:
- Boys who are lesbians. The details don't matter.
- Girls can be men if they want. There's no reason they can't be both.
- She/Her boys and He/Him girls. Wowza!
- A gender identity so exotic and inexplicable that the only working label that mere mortals can remotely understand is "Stargender."
- The entire plot of Yakuza Kiwami.
- Your gender is actually a 32-bit floating point value. It does not follow IEEE 754, rather it's the absolutely messed up implementation on the PlayStation 2.
- Sometimes girls will literally be an IBM System/360 that is mysteriously connected to the internet.
- There's probably someone out there whose gender is equivalent to the absurdity of the VGF2P8AFFINEINVQB instruction from AVX-512.
- "He's literally so babygirl!"

If you asked me, I would tell you that labels are entirely optional for this exact reason. Gender is a concept that's too complex to fit into boxes, lest it become a source of oppression, either from internal or external forces.

Consider the following: This also kinda sucks

Supposedly, we're supposed to have everything figured out, right? That we all are supposed to know exactly what gender we are and want to do with it, apparently.

Maybe you're like me and still figuring it out. It's difficult enough without the weight of societal expectations pushing you every which way.

Here's the thing: It's perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed and anxious as you learn more about yourself. It's okay to feel frustrated by society's boxes. When it comes to this, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all experience, and you don't owe anyone an explanation on anything.

"You get to name your own gender and have it be a real gender. You have the right to do that, and no one can take that right away from you, because it's always there in your heart: your gender. Yours. The more mindfully you do your gender, the more certainty you get that you're expressing yourself well in the world."
-- Auntie Kate, My (New!) Gender Workbook

In truth, there's only one gender, and it's yours.