I am probably quite agender, as I have no intrinsic sense of my gender. I simply accepted my AGAB (assigned gender at birth) without questioning it. At some point, I realized that I don’t feel any connection to this gender, no feeling like other people have. I also don’t see it as something that influences my personality and I don’t apply to gender norms. I just don’t care about gender. (This btw. also makes it harder for me to understand people whose sense of gender is so strong that they even reject their AGAB, although I accept their feeling, of course.) So how do you “feel” gender?
you are cisgender.
this experience lies on a spectrum. for example, genderqueer folks have had their expression scrutinized and oppressed, so gender identity is more of an issue they think about than the average person. basically, you don’t have to exist with a sense of fulfilment or pride to be comfortable as the gender you’ve been assigned. you not having any incongruence implies your comfort level being seen by society as the gender you present.
i want to ask if you are certain of this, because simply not possessing any feelings positive or negative about your gender doesn’t mean you’d be fine if you woke up as the opposite or something in-between. i’m generalizing here, but genuinely think of how you’d feel if you transformed into the opposite gender while retaining who you are right now. all of your beliefs, passions, interests, social expectations, public perception, and many, many other things are impacted by gender. not in a direct way for some but a guy interested in childhood education or a woman choosing not to have kids would both face questions and assumptions because of their gender. you would also be forced to see your body and yourself differently because others would treat you as the new gender you are now presenting as. still don’t care?
That’s all through societal expectations though, isn’t it? You can take any of these things and find that they’re associated with different genders in different places around the world and different time periods. I don’t think it would make sense to say that a trans person is only trans in a specific place and time.
yes, but so is gender. gender is largely socially enforced. these behaviors and habits will be judged based on how you are perceived.
Huh? Plenty of trans people accept their AGAB for some amount of time before realizing that it isn’t correct.
In my case, still no. I mean, it would be inconvenient to explain to everyone I know why I suddenly look completely different, but beyond that, I don’t think I’d care. Obviously, I can’t know for certain unless it happens, and any experiment that attempted to find out would be absurdly unethical, but I’m as certain as I reasonably can be.
About the second part: Yup. I wouldn’t really care either.
I also don’t care about which pronouns people use referring to me. And while I’m completely fine with my body, having a different one sound doesn’t sound unpleasant. It actually sounds like an interesting experience when it comes to changing perspectives.
my bad lol i don’t mean it that way, i meant overall if you are accepting of your AGAB you are living as a cisgender person. you can “accept” it in your mind but remain uncomfortable enough to further pursue lines of questioning, yes, but if you haven’t had any incongruence then i would feel it appropriate to say you are cis.
i get it, but i have been certain of many things only to have lived the opposite result. my point is that you might not realize how relevant your assumed gender is to your overall personal image until people are constantly commenting on it and noticing it.