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?
I wanted to die until I got tits. Also growing tits sounded like a good way to not want to die, which I hear is a thought process rare in men.
And I’d like to add, my interests are largely somewhat masculine coded. My personality doesn’t feel masculine or feminine, I’m loud, extroverted, and strong but kind. Or as we say in my family: my mother’s daughter. I did have to put in effort as a kid to not get mistreated for being a feminine, and put extra masculinity into my presentation as a teenager.
My everyday clothing is the normal androgynous style of jeans and tshirts, though over the years I’ve gotten less baggy with it. When I want to look nice I prefer a more feminine look or a feminine take on a more masculine look (leather jacket with bold makeup for example)
Ultimately I do think a lot of society’s gendering of everything is kinda stupid, though existing within it I find it easy to fall into it. That said, I can’t imagine a world in which I as myself would maintain a more amab style body if given a choice nor one in which with that choice barred it would not cause me significant distress to the point of hindering my ability to live.
Ranma 1/2 may have given me some funny ideas as an impressionable youth, but I never wanted to die for them. That’s a pretty important difference.
I’ll admit two major things here: firstly I was what would have been described in a more medicalized time as profoundly dysphoric. This is not the majority of people now seen as trans. One of the major wins of the trans community in the early 21st century was that dysphoria shouldn’t have to be life ruiningly bad to get to have it addressed. Secondly dysphoria got worse over time and I had other signs earlier including phantom breasts and maladaptive daydreaming of being seen as a girl even in my early teens.
Like, I would’ve probably been able to transition in 1960s America, though I definitely would have had to put more effort in and jump through a lot of hoops including lying about my sexual orientation. But had I been in the silent generation or a boomer I probably would have done it, despite the personal, social, and financial costs.
This is all not to say liking Ranma makes someone trans, just that for people who are questioning to not take those of us with the most dramatic dysphoria as the baseline.
That’s a show I’ve not heard in a while.