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 don’t really care about my gender.
but everyone else does. It is very annoying. and they never listen to me because their gender assumptions are so visceral and emotional and they love to shove them in my face and get pissed off that I don’t take the ‘compliment’ they are giving me. whenever i ‘open up’ about myself honestly I am met with hostility and rejection for not being ‘a real man’. this could be as simple as talking about how i like to cook, or read, or ride bicycles.
i also don’t relate to the ‘privilege’ of being a straight male. my gender/sexuality has often been used against me to justify abuse and sexual assault, as well as the policing of my opinions, behaviors, and interests. I simple don’t understand why people are so angry at me for me being me and not conforming to some idea they have of ‘people with a penis must be this way or we feel entirely justified at screaming and hitting them until they act that way’. which of course, talking about my abuses… results in more abuse because it is ‘wrong’ for men to talk about abuse, especially at the hands of women. never once has anyone IRL who I was ever open to ever received me positivity about those experiences. oh, and often too about positive things in my life i get the same negative reaction because my gender is not supposed to ‘be happy’ about the things that make me happy.
it’s funny when people go on about ‘male privileged’ as if we are free from all these expectations and fears of abuse that apparently only women supposedly have. Because I’ve had them my entire life and frankly I hate them.