10:27am May 15, 2014

Genderless problems.

youneedacat:

(Some of these can be general nonbinary or general trans problems, too. Note that I use some outdated terminology because my last major experiences in the trans community are ten years old and my language can’t keep up with the times.)

Being told that you actually have a gender and just don’t know it.

Being told that you actually have a “gender expression” even if you don’t experience gender, because your clothing, or hair, or activities appear to them to conform to a gender.

Being told that you’re actually a cis person who just doesn’t want to admit that they’re cis.

Being told that all genderless people are actually cis people who want to deny their cis privilege, and that this is the only reason genderlessness exists.

Being told that you must actually be someone who wants to abolish gender for political reasons (possibly with accusations of being a transphobic radical feminist), rather than a person who simply doesn’t experience gender.

Being assumed to always have privilege over trans people, or over specific kinds of trans people. (Which you might, in some circumstances, but among trans and genderless people, privilege is a complicated thing. Usually if you pick any two trans and/or genderless people, you’ll get privilege that goes at least two different directions. So it’s never simple.

Trying to discuss experiences of (lack of) gender that don’t conform to either the expectations of cis people, or of trans people who do have genders. And being treated like crap for it by many kinds of people who do have genders, whether they are cis or trans, binary or non binary.

Having your lack of experience of gender, and your needs surrounding it, seen as automatically untrustworthy because of perceived, false, resemblance to people who want to abolish gender for abstract political reasons. Having it assumed that you want to abolish gender at all, just because you talk about the ways that the presumption of gender screws up your life.

Feeling uncomfortable showing pictures of yourself because people will use them to assign you a gender you aren’t.

Being told that even if you don’t have a gender, you do have a “gender expression” because of the clothes you wear or the way you wear your hair or the way you move or the way you talk or the way your body looks. Being told that it’s okay that people assume this. Being told this even by trans people, who should know better.

Being told that if your so-called ‘gender expression’ (even though you don’t have one of those) matches your so-called biological sex, then you aren’t really genderless enough. That real genderless people would look conventionally androgynous at all times.

Having it assumed that you experience no body dysphoria.

Hearing discussions among (usually binary) trans people that ensure you will never, ever discuss in public the form your body dysphoria does or doesn’t take. Because they have decided that anything that doesn’t fit a certain model isn’t real, or is even offensive to them in some way.

Hearing discussions among (usually binary) trans people that basically make it sound like genderless people don’t really exist. Often discussions that center around bio-female genderless people.

Feeling like your childhood socialization as male or female matters, but being afraid to say so because people will assume that this means you actually have a gender after all.

Being told that if you’re truly genderless, then you shouldn’t ever take part in groups that usually assume a gender.

Being told that if you’re truly genderless, then you shouldn’t ever use words or pronouns for yourself that would normally indicate a gender, or you’re not truly genderless enough.

Being told that if you’re truly genderless, then you should not take part in anything that identifies you with the gender people normally associate with your biological sex. And that if you do do this, then you’re automatically invalidating the identities of other trans people. Even though it doesn’t work like that, at all.

Listening to (usually binary) trans people rant about people exactly like you. And fearing to ever, ever describe how you feel, lest you draw the ire of a certain segment of trans people who really don’t like genderless people, especially genderless people who don’t do what they expect a trans or genderless person ought to be doing in order to be considered legit.

Dealing with people who think that being genderless means looking ‘unisex’. Or who at least expect you to always look like the ‘opposite’ of whatever your biological sex is. And that if you don’t constantly do this, you’re just a cis person playing at being genderless.

Hearing the constant refrain of “genderless people are just cis people who don’t want to admit they’re not trans” and “I’ve never met a real genderless person” and “genderless bio-females are just women who want to seem cool” and “you can’t be genderless AND a lesbian” and stuff like that, from a community that’s supposed to welcome you.

Knowing that what’s supposed to be your own community is scrutinizing your so-called ‘gender presentation’ more closely than cis people do, and finding it wanting more often than not.

Dealing with people who cannot comprehend that to you nothing you do has gender. Not your clothes, not your activities, not your hair. No matter how ‘gendered’ they might seem to a cis or gendered-trans person, they’re still not gendered clothes/activities/hairstyles no matter how much most people would associate them with gender. And that if the so-called “gender” of your clothes/activities/hair seems to “match” the gender you were raised to be, then you’re not really genderless, you just think you are. Not to mention twelve or thirteen thick layers of utter bullshit people spread on top of these assumptions.

And it hurts when any and all of these assumptions are coming from trans people, not just cis people. And it hurts to have your identity and life experiences presumed to be an anti-trans political statement when that’s not what you live for or believe at all, whatsoever.

And there are things I have not talked about, even now, because there are cans of worms a mile wide I don’t feel emotionally strong enough to open. Even though most of the cans of worms are based on a misunderstanding, mental widgets that say “If you believe ______ then you always have to believe ______, too, there’s no way around it.”

…is this called being genderless?

there is a word for this?

why did nobody tell me