Theme
10:47am May 30, 2014

Question for other genderless (and somewhat for other nonbinary) people?

Full disclosure:  I’m genderless, or nongendered as I first named it.  For me, that means I don’t have a gender.  Not male, not female, not in between, not some other gender, I just don’t have a gender.  I have body dysphoria but I don’t like discussing all of the details of my private parts, suffice to say it’s there.  I prefer sie/hir or ze/zer/zem pronouns, but other pronouns are okay as well and I don’t hold people to any particular set of pronouns.

I know that for other people, being genderless or nongendered or neutrois can have other meanings, which is why I’m explaining what it means to me up front.  It basically means that, when looking at myself, gender just is not a factor in either my identity or in what I do.  Even when I look like I’m doing something ‘masculine’ or 'feminine’, it doesn’t have that connotation to me, or those associations with gender.

After a childhood where I knew I was outside of the gender norms but had no vocabulary for why, as a young adult I used to think I was FTM, but that was back before I’d conceived of genderlessness as a thing.  All I knew was I didn’t feel female, so I thought male was the only other options.  After spending a lot of time around a lot of trans people, I eventually came up with the idea of 'nongendered’ to describe what I really was.  I’m sure other people have come up with similar concepts independently – genderless, nongendered, agender, neutrois, etc.  But when I came up with it I felt completely alone, and only then when I began writing about it did I meet anyone like me in that regard.

So anyway, a question:

When you have to fill out forms, and you’re lucky enough that it actually says, under sex or gender:

  • Male
  • Female
  • Other

Does that cause you problems?

Because… just being given a choice between male and female definitely causes me problems.  And I’m sure it causes other genderless or nonbinary people problems for the same reasons it does me.  It’s self-explanatory:  Neither option fits.

But the “Other” thing.

That feels wrong too and I can’t explain why.

I was thinking about it all of yesterday.  Because I’d run into about five of those online forms, getting more and more frustrated, and one of them said “Other”.  So of course, I clicked “Other”.

But instead of feeling grateful and happy, I felt unsettled.  I felt like this wasn’t it, either.  Like it wasn’t who I was.

I have a vague sense that maybe it’s because to them, “other” is still a gender?

Like, I’m still being asked to pick from a list of genders.  And no matter how many genders you add to the list, it’s still going to be a gender.  And I don’t have a gender.  So it’s still going to, down in my bones, feel like misgendering.

Of course, the only two solutions that I’ve thought of that would work for me are not solutions that are likely to work for anyone else.

One is to just not have that question, anywhere.  Which is, of course, a problem to people who do have genders.

And the other is to limit the question to biological sex (I’m a relic, I know – that isn’t the word we use nowadays, please give me some slack here).  Which I’ve just gotten a very long, irritated, but mostly-accurate flame from someone, about why that is not only wrong, but way more complicated than it sounds.  I actually knew all the reasons, but was tired, heavily medicated, and feeling lazy the night I decided to say “hey, that’d work for me at least”.

(It works for me because I’m not intersex, haven’t transitioned in any way, and don’t have any identity-based or socially-based problems separating my biological sex from my lack-of-gender.  Obviously, there are Serious Reasons it wouldn’t work for a huge part of the trans community.)

Does anyone have any idea that would work for genderless people?

Or am I the only one for whom “Other” feels just as wrong as “Male” and “Female”?

Am I really weird here?

Should I just be grateful they’ve put in “other” at all?

Also, be aware that I’m not going to be offended if you come up with some solution that would only work for some people.  I don’t think you can always solve everything for everyone at once.  I can’t guarantee nobody else will come in and flame you out of the blue for not taking everyone into account.  But I won’t, because my brain is right now too scattered to take everyone into account myself, that’s why I’m focusing on the experiences of genderless people and to some extent other nonbinary people.

I have cognitive impairments that sometimes make my focus really narrow.  It doesn’t mean I don’t care about everyone.  It just means I can’t take every variable into account in each post, and when I try, I get really scatter-brained and long-winded.  When I don’t try (and sometimes even when I do), accidentally I leave people out and they get offended.  I’ve been having a lot of problems with pain and brain focusing problems lately and that may affect these things in unpredictable ways.  I swear I don’t mean to offend or leave people out of my calculations.  But I do mean for people without gender to be the main people I’m focusing on here, that much is intentional.

Notes:
  1. meanqueer reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    i agree that sometimes “other” can feel unsettling. what i’d prefer is to have the question there, but you don’t have to...
  2. dusty-soul said: Or a fill in the blank type of thing?
  3. dusty-soul said: How about a “neither” instead of “other” or “Something else” catagory? And BTW, it is totally do able to just not ask those questions. See Isreal, I think. :)
  4. kforshort reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  5. yesthattoo reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    Write-in? 4 options instead of 3, and Other is a write-in? Man, Woman, Other, None/NA? I mean, unless it’s in a...
  6. namelessthingsdismantle reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  7. clatterbane reblogged this from andreashettle and added:
    For me, at least, a write-in field would probably work much better in most contexts. Especially if it is really...
  8. andreashettle reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    In one particular context, I’m one of the people who actually writes these kinds of questions. I coordinate an...
  9. vladdraculea reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    I’m agender/genderless, too, and “other” doesn’t bother me mainly because, while it does imply a different (rather than...
  10. feliscorvus reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    Heh, I think I took the same quiz-form thingy as you did (the language dialect thing?) and also selected “other” under...
  11. alljustletters said: i’m usually happy when they don’t ask for gender but just sex. unfortunately, that happens rarely. in general, i do choose “other” although “none” would feel more correct. i guess “other” is supposed to be an umbrella term for nonbinary.
  12. irkdesu said: I’ve wished for a “none” option or at least a “neither”. I’m genderfluid but sometimes it barrels straight on into genderless. Maybe n/a would work. I mostly wish for no question as it’s most often about what title to put in front of my name. Don’t want one!
  13. katisconfused said: I have trouble with the forms because I am still under “questioning” and all the answers feel like I’m lying. “Are you SURE you are not a girl? You do girl stuff you must be a girl”. It’s easier to be misgendered that to try to label myself sometimes
  14. narciii said: I am close enough to cis that checking female does not bother me, so I’m not an expert. Would “None of the above” work? I would read “Other” as meaning the same as “none of the above applies” or “more info required to answer.”
  15. genderpatrol said: would “None” work for you? for me, as a genderfluid person, i might benefit from being able to select more than one, or options like “sometimes female,” “sometimes male,” or “sometimes none.” and intersex should be an option for medical forms.
  16. withasmoothroundstone posted this