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Non-cis people of hexbear, what does being your gender mean to you?

Inspired by this dorky exchange I had, thank u BountifulEggnog.

I want to know what your gender means to you, how you define it, what it means for you to "be" that gender and how you define it. Don't fuss about 'correct definitions' or anything, this is about your experience, I want to know what it means to you. How you relate to that gender, perceive it.

Genders have a social construction aspect and is very subjective, so I think people's subjective, personal views of their own are both important and interesting. Inquiring mind wants to know!

110 comments
  • I don't have a gender. I experience dysphoria at things that feel like attempts to gender me, though as i get older i have become more comfortable with dressing in ways that lead strangers to perceive me as a gender. though i don't think i would ever be comfortable with people who know me using gendered terms for me etc.

    but yeah. no gender for me. i don't even really feel nonbinary, even though the term technically applies since i am not binary. you could say i'm a kitten instead of a man or a woman, though i don't consider kitten to be my gender either.

    i am post-gender. i am just myself. someone forgot to install the gender software in my brain. also i'm intersex, and i feel like this has impacted how i responded to the gender roles society threw at me, because i just sort of assumed none of it applied to me. and my mother, while i was assigned a sex, was very opposed to raising kids differently based on gender so i never really got much of it from my family.

    i've always been curious about what gender feels like to other people, so i've asked a lot of people, cis and trans, and what i find curious is that they all tell me different things. there is no one unifying thing that all women or all men will tell you makes them a woman or a man. and i think that is a good thing. gender is very personal, and we all resolve the trauma of gender being imposed on us very differently, and reclaim it in whatever way feels best.

    i remember talking to a cis-lite friend of mine. she told me that she only identified as a woman because she was so often pushed into the roles of caring, cleaning etc, and so she identifies as a woman for the convenience of that.

    • the trauma of gender being imposed on us

      this is my answer to the question. that's all it is to me. i was just telling someone how like, being always taken in by the women & being mocked by the guys kinda eventually led me to this situation where i'm owning all the vile garbage from my past, but also the affirmation of the ladyfolk. if you want a label, non-binary woman makes the most sense to me. i'm so over labels, though. just. Gender Chaotic.

      be confused, cissies; be afraid of the feelings you have perceiving me.

      • something i have been feeling lately. us just, existing. in a public space, with our own bodies. often feels like gender warfare. people are going to perceive us, react to us, struggle with their own concepts of gender because we don't fit into them. and that can be dangerous, yeah. it's no fucking wonder we venture into the outside world so rarely. but just existing, and excercising control over our own bodies, is a fuck you to them. and i'm proud of that i guess.

        and that means far more to me than a label - though i don't begrudge anyone who finds labels comforting or useful.

    • you could say i'm a kitten instead of a man or a woman, though i don't consider kitten to be my gender either.

    • "Cis-lite"? but uh

      i've always been curious about what gender feels like to other people, so i've asked a lot of people, cis and trans, and what i find curious is that they all tell me different things. there is no one unifying thing that all women or all men will tell you makes them a woman or a man. and i think that is a good thing. gender is very personal, and we all resolve the trauma of gender being imposed on us very differently, and reclaim it in whatever way feels best.

      Yeah this is the spark that started this thread honestly, which is very cool thank you. There are many non-gender or post-gender people though also!

      • cis lite as in, my friend is techhnically a cis woman but doesnt really feel like one but cant be bothered to change anything. she is cool with the term.

        post gender is a nice term for me, maybe. i think about gender less and less these days. i am privileged to live in a community of queer n trans people, and i dont go into the real world terribly often.

        i am kinda trans only by default. i take hormones etc, but im not trying to change anything. i am intersex and i prefer my appearance to be androgynous or neutral. so i just kinda try to balance the hormones to achieve that. i do feel quite different to a lot of trans people. but there are also people who feel a lot like i do, like the person who responded to my comment and plenty of others.

        anyway none of this is a complaint, just sorta rambling vaguely

  • when i was more on the binary I defined it in terms of behavior sets - masculinity had a lot of baggage over years of performing it, and more than anything, the masculine social role became something i associated with oppression, self and external hatred. I don't think of that as healthy, it's just where I ended up after years of performing ill-fitting social roles, and the fatigue of living in misogynistic and patriarchal circumstance; and presentation - how i comport myself, how i dress, how i exist in a social environment.

    As I got into hormones, it was the subjective experience of feminization. What started to emerge that felt right, and affirming to do and be just.. changed. Gender euphoria guiding, the general internal changes that came with HRT became the most important thing. It literally made my brain work better. I'm autistic and I began just naturally perceiving social cues I used to miss. Im not saying estrogen cured my autism, far from it, however the breadth of what I can naturally process and understand expanded more dramatically than years of psychedelics and painful-to-learn behavioral coping strategies ever gave me. I felt substantially more human, when i used to genuinely ask myself if i was some kind of secret alien or something.

    I still feel a kind of alienness to allistic folks but i'm much b etter at doing and being alongside them now, while generally honoring who i am otherwise.

    These things all came together and matured, because I got comfortable enough in my own skin to cease defining myself with those behavior sets and presentations i arbitrarily assigned to my vision of womanhood for myself. At this point the high-femme repetoire i learned in my first two years of transition are the basis of a more non-binary being. I call myself transfemme, because i don't really see myself as a woman, the transness of my identity feels inseparable from any specific manifestation of Gender - I like dressing like a tomboy or a more non-binary femme, like i honestly prefer traditionally lesbian styles that don't innately accent the feminine form, they're just cute and comfy things.

    I'm not beyond a cute dress and makeup and more traditional expressions of femme being, but in general I try to just exist comfortably now - that's something dominantly feminine, but not bound by it.

    I have limited plans for surgery - i dont want breast augments anymore, i don't want ffs, i just want laser surgery and/or electrolysis to make my beard go away forever. Everything else feels manageable. Sometimes I think i should pause hormones to bank sperm and try to get myself in a place to have a family - something i deeply, badly want - and i'm perfectly willing to use the birth equipment to get there, so my dysphoria isn't strictly in a place of needing drasting bodily alteration to sate, and so it doesn't feel right to myself to insist i'm exactly like somebody who wants to completely alter their look and body.

    which is to say i'm kind of in the same boat as OP maybe, but we're all different, but i felt some kinship in reading it.

  • I'm nonbinary AMAB leaning masc but I'm very much gender-agnostic on a personal level, which I think is quite common for autistic people.

    I tend to prefer spending time with women and enbies but I think that's because I live in a pretty patriarchal society and there's a lot of weird proscriptive masculinity that's applied to people who present as men here and I'm not interested in all that and I don't vibe with it, so a lot of men don't take kindly to me being a weird little guy who doesn't care for whatever gendered rules I'm supposed to be adhering to. Some women here are also rigid in their expectations of people who present as men but generally they exist in circles I don't move within so it's much less of a thing in my experience.

    I haven't really had a chance to sit down and hash out my gender identity seriously because of other more pressing concerns so I just settle on being on the enby spectrum somewhere. I think that also speaks to my attitude of gender agnosticism - for other people gender is a very important or pressing issue and I 100% respect and support this but for me, I have never addressed the higher priority stuff to get down to my own experience of gender.

    • Aw hell yeah. Goes without saying that being a weird little guy is cool, we support that around here. The point you bring up about (cisnormative-ass) women's expectations of anyone who presents "male" fascinates me too...

      Hopefully someday the pressing concerns will be less pressing and you can get down to your own experience, generally speaking though it seems to me like autistic people are either not very into gender or really really into gender. I adore how being neurodiverse broadly interacts with gender!

      • The point you bring up about (cisnormative-ass) women's expectations of anyone who presents "male" fascinates me too...

        It's really interesting because most women are genuinely cool with me being a queer oddball but there's a particular type of cisnormative women who are really judgy and averse to me being me. I'm not bothered; I'm the type of person who is better suited to a refined palate and I get that I'm more of an acquired taste (lol) so I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.

        But yeah, I'm just doing my thing and a fair few men find it off putting but occasionally some women do too. I don't need their approval though.

        I think in some respects I must feel "more" transgressive to people with traditional gender norms because I pass as a man pretty well, especially if you don't know me, because I'm not really out there and camp or loud or performative about being enby so I think it lulls some people into a false sense of complacency but then I will effortlessly transgress gender norms as it suits me and I think more conservative-minded people get a bit of whiplash from it because I'm "supposed" to be a man or because they put me in the box labeled Man but sometimes I do things outside of that because I don't have any regard for that stuff, whereas for example if I was a really camp gay dude then people would sorta anticipate more transgressive behaviour with regards to gender and stuff so those transgressions are seen as less of an affront comparatively (if that makes sense).

        Hopefully someday the pressing concerns will be less pressing and you can get down to your own experience

        Thanks, I really appreciate it!

        I'm not sure if it's just such a non-issue for me that it's never going to be a priority at all because I'm actually agender deep down or whether making sense of my gender will make it to the top of my to-do list some day. Either way, it doesn't feel like a burning issue for me and that is its own privilege so I tend to keep quiet about contributing to spaces like these since I'm not even really an expert in my own gender so I don't have much to contribute and I also don't really need anything from this space on a personal level (e.g. support or guidance). That probably sounds a bit weird but it's not internalised queerphobia afaik - I am definitely part of the community, I identify with it, and I'm fine with that, but I don't need much and I don't have much to provide either so I mostly stick to the sidelines.

      • autistic people are either not very into gender or really really into gender.

        I feel like both at the same time

  • So as some (many??) of you know I am newly hatched and autistic so

    I know this isn't how most people see things and I don't mind if other people view things differently, do whatever/label yourself however you like. Also I have not so much as even worn girl clothes so, yaknow maybe my understanding will be influenced as I start to transition.

    • Henlo welcome to gebder thenk u hope u enjoy ur stay

      This is funny in contrast to me, because there are agender or post gender people here who take hormones to make their bodies more comfortable. Whether or not someone views hormones and the physical aspect as being part of gender... well they're clearly not inherently gendered, but like maybe as a potential expression of gender? Idk, fascinating.

      No sorry, good to have this as a reference point so thank u, very literal and utilitarian perspective. And that IS funny about the socks, lol.

      • It is one of the stays I have had that's for sure

        I just can't separate it in my brain. Maybe that'll change with time?

        very literal and utilitarian perspective

        that's me alright. It is a very funny thought, it makes me second guess how connected sex and gender are in my brain.

  • Mostly I'd rather be perceived without any assumptions based on gender. I have a special hate for sports, for example, because of cis guys asking me about them, forcing me to eternally be saying I don't know anything about them and am not into them. Generally goes over with the awkwardness of a fart in a church.

  • I want to be cute and I don’t want to be a man.

    A lot of this has to do with society, like externally I would never want someone to perceive me as a man and I would like for them to perceive me as cute or a woman.

    But also internally I want those things.
    I don’t like the idea of being masculine, or at least being the level of masculine a man is.
    I want nothing to do with the effects of testosterone physically and mentally.
    I like being soft, I don’t care about being strong (even in a positive non-toxic way).

    Obviously like…Men can be feminine, to some extent and Women masculine and even I’m some parts of each, it’s not a hard binary.
    But the part I’d emphasize or want people to acknowledge first is the feminine.

    • Hello ✨

      I see, yeah I've noticed a few people have a strong repulsion to being or being perceived as man, or just testosterone playing a large factor, which is cool, I thought I was kind of alone in that being a huge motivator for some reason.

      The part you'd want to emphasize and acknowledge first is feminine, and so woman(or girl idk) works best for you?

      • Yeah, idk to me it’s like…I have a lot of boyish interests and stuff like that, but it’s not like…”oh you have to be into shopping and whatever stereotype to be a girl.”
        But at the same time I feel like there is a difference in liking stuff, even “masculine” stuff, as “a girl” versus as a “guy.”
        At least.

        Kind of in the same way loving a woman as a woman is different than loving one as a man in some ways.

  • I don't know if this is uncommon among nonbinary people or not (certainly seems to be in this thread at least), but I have a gender. I actually have a very strong experience of my personal gender. But my gender is just an extremely subjective personal lens through which I experience the world. Idk if I can encompass all of it in a verbal description, but I will try my best.

    • That's based, nice =)

    • I try my best to delineate that I am not transfem and cannot speak to that experience, while also not incorrectly gendering myself as transmasc. (I hope I’m doing an okay job of that? Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing that poorly.)

      I don't think I noticed you avoid using "transmasc" label. I sorta assumed you were, but I think I treat the label as basically a shorter version of "CAFAB trans person" (and "transfem" as a shorter version of "CAMAB trans person")

      • Honestly I really don't mind if I get viewed as transmasc, I think my not using it is mostly an internal thing. If someone else were to describe me as transmasc I would be fine with it, and like you I sometimes use it as shorthand to describe my being a CAFAB trans person when I'm pressed for time and don't want to get into all the ins and outs of my gender experience (like, when I don't want to write a whole essay like I did here.) "Trans man" does feel very wrong though, that feels like misgendering while "transmasc" does not.

        Usually if asked I will just say I'm "trans", I like that label on its own, short and sweet. I also fuck with "trans guy", wherein guy represents some nebulous masc-ish neutral-ish weird thing (an extremely subjective personal experience with the word which I do not expect other people to share). Other labels I will use are "genderqueer" and "nonbinary". I don't usually say I'm transmasc, but as I said I don't mind if other people describe me with the label. Idk if that's weird? Labels are very strange creatures to me, I do not pretend to understand them. I also feel like it's very possible that I may start using the transmasc label more in the future; it's honestly something that I waffle on a lot.

  • No gender for me, thanks. I find it very freeing to step away from all that and allow myself to behave and present and think of myself however I want to.

    In my day to day life, most people see me as a woman. I’m okay with letting them think that. Deep down, I am emphatically not a woman (or a man either), but I don’t want to deal with the social repercussions of trying to come out as nonbinary/agender at work, so I just live with it. It helps that my coworkers are lovely people who don’t expect me to perform femininity at all.

  • if i tried to explain my gender i would have to give my whole life story, go into tremendous length about materialist dialectics, tell like six abstracted and unrelated stories, write an epic poem, and still wed only be like 1/6 done. for all other intents and purposes im just a weird monster

  • This... might take a bit. Maybe I should go over my full transition experience so far too? That might honestly help make it make more sense 🤔 From reading everything here my own relation to my gender seems quite different from the others, but I already knew I had a very particular understanding. Fuck I might need to reread some papers and do proper citations too.

    • Unironically that's fuckin awesome, if you feel compelled to share in any way please do, whether that involves long personal histories, cite notes, anything!

      • Of course, I just have a lot to go over for it to make any sense at all to someone that isn't me, I think.

        For now while I'm busy baking a cherry tart, the thesis statement of my understanding is that I have a very strong innate sense of my gender as particularly being a (binary) woman. And that bit is relatively simple and is the actual answer. But every time I've said it to someone non-binary (or hell, my binary trans woman ex) they just... Didn't really get how that worked and thought it was just a conflation of femininity to womanhood but it really isn't to me. So I feel I should clarify it for once, both for other people to get it and for myself so I'm better at expressing it in the future. It's just also very complicated. Very psycho-philosophical.

  • It’s kinda hard to describe. Part of me has always felt like ‘what is gender’ or ‘what is a woman’ is less important than the fact that I want to be one. Like, I know there’s such a thing as a woman and I know I want to be one, the rest is just details. The physical changes and presentation stuff is a big plus to be sure, but it’s not the core of it. Like, if I imagine myself as an hrt femboy with she/her pronouns, something about that feels off. There’s a part of roseanne barr’s recent comedy special/trainwreck where she’s going around and doing the conservative grievance politics bingo and eventually she gets to the trans stuff and tries to give the audience some red meat but she’s clearly too unplugged or uninterested to understand what the fuss is supposed to be so she just goes “‘what is a woman?’ A woman is me!!!” and I think that’s probably going to be my attitude once I finally internalize the view of myself as a woman lol

    I think I came to the opposite conclusion as you, where I figured that if nothing is inherently gendered, then why can’t I just be a woman? Like I feel like trying to hold myself to some strict femme standard of gender presentation would probably feel constricting, but cis women can transgress that and still be women, so why can’t I? I don’t have to be nonbinary to be gender nonconforming if I want to. Maybe when I get further in my transition and stop boymoding I’ll feel different, but that’s where I am now.

    • I think I came to the opposite conclusion as you, where I figured that if nothing is inherently gendered, then why can’t I just be a woman?

      cis women can transgress that and still be women, so why can’t I? I don’t have to be nonbinary to be gender nonconforming if I want to.

      This is based, and tbh when faced with the relative absurdism of gender this is an entirely valid reaction as well. I like this outlook, truly.

  • It's complicated of course. Often it feels like a box I'm forced to fit into when I don't really fit into said box.

    For the longest time, I considered myself in closest proximity to non-binary as an AMAB person that generally likes to present and be viewed in a feminine matter but without any overwhelming body dysphoria. By contrast, I felt feminine presentation just always fit the body I'm given more than masculine presentation as I've always tended towards a more typically feminine profile slender with long legs and a more androgynous facial structure. Though the narrowness of my hips and my shoulder width do lean more to the masculine side.

    That being said, I've been finding lately that I've been left with this feeling that I kind of have to "pick a side" in order to be taken seriously in society as a whole. My presentation alone has caused many to assume I fully on identify as trans in the past, as it leans very femme. Certain aspects of me like my height and the 'maleness' of some of my features make full on 'passing' difficult to me, but I have mulled over hormones as a way to potentially address this. I just don't know. I posted some pics of me on another website recently that while getting largely positive feedback, also resulted in relentless brigading from a small group of TERF's and transphobes who wanted to hyperfixate on every aspect of myself that I'm already uncomfortable with. Instead of the potentially intended reaction of making me want to shy away from my expression, it just made me want to put in the effort to be seen more as a woman though I still don't feel like my identity is completely "woman," yet when forced to pick a side so to speak, I align far more with that than being a man.

    So that's where I'm at right now. Pretty much transfemme I suppose. But still trying to figure out what that means for me exactly.

    • It sucks that people just jump to assuming you are a binary trans person and get shitty about it, you shouldn't have to pick a side, that's for nerds. Shouts to transfemme gang.

  • Just some autistic asexual womanthing that identifies as a non binary transfem and dresses for comfort and practically first, looking badass a close second. I voice trained.(one of the best commitments of my transition)

    I take E, and it completely changed how I feel and interact with the world in almost universally positive ways.

    I don’t identify with cis womanhood, and am finding increasingly belonging with transsexual vs transgender mostly because it is funny.

  • My gender is like a negation and a combination. I'm not a woman, not a man, but I'm not not a woman, y'know? My gender is people being confused about what exactly my gender is. My gender is avoiding gendered restrooms.

    It's about feeling comfortable with myself, about fully describing a me which doesn't really fit, but still functions, in society. My gender is having neither an 'm' nor an 'f' on my legal documents.

    • This is a fun one, tbh I wish I could take joy in people being confused abt my gender.

      My gender is having neither an 'm' nor an 'f' on my legal documents.

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