Still debating my rights to single spaces with colleagues - if you didn't see my previous thread (which filled up, my first 1000 post thread on MN!) - they are trying to remove my single sex toilet.
They tell me I am "cis" because I am not trans or NB.
Google tells me that cis means that my gender aligns with my sex.
I have no feelings of gender. I appreciate others do, and for some gender is a huge influence on their life - but gender, whether I am masculine or feminine, is just not something I think about.
I could "pass" as NB today because I'm WFH and have on men's joggers, my husband's sweatshirt, no make up, my hair is short and I really should get the veet out to tackle my tache before I am back in the office. When in the office I am Smart, rather than feminine, I'll wear earrings and a bit of makeup (enough to make me look less fucking knackered) and unfussy, well made clothes bought from a shop which markets to women. Im not making a political statement from my style - I'm dressing for the job I want rather than the job I have, which is arguably a masculine approach to the workplace.
My colleague's tell me that my lack of gender makes me a-gender, but surely that means that I actively reject gender? That's not me, I don't reject it, it's an irrelevance.
Other things which are irrelevant to me are formula one racing, Little Mix, and dogs - along with an infinite number of other things. I appreciate that those things are very important to some people, and that for a few people their whole lives revolve around those things, but, I'm not expected to describe myself as a-dogs in my workplace or in my personal life - so, why am I being forced to describe myself as a-gender?
So, is there a term I'm missing? Something that describes people for whom gender is just not relevant? I'm told that "woman" is not sufficient.
I'm absolutely furious and I am standing up for myself - and in doing so I am standing up for the women in our office whom I know really need that toilet to be single sex because they have confided in me. They should not have to disclose personal history or circumstances in order to retain their legal provisions. To discuss their reasoning would be in itself be traumatising and bad manners. I am a good manager and a decent human being, it is not reasonable to expose their history as currency to justify what the law says they are entitled to. It requires no justification, it is law.
I have learned, through this tedious exercise, what 'privilege" means - I have privilege because I do not have trauma, am an expert in my field, senior in our organisation, work at a national level and know fine well that if I resigned over this it would cause a ripple in our professional bubble and I'd walk into another job tomorrow. I'm far from "don't you know who I am?" status, but, if I left this organisation it would feature in the professional press because I'd phone my friend who's the editor in the biggest professional magazine who agrees with me and my employers would like to keep me because I have an unusual skill set and will be difficult to replace. Plus, I'm really fucking nice, and great on a Christmas night out.
This combination of professional skills and people skills, robustness, luck and sense of humour means I have the freedoms to say "fuck off" to these loons who seem to be unable of critical thinking, think that repeating Stonewall mantras constitutes professional debate, or that it is correct to try and negotiate my rights in law away from me.
So, my question is - if I am not cis and I am not a-gender and I am not allowed to describe myself as "woman" - what am I?
Apart from "fucked off", that is.