I don't have any feelings of gender - is there a Stonewall friendly term for me?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

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.

Perhaps half of Mumsnet will turn out to be Trans on the basis of the definition: 'the term describes people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth'?

Yes, that would definitely describe me. I think we should definitely start leaning in to that idea. How can someone who describe themselves as transgender be accused of transphobia?

Good grief, for a bunch of vacuous/viperous women you lot are bloody brilliant.

I am leaning towards printing off the Stonewall definitions and calling a meeting where I will agree that they must be right, that I must be a-gender (as per atheist) and that therefore I am transgender.

I am finding the experience of being outed by my colleagues, erm, to myself very difficult and have today identified that my micro aggression trigger is penises in my single sex spaces.

To be outed against my permission and self awareness in my workplace has been unsettling and I need some time to adjust to this revelation.

I will request they accommodate my reasonable adjustment of maintaining my single sex toilet until I meet with HR to discuss how best we, as a workplace with a stated policy of inclusion, can manage the needs of a trans woman's desire to use the women's toilet (not supported in law) and my need, as a newly outed and therefore vulnerable trans person to have a penis free toilet (as supported in law). Both I and my trans woman colleague fall under the trans umbrella and I will suggest we approach Stonewall for advice before creating change which would disadvantage one group of transgender people (female people like me who don't have a gender) against another group of transgender people (trans women who state they have no distressing dysphoria and present more as the Bunce end of the spectrum).

I'm sort of joking. And sort of not. Will think about it over the weekend and see what this BBC podcast does for Stonewall's standing and influence.

I am going to have to be tactical and might try agreeing with them as this is a situation they have created and it's not my job to sort out EDI. I'm curious about how they'd manage the needs of me, an a-gender trans person, compared with the needs of me, a woman.

Is a Trans Umbrella a parasol that identifies as an umbrella...

....ella, ella?

I don’t call myself “cis” or “a gender” for the reason I don’t call myself a “heretic” - it implies a religious belief I don’t have.

Same.
However, I'm not gender free or a-gender. I simply don't believe in the concept of gender. I believe we all have personalities and behavioural traits that define these unique personalities. No such thing as gender as far as I'm concerned.

That's it.

@Jaysmith71

Is a Trans Umbrella a parasol that identifies as an umbrella...

....ella, ella?

(Is there a ROTFL emoji?)

@HermioneWeasley

I don’t call myself “cis” or “a gender” for the reason I don’t call myself a “heretic” - it implies a religious belief I don’t have.

I think the religion analogy is very useful. I view having a gender identity the same as having a soul. It's subjective, and not something that should be enshrined in law.

I was looking into it earlier, and I came across Null Gender. The name appeals to me from a database point of view. And the definition was just so bonkers. I like the poisonous crystals aspect.

Undefinable, intangible, the uncreation of gender. Its taking everything everyone throws at you, saying male, female, pick one, pick this, pick that, and taking it in, only to expel it, poisonous crystals erupting from your skin, armor against those who don’t listen. A 'I don’t want a label because labels don’t fit but they help shut people up sometimes, so here have a label' gender label. A fall-back plan, a red herring to give people who can’t conceptualize the absence, void, nullification of gender. It is, and is not. All and none. Nonexistant but present

nonbinary.miraheze.org/wiki/Agender

[quote GreenAndPurplePeople]I was looking into it earlier, and I came across Null Gender. The name appeals to me from a database point of view. And the definition was just so bonkers. I like the poisonous crystals aspect.

Undefinable, intangible, the uncreation of gender. Its taking everything everyone throws at you, saying male, female, pick one, pick this, pick that, and taking it in, only to expel it, poisonous crystals erupting from your skin, armor against those who don’t listen. A 'I don’t want a label because labels don’t fit but they help shut people up sometimes, so here have a label' gender label. A fall-back plan, a red herring to give people who can’t conceptualize the absence, void, nullification of gender. It is, and is not. All and none. Nonexistant but present

nonbinary.miraheze.org/wiki/Agender[/quote]
Oh for goodness sake.

Who's got time for all this existentialism! Life's too bloody short, I've got too much to do, I've got a real life here and crystals errupting and conceptualising voids..... yeah, no.

No gender. Not doing it. No.

Absolutely hilarious.
But it's still about putting this "gender" thing at the core of one's being, even if it's in the context of rejecting it.
While for some of us, gender (the internal thing) is just ...meh.... not interested, don't care, just don't foist it on me, OK? (On a personal level)

The idea that you are cis because you haven't thought about gender and societal expectations sit comfortably is laughable
What woman would this apply to
I have ASD. I spent my early teens trying to fit in, feeling different, feeling that I was expected to attract a man but not wanting to because it scared me, hating the comments from men as I grew and developed. I don't believe the girls who presented as feminine or 'sexy' felt much different to me. O don't believe it was comfortable for them any more than I believe the pouting trout faces are comfortable for the young women of today
If they were comfortable they wouldn't feel the need to conform to these ridiculous stereotypes

@WhoNeedsaLammyInTheWorld

The idea that you are cis because you haven't thought about gender and societal expectations sit comfortably is laughable What woman would this apply to I have ASD. I spent my early teens trying to fit in, feeling different, feeling that I was expected to attract a man but not wanting to because it scared me, hating the comments from men as I grew and developed. I don't believe the girls who presented as feminine or 'sexy' felt much different to me. O don't believe it was comfortable for them any more than I believe the pouting trout faces are comfortable for the young women of today If they were comfortable they wouldn't feel the need to conform to these ridiculous stereotypes

You’ve just properly articulated why ‘cis’ gives me the rage.

It’s so dismissive- so unthinking. As if the rest of us never consider gender, as if we fucking agree with it. Raaaargh.

Maybe gender atheist is a good term.

In terms of defining what gender is, I always say "woman" cannot be reduced to just a feeling in a man's brain.

I like ‘gender atheist’.

From OP’s POV though, any term that’s self-described is open to accusations of Bad Thought, so it helps to use Stonewall Approved language.

Anyone who wants to tell me language is not important can Fuck Right Off. It’s the crux of this, basically.

Can we coop genderfuck? I listened to Mayor Owen and still have no idea what that term means.

Fucking hell.

Who's actually got time or headspace for this bollocks?

I'm too busy caring for my family, running my home, doing a good job in my workplace, feeding my off-spring, making sure folk in my community are surviving.

Get busy living everyone!
There isn't any time for this.

I think you're a gender atheist, or at least agnostic.

They're asking if you're protestant or catholic, then when you say neither, it's of no interest, trying to insist you must be a card-carrying humanist.

Whereas you're saying you don't rely on any systematic belief system, such systems are total irrelevancies to you.

I don't do labels

Erm…my point is more about how you feel in your own body, not external influences. If you don’t ‘notice’ a dissonance with your own physicality then you are probably not trans. I guess…

This is no different from the religious belief that everyone has a soul.

Because you so badly want to believe in gender identity, you are pushing yourself to believe that everyone has one, despite your own experience and the experience of the vast majority of the population, who also have not experienced or felt it. It’s more likely that the experience of those “noting a dissonance” (i.e, those with the mental health problems attached to gender dysphoria) have created this idea to explain how they feel, but there’s no logical reason to extrapolate it.

Extrapolating something from the experiences of a tiny group of people with mental health problems and postulating that the other 99% of the population have some nebulous sense that they can’t detect themselves, but must be there because other people say it exists is not only illogical, but is very much thrusting your own quasi-religious beliefs on everyone else.

Imagine if those who were diagnosed with anorexia came up with a theory that they had a fatness identity and their fatness identity didn’t match with their physical body. Then extrapolate and assume everyone has a fatness identity, but only those with anorexia could feel theirs because everyone else must be happy and accepting of their own body weight. That’s how reasonable this assertion is. You are allowing other people to dictate to you that you have something you don’t feel, simply to make them more comfortable with their own experience.

And of course, thrusting your beliefs on everyone else and drawing the conclusion that people are “cis” against their will and belief, is a power grab, because the assertion that another person is “cis” carries the accusation that they are privileged and therefore must be dictated to and overruled by those who claim a “trans” identity.

It is not a harmless assertion. It is all about power.

OP, good luck with whatever you decide to do. I can see the temptation of trying to play them at their own game. Their rules are so ludicrous that employing them against them should m in theory, be possible, but of course, despite sex not existing in Stonewall World, I suspect the power in terms of who gets what they want will still mysteriously be awarded to the person born male. Wish you weren’t in this position, but all power to you.

I’d describe myself as “uninterested in gender stereotypes”. If anyone wants to make that a label for me, they can go ahead. But I’m not going to wear or use a label about such an irrelevant subject, any more than I’d identify myself by my astrological sign or my shoe size.

OP, I love your attitude. More power to women like you!

AnyOldPrion - great analogy with anorexia and ‘fatness identity’.

@NewlyGranny

Hey, Boomer!

That kangaroo is well hench.

Great point about power and where the respect should go Prion and I like your more positive yet dismissive formula thinkingAboutLang.
I’m probably more accurately ‘very worried about the corroding effect of gender stereotypes on all but the most privileged people’s lives’ .. but that’s probably a bit too much of a mouthful to get across at work.

Great post AnyOldPrion

OP - love your follow up post about micro aggressions being triggered by a penis in your single sex toilet. Imagine you wrote it tongue in cheek but would love to see how they would respond.

Why not propose that they change a male toilet to a unisex one?

@NewlyGranny

Hey, Boomer!