What are your thoughts on agender people?

[abc567]

Hello mumset, I am brand new here and made an account because I'm curious about how GC women feel about agender people. This is purely for my own understanding as I've read several posts from GC women on this site saying they do not have a gender identity, and I wanted to explore further the reasons why this is.

From my understanding, there are two types of agender people:

1. gender apathetic i.e. people who don't have a gender identity and don't care (gender has no inherent value to them so they do not mind gendered language being applied to them)

2. gender averse i.e. people who don't have a gender identity and actively reject gendered language (they are distressed at the gendered aspect of their lives and are more likely to seek an androgynous appearance)

Do either of these concepts resonate with you, or do you still feel very connected to your female sex despite lacking a gender identity?

I'm stealing that!

I was going to comment, but reading through the thread I see it has been said already and much more eloquently.

Thank you @AmaryllisNightAndDay for the paragraph

And if I magically woke up tomorrow in a healthy complete and fairly average male body I would not waste my time or my health on operations to change my body to female. I'd be busy figuring out how to live well as a man.

which I shall ponder.

It's a 🎁 Happy IWD

My daughter asked a similar question the other day. I thought it was an interesting point to raise.

Personally, I look at it in a similar way to how I look at religion.
Science is real and measurable, religion is belief. Irrespective of god or gods, that belief gives many people a lot of comfort and strength, which is a good thing. Although I don't believe in any god, I am respectful of those that do, as long as I don't feel impacted by that e.g. I have chosen to wear covered shoulders and knees in Muslim countries when I visit, mainly in solidarity with other women as a mark of respect to them. That's my choice and I can accept it temporarily but I will openly say I'm not happy about rules being applied to women's freedoms if asked. I would never live in a country that imposed this restriction on my life, or other oppressive rules, simply because I am a woman.

I don't have a gender identity. As others have said, I have a biological sex, which is a fact. I also have a personality which is multi-faceted and can't really be labelled, although I should imagine my personality could fit in to one of the descriptions of the different genders which are described/available, or indeed is similar in some ways to option 1 in the OP's post. By the same token, many of my morals are similar to some of the religious teachings, but I don't have any religious beliefs.

Also, I will be respectful of someone's gender identity if it does not impose on me. If it does, e.g. a trans woman with a penis changing in a women's room with me would make me feel unsafe. Simply because he is a man. I don't know which men I can trust and which I can't. Sadly, as a woman I will always feel vulnerable in the company of men that are strangers. Particularly if I'm getting changed.

Gender dysphoria is then a whole different conversation.

Exactly this

Exactly.

I understand “gender”, as most sociologists and theorists did until very recently, as the socially performed aspect of sex roles.

“Gender identity” is an internalisation of this as a reified mystical component of an internal essence. In social, historical and cultural-materialist terms, it’s a type of identity illusion, where people believe in stereotyped social ideas so much that they internalise them as parts of their personality.

So In that sense, I think “gender identity” is a delusion — a false consciousness if you will, where people internalise what are socially produced ideas and stereotypes, and are so wedded to them that they are unable to see them as social rather than internal and immutable. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called these ideas ‘habitus’ - things that are so taken for granted as natural that we are unable to see that they are in fact socially produced.

So, in that sense, I do think people who think they have any kind of gender identity are deluded about it if they think it’s some kind of immutable internal part of their being. In exactly the same way I would regard someone who believed that “national identity” was an innate part of the person (as opposed to being a set of social and historical beliefs, practices, performances and narratives).

Let me ask you a question, OP - do you believe you have an intrinsic “national identity”? Or are you “anational”? Can one be “anational”? Is that the same as thinking national identity exists, but that it’s essentially a set of stories we tell ourselves? Or are some people really naturally rootless where others are built to have a deep affiliation with Scotland? Or Brazil? Or Afghanistan?

Yes, gender is a (somewhat dodgy) academic theory invented in the 1960s to explore the mechanisms by which sex stereotypes are transmitted.

It's also a term used in grammar.

It is not an actual thing. Nobody has a gender. They might like to imagine they do, in the way some people go in for angels, or unicorns. They might even use this imaginary concept to make themselves feel special. But it isn't real, and it's an impertinence to try to foist it on others.

People started using 'gender' when they meant 'sex' because they thought sex was a rude word. All humans have a sex, it is binary, female or male, and no-one can change sex.

Ugh for goodness sake, it isn't an identity not having a gender identity. It's having a sex and a personality. There is nothing more to work out. There is no secret innate sense of self waiting to be given a label.

And yes I agree that some people feel they have one for whatever reason but I hate that it is expected that we all do and are just yet to figure it out.

It's like the word 'cis.' It assumes everyone has a gender identity and mine 'matches' my sex. I am not cis as the thing that matches or doesn't does not exist within me.

I am a woman as I am an adult female. With a personality that may or may not occasionally play into stereotypes of either sex.

And if I magically woke up tomorrow in a healthy complete and fairly average male body I would not waste my time or my health on operations to change my body to female. I'd be busy figuring out how to live well as a man.

Whereas I would continue to live my life exactly as I do now, just in different underwear; and where there are single-sex spaces, I would use the ones intended for my sexed body.

My brains, skills and interests wouldn’t change at all!

Human beings seem to have managed pretty well for thousands of years without gender identity. I, myself have managed to live a fulfilling life up until the age of about 40 without the concept of gender being a 'thing'. Now I've heard of it, decided it's tedious nonsense, I intend to continue living my life without it.

What if you just think of gender and it's accompanying ideology as something deeply regressive and alarming?

I simply am female and I am me, with my own interests, personality and likes/dislikes- none of those things have anything to do with gender. There's bugger all a word can do about that. I don't care what people call me.

Beautifully crafted reasoning. I'm going to plagiarise the shit out of
this. What I feel and exactly what I would have liked to have said.

@ababc567 Your calm responses and willingness to hear are a refreshing change.

Thanks.
(Assuming you aren't about to flip and start calling us hateful bigots)

Am I the only one who has no idea what any of this means/meant?
Why are we making life so confusing.

I'm female. Gender exists but I refuse to be constrained by gendered expectations. So the only label I'm interested in is 'feminist' One of the things I hate about the gender ideology movement is the obsessing over labelled boxes to put people in. Its so regressive.

Oh god, yes, this.

Or in short, if I think about them at all, it is with a mixture of fatigue, distaste and boredom.

A dun face for you is that the word 'gender' was originally coined to describe the way women are systematically oppressed , now it's used as a tool to do just that. Enjoy!

Being called agender is the equivalent to me to a Christian calling me a heathen or a Muslim calling me an infidel.

I'm happy to ignore your religion, but you don't get to define me by your terms.

I don't think agender is a real thing. I don't think anyone has any sort of innate gender feeling inside themselves.

There is biological sex and culturally determined gender roles but I really don't believe in gender woo at all.

Exactly this.

Astrology is s good analogy... twenty years ago many people would be identifying with their star sign and using that to understand themselves. Even tho its all shite.

Some people have a great need to put themselves in an identity box.

But if someone's mental health is improved with different name and pronouns then I'll respect them.

Its a way to control how everyone else thinks and speaks about you, and to signal belief.

Its usual for people to change names or titles, but not pronouns. Pronouns are sex based, no-one can change sex, therefore we dont change pronouns. Also, when someone changes their name or title, it isnt seen as anything other than a mistake if we use the old ones. There may a little bit of embarrassment and an apology, but no-one is shamed because its not a purity test.

Changing pronouns is a purity test. We are told it very important to remember - for their mental health, because its a way to show we value them, we respect their ideology.

I dont know anyone revoved from here, or twitter for mis-titling someone, theres a whole list of people removed misgendering. So, no, its not the same.