Agender is a general term for those who just want to be themselves as a human being; feel they are without any gender so do not identify with any gender at all; feel they have a gender outside of male/female. Thus, agender people feel differently from each other about their gender. So while some can have no gender (like an absence of gender), others feel that they are gender neutral (like a feeling of neutrality), but other agender people feel they have a gender but one which is neither male or female. Nevertheless, some agender people reject gender labels, feel their gender is beyond verbal description and/or prefer to identify as a person/human being than as a gender. Some simply feel disinterested in knowing or caring about gender labels.
Whichever way they experience their agender identity, it is always a gender identity, unrelated to sexual orientation.
Apparently, the term agender was first spotted on the internet in 2000 in a chat room, although it was only a passing reference and didn't focus on how people feel about their gender identity, but rather on the possibility of God, and thus the image of God, being agender. 🤔 Simply put, God is without a fixed binary gender is how I'd understand this. This makes sense because God cannot be restricted to any particular gender because otherwise God would be anthropomorphic and lacking omnipotence. Anyway, religion isn't my focus here! So back to agenderism.
It's a mistake to think that just because there isn't the vocabulary for something it doesn't exist. Some people have always felt agender in some way, it's just that they didn't have the vocabulary to express it or explain it until recently. Hence, Liz Truss cannot make identities go out of existence by suppressing free speech about identity. People's identities won't go away or evaporate because she wishes to dismiss them.
There are several more specific ways to refer to feeling agender. You can identify (or express your gender as) gender neutral, genderfree, genderless, genderblank, gendervoid, non-gendered, ungendered, neutrois, androgenous, queer, third gender, and many more.
This places agender under the non-binary umbrella mainly because it is outside of the gender binary of male/female. But it doesn't follow you are agender because you're non-binary.
You can, however, be simply agender and identify as such. Typical pronoun choices among agender people are to only use the pronouns they/them; or several pronouns; and/or use what's known as neopronouns. These are gender neutral pronouns, such as ze, xe, per, etc which have their own declensions.
Some agender people can also be trans, which means that they do not identify at all with the sex they were assigned at birth. But unlike male-to-female or female-to-male trans, agender trans people do not remain within this gender binary system but often wish to have a third option for how to identify, such as having an X gender option for ID and passports. Some (but not all!) agender people experience gender dysphoria, meaning that some wish to transition to being more physically agender through surgery and/or hormones, whereas others do not.
Or you can be partially agender if it's one of your gender identities. For instance, there are demi-gender identities where your main and static gender is agender, such as librafeminine (mainly agender but with a connection to femininity) or libramasculine (mainly agender but with a connection to masculinity). If you are librafeminine and assigned female at birth then you are partially cis, whereas if you are librafeminine and assigned male at birth then you are trans non-binary.
Or, for instance, you can be partially agender in a non-static way, as a genderfluid and/or genderflux person. For some fluidflux people, no gender is static so their agender identity will be just as fluidflux as their other genders. However, if being agender is your static, foundational gender identity within being fluidflux, then you can identify as agenderfluid or agenderflux.
If being agender isn't the static gender identity you have within being fluidflux, then it's just alongside your fluidflux genders (which can be any number of genders, known and, as yet, unknown genders).
I can relate to this last one because sometimes feeling agender is just one of my fluidflux genders, not my static gender (which is [cis] female). For me, agender is alongside many genders because I'm fluidflux between all genders. Being all-gendered (in my case as part of being demi-nonbinary / demifluidflux) can be termed omnigender or pangender (not to be confused with omnisexual or pansexual) but there can be differing definitions and descriptions of these so I think people will find it less confusing if I simply call it 'all genders', at least for now.
So, as a demifluidflux person, I sometimes feel gender neutral / genderfree and express this through genderless mannerisms and gender neutral or unisex clothing / fashion. I don't use neopronouns because I have no confidence that most people will figure out how to decline them and use them! 😂
I'm surprised that agender wasn't a term that was in usage for gender identity until the 21st century! And even then it seems to have taken until 2014 to come up with an agender flag! It's a 7 stripe flag with black, grey, white and green in the middle of it. Now there are also other versions so there's a few different designs to choose from. However, it's all a bit late for me because I already felt agender, at times, before there was the vocabulary or much gender awareness in society to say so! This means that, when I was 13-14 years old, although I had periods of time when I felt quite genderfree, the LGBTQIAPD+ community hadn't yet raised enough awareness of the variety of gender identities that exist. LGBT+ resources were less accessible and detailed. So I didn't have the vocabulary to express myself verbally as being demi-cis and demi-nonbinary but in a way which means I'm demi-genderfluid and demi-genderflux across all genders, including agender. Being demi-cis meant that I was (and am) comfortable with being and identifying as female so when I felt agender (or any other gender in a fluid or flux way), I simply felt it within myself (feeling as a person rather than solely as a woman) and expressed it non-verbally, such as through periodically preferring to reach for my gender neutral clothes in my wardrobe. This is possibly why I love fashion. It allows you to express who you are at any given moment.
Having said that, I can also express my agender side through mannerisms, gait, speech (choice of vocabulary which is not gendered) and vocal register (ie not in the higher register but not especially low either).
So although I've been demi-genderfluidflux all my life, it's been difficult for me, (and other people of my generation) to put it into words until I was an adult. Which is why I think people shouldn't dismiss children and teens as just going through a phase, or not knowing anything about their gender until they are adults. Luckily for me, my mother wasn't that kind of parent despite being just as clueless about gender as other parents!🤔
Just because children and young people don't have a long list of complicated sounding terms to hand to label up their gender identities or appear to have phases of preferences, it doesn't mean they don't know who they are. Indeed, their instincts may be far more accurate than many adults. Like me, they are not confused or conflicted. They do not suffer cognitive dissonance! They are perfectly content in themselves! It may well be that they are just genderfluidflux. Static, consistent identities that have been established for a while are merely easier to explain at a younger age. So it was easier for me to confidently come out as a lesbian at 14 (although I knew earlier) because, for me, it's a static, never changing sexual orientation and it's not an obscure term. Whereas explaining my gender identities has been more complex to describe, convoluted to put into words and more of a journey, albeit an exciting and fascinating one! 🙂
There are, nonetheless, still many myths to bust about agender this year on Agender Pride Day. People can be agender in a trans only way; trans/non-binary; only non-binary; demi-gender; genderflux and/or genderfluid (including demifluidflux). Which is why I think it is helpful for gender variant people to specify how they feel non-binary or trans, because these umbrella categories also work on a spectrum of their own, with many different, distinctive sub-identities (some of which overlap). So merely saying you are non-binary doesn't help people fully understand you because there are so many ways to be outside of the gender binary. Indeed, even within a sub-category such as agender, there are still major differences, such as whether it is a static, or partial and/or fluid flux gender identity.
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