I’m honestly a little bit hesitant to ask this because don’t wanna seem like I’m stepping on toes.
So I’ve been doing some thinking stuff over the last few weeks/months and am starting to question shit.
I’ve always been cis male presenting and for the most part it’s all I’ve really known, but I’m not in the least bit masculine. Back in the early 00s, the term metro-sexual was a thing and I sort of identified with that but like, meh? Idk. Now that just feels chauvinistic for some reason.
Recently I’ve been thinking about my own gender identity and although I present as a male, I honestly don’t really care. I also have that autism(or is it just ND?) thing where I feel like a being or entity in a human suit basically. Like my inner self is controlling the body that people see me as, which is, of course male presenting.
I’ve been looking a bit into agender and demigender and hit some of the checkboxes but not really all, but I also don’t really know another term for essentially “male body but don’t care”. A reddit search brought up “gender apathy” and that’s a kind of maybe I guess.
The only other conclusion is that I am just cis, but fully aware of it maybe? Like I have a way wider understanding of gender and even sexuality than I did a decade ago so maybe I’m just cis and just not toxic about it? I’m just “woke” maybe?
I guess call this a journal-post but def open for discussion. I’m just going through some heavy mental exploration. I’m not sure if there is even a question here. Just me being confused.
I guess a question could be: how do you know? How do you know where you land on the gender spectrum? Or am I just making a mountain out of a molehill?
Trans Liberation gave me a a greater understanding of what other genderness exists. I came from a knowledge of basically cis male, cis female, trans MtF, trans FtM, and cultural third genders but it did a good job of explaining things more thoroughly. Leslie covers had she is trans-masc afab but also how her genderness sort of transcends(sorry for the pun) even that. It does open up with her getting denied help in an hospital due to her being trans so eye opener out the gate. I have a gay friend that has mentioned that a doctor wrote down her bisexuality/lesbianism as mental illness and was kind of aware that it’s pervasive in the medical world but didn’t know medical personel are willing to flatout ignore the Hippocratic oath due to their bigotry.
The Manifesto does a great job of explaining what gender is or can be from a communistic perspective. It’s a really easy read and free to download via the Anarchist Library. It helped fill some holes I had about the wider queer world.
I do recommend both but if you only have energy for one, the Gender Accelerationist Manifisto is probably what I would recommend. Fienberg’s speeches in her book are really moving though. I can appreciate good public speaking skills.