"agender" stuff
After rooting around on the internet I guess the more specific non-binary term that best describes me is "agender". Which keeps getting autocorrected to either "gender" or "agenda", LOL. My gender agenda.
If you are agender and you would ideally prefer having sex with other agender humans does this make you asexual? Of course not. But neither are you strictly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Perhaps you are simply one of the flavors of queer? I've always preferred the term queer to describe myself, but some people think that term is impolite.
Some might say that the term "androgynous" already covers this stuff, but technically androgyny is defined as the combination of both feminine and masculine gendered characteristics. This definition shows how conditioned we are to think of masculine and feminine as essential binary concepts -- that we view other perspectives as though they must be either a mixture or a transgression of masculine and feminine.
I don't mean in any way to deny that human sexual organs generally come in two types. But the seemingly endless and intractable ways in which we identify as either male or female are not rationally connected to these sexual organs.
So, when we talk about discrimination against women, what's really going on is that we are arbitrarily assigning the role of "woman" to people who are born with one particular set of sexual organs, and then we systematically disadvantage those people. But there is nothing essential about any of this. We could fight this discrimination by insisting that women be treated equally, but we could also fight this discrimination by insisting that no humans be women, and that no humans be men, and that humans should be treated equally regardless of their sexual organs (or lack thereof).
Yet, it sounds more authoritarian (or even communist?) to deny somebody a gender than to treat all genders equally?
Which may be why my "Gender is Fake" t-shirt troubles both of my partners, I guess. But the last time I wore it in New York City a person came up to me and complimented me on my great t-shirt :-)
If you are agender and you would ideally prefer having sex with other agender humans does this make you asexual? Of course not. But neither are you strictly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Perhaps you are simply one of the flavors of queer? I've always preferred the term queer to describe myself, but some people think that term is impolite.
Some might say that the term "androgynous" already covers this stuff, but technically androgyny is defined as the combination of both feminine and masculine gendered characteristics. This definition shows how conditioned we are to think of masculine and feminine as essential binary concepts -- that we view other perspectives as though they must be either a mixture or a transgression of masculine and feminine.
I don't mean in any way to deny that human sexual organs generally come in two types. But the seemingly endless and intractable ways in which we identify as either male or female are not rationally connected to these sexual organs.
So, when we talk about discrimination against women, what's really going on is that we are arbitrarily assigning the role of "woman" to people who are born with one particular set of sexual organs, and then we systematically disadvantage those people. But there is nothing essential about any of this. We could fight this discrimination by insisting that women be treated equally, but we could also fight this discrimination by insisting that no humans be women, and that no humans be men, and that humans should be treated equally regardless of their sexual organs (or lack thereof).
Yet, it sounds more authoritarian (or even communist?) to deny somebody a gender than to treat all genders equally?
Which may be why my "Gender is Fake" t-shirt troubles both of my partners, I guess. But the last time I wore it in New York City a person came up to me and complimented me on my great t-shirt :-)