Personal post. I’ve written about it before, but as I let myself be aware and open, my understanding improves.
Now to begin with: I’m genderfluid. The chemicals in my body that associate to sex change. They move about the sex spectrum without my allowance or warning. I do not control where on the sex spectrum I am.
But as I am being aware, I can figure out which of the many genders I move between feels most comfortable in the body I have outside of the chemical mess up I get to deal with.
(I’m gonna say the BC I took probably didn’t work right because of my genderfluidity. And I’ll bet other medicines I mark as allergic to actually just aren’t capable of handling these chemical changes and mess with my system enough to make me think allergen.)
Even if I somehow manage to regulate the chemicals so they do not move (or have only limited movement), I’ll still classify as genderfluid. It’s been a piece of me too long.
But I’d also accept I landed somewhere and hope it stays.
Where on the gender spectrum suits my body though?
That was a question. If I was going to give myself a position excluding the mess up chemically… Really if I could state where I belong…
Now, I knew up front woman did not fit. Man did not fit. I was neither. Can’t be. I have had too much time using the “wrong chemicals”. When hormones of a sex acts up it changes your make up. I’ll never be a “proper woman”. And I’ll never fit “man”. I know about both, but it was always dysphoric to be deeply within either. When my chemicals were purely one or the other I felt off.
So where do I see myself landing?
Now I can’t say for sure. I’m just picking the gender that doesn’t call dysphoria to the same extent as the rest. I would hope that is my actual gender at this point, but I can’t be certain. I mean at this point, I socially want to pick agender because fuck everything to do with gender. I may do that. And that would be the reason not that I actually was agender physically.
I’m tagging you along in a chaos thought pattern. This is how my brain runs. Sorry. Not even sure why you’re listening to my ramblings.
Anyway.
I would suggest my actual gender outside of the fuck ups my chemistry creates is Lady.
I know you never heard of it. I made it up. But let me explain. Lady refers to a bigender classification. It has both agender and woman at max on the control wheel. I use Lady as a gender for Pearl in [P.I.N.C. Dragon Rider] (not that I’m certain which book Pearl explains that… 10th?).
When I reviewed my various characters, I found Lady as a gender popping up a lot actually. I’m gonna assume it’s my gender if I ever stabilized. Lady = bigender: woman and agender.
I’d still not be a woman. I’ll never be a woman. I don’t fit those shoes.
As I pointed out before… Or maybe I deleted those posts… Sex and gender are separate as well as connected. Sex comes in three groups: female, intersex, and male. It’s just drawing lines on the bimodal chart for sex. They are very large classifications that take into account EVERYTHING to do with sex.
If you try to suggest only the pieces that have to do with pregnancies are related, then the bulk of humanity would be marked intersex. That doesn’t work. Just say you don’t understand and move on. Humans as a whole don’t get it.
A lot more people are intersex than we give life create for. It’s so easy for this complicated body to just not fit well enough.
But we decide where we fit and why. We can draw one line down the center of the bimodal chart. (I still wouldn’t fit in either.) So if you want to classify as male or female and fall really close to the center no one is gonna complain.
Just so you’re aware, external genitalia is very much NOT the only piece. Nor is the puberty hormones (those are more stable for me than expected). If we only gained a sex at puberty, children would not look like they do nor would there be minor differences based on where they are on the sex spectrum. Stop focusing on sex as if that’s all that’s important in life. Our species is more advanced than that.
Gender is a social construct. There are social decisions what a gender means as well as personal decisions. Whatever gender a person decides is their gender, it is correct. They are the only one to know.
Gender is very complicated because now we’re looking at the bimodal graph not as one wavy line but as it truly is: a bunch of individual dots on a graph. Every single person really has a different gender. It’s rare to even find people managing to average out to be the same point on the graph, and even then, their view of the world is different enough that their genders would still be different. Environment does make an impact. Gender (and sex) are both genetic and environmentally based. No one has the exact same mix. Every single person can claim a different gender and it would be valid.
Offering large words to help explain your gender to the world helps others figure out where they fit.
When I found genderfluidity, I realized I wasn’t alone in my vast movement. That I wasn’t the only one moving through genders as if I was a rich white woman trying on clothes (mess included). And I know other genderfluids have reasons for their classification that isn’t because their chemicals decide to change at random, but I also know there are others like me.
Bigender was something I found too that fit closer than I realized, but I turned from it because I didn’t stay still enough for it. But it did give me understanding more than ignoring gender did.
Agender was the only one to make me want it. To detest my intersex qualities to the point of wanting nothing to do with sex and gender. Wanting to exclude myself from the problem. I think that was a turning point.
Many people fully accept man or woman as their gender because it’s easy to do. And that’s really why they pick it: it’s easy. Not everyone wants to fully understand where they sit on the gender spectrum. ‘This is close enough.’
Can’t fault them for it. I wish my gender was easy.
Trying to shove people into boxes will cause ones like me to have no hope. You’re only killing people by forcing boxes.
But I got the full on dysphoria that causes depression and suicidal ideation, so… I needed to give myself time to come to terms with everything.
And now I think I know. I think I know where I would be if I stopped moving like crazy. I think I’ll know what generally makes me feel the least dysphoric. I think I know how I wish to be categorized.
One last note:
I use male/female/intersex, right? And then I use all the different genders. Both are correct. But male =/= man. Female =/= woman. Intersex =/= non binary. That’s not how it works. You can be literally any sex while being any gender. They are connected and separate at the same time. Trust the person telling you. Listen to their why and reasoning.
Being a particular gender is not the threat. Someone thinking they have authority is actually the threat which is why under white supremacy you fear men and white people. White supremacy gives whites and men power. That false authority is what is the threat. Authority in general is a threat. Rare for someone to handle authority well.
Glad you stayed for my ramblings. If you want a free ebook copy of one of my books, let me know. Or even better. For staying this long have a special link. I won’t tell you what it’s for though. [Thanks]
I wonder what life would be like if I did stay within the bigender of Lady. Or if I fully stepped into the role of agender. What would life be like if I stopped these hormones and chemicals inside my body from switching weirdly? Why is it I get this weird unstable chaos? And it’s so chaotic, too. I’ve seen all the genders… Which helps my writing… But doesn’t help me.
Ah. Whatever. I got stuff to do.
Cat Hartliebe 