“I support people of all genders.”
“This product is for people of any gender.”
“People of any gender are welcome in this space.”
“Trans people of all genders are valid!”
This is what I mean when I talk about agender erasure, especially and particularly for those who see agender as the absence of gender. This is meant to be NB inclusive, and it does include a great many NB folk, but it does not include everybody who might need the product or the community.
All of those things exclude me.
Can we recognise that framing the vast majority of general community, political, social, support and marketing discussions in terms of gender/genders as though it is a universal possession or experience (be it binary or non-binary or queer) can be erasing? That it carries with it the constant implication that I don’t exist or only exist if I accept that the use of “gender” means me too, even though it erases the importance of not having a gender to my sense of identity and personhood? That we can change all those above validations by acknowledging that folks without gender(s) or gender-alignment(s) (which isn’t the same thing as having a gender) do exist alongside those who do have a gender, genders or a gender-alignment(s)?
I saw someone write today that folks who say the above lines don’t mean to erase me, that it isn’t their point because hurt isn’t intended. I’m upset enough to write this post in response. Why should I accept erasure on this point just because most people have a gender, genders or gender-alignment(s) and our language best accommodates that possession? Many casual cissexist folks don’t mean to be cissexist, but we point out that they’re being cissexist because expecting trans folks to endure even no-harm-intended cissexism isn’t fair or right. So why is it right that me, a person with no sense of gender or gender-alignment whatsoever, shouldn’t be upset by this erasure just because it isn’t intended?
There are almost no conversations in queer and LGBTQIA+ spaces, beyond using agender to challenge “SGA” as a metric used to hurt multi and NB folks, that phrase things in ways that don’t assume everyone has a gender or that our identities are still a form of gender. Discussions are getting so much better about not assuming that everyone has a binary gender, but the idea of having a gender is still very much part of our communication. The idea that people don’t have a gender(s) or gender-alignment(s) and don’t wish to be defined by the concept of having either, but still belong in these community conversations and need to included in our communication because we endure the same cissexism and exorsexism (at least) just isn’t explored.
As a non-aligned genderless-agender person it hurts me to have my identity always referred to in terms of my possessing a gender as much as it hurts me to be treated as though I’m cis or straight. Neither of those three things is natural to me. They’re all an imposition made by outsiders. It hurts worse because I’m surrounded by community conversations that I need as a multiply queer person, but all those conversations speak as though my possession of a gender is natural, expected, reasonable and unassailable.
When I talk about this, I don’t even have a word to describe the experience, not of being gendered or misgendered, but having my feelings, words, spaces, communities and conversations framed in the context that gender is something everyone possesses, such that my absence of a gender is contextualised and understood by the gender-possessing folk who dominate conversations on gender as a kind of gender. I don’t even have a word. I hope one exists somewhere, and someone can point me towards it, but the lack of a word is an awful thing.
And while there are folks who see “agender” as “neutral gender”, that fact shouldn’t make erasing non-aligned agender people who do not have a gender at all acceptable. In fact, I rather feel that “agender = neutral gender for some” can be very easily used as reasoning to dismiss my pain at being referred to as though I have a gender, because if agender can mean “neutral gender”, there’s no need to change our conversations or our words. I don’t want to invalidate others’ experience or tell them they can’t use the word, but it does make it so much harder for me to discuss my experiences or my needs in the wider communities.
I love not having a gender. I don’t want one, not in the slightest. It makes no sense to me, it’s absolutely caught up in my being autistic, and I’m quite happy not understanding or feeling gender.
I don’t love the way I can never get too many people to understand that the non-existence of gender isn’t a gender and referring to it as a gender is erasure of (to me) the most important and profound way I am queer.
I don’t love the way that I struggle to get people to understand that I would like to be included and discussed, in my own communities, without having to bear the pain of being referred to as being something I am not.
