I’m Agender Because I’m Autistic.
I'm agender because I'm too autistic to even think about gender as a concept. There are days when I literally don't feel human because of all the social rules that everyone just gets and I don't, and you wanna know if I identify as a man or a woman? No thanks.
There are many words that, if I really wanted to get into it, accurately describe my gender – agender, non-binary, and very rarely "demigirl, "cassgender" and "autigender" - but it's not something I talk about often because I really just don't care that much and it's too complicated to explain when I just want to live my life?
Every trans, non-binary and/or gender non-conforming person has a different relationship to their gender identity and gender presentation. For ME, I don't feel the need to dress more androgynously or present any differently than I do to show to others that I'm not a woman. I'm genuinely okay with being perceived as a woman, and being "she/her"ed, even though I know I'm not a woman and use "they" as well as "she". For *me personally*, I don't need my gender to be externally validated by random strangers to know that I am what I say I am, especially because there is no such thing as a "non-binary look". I'm aware of how my perception by others shapes my experience, and that I share a lot of experiences of womanhood with women (and anyone femme-presenting) even though I feel generally disconnected from the idea of being a woman and the concept of femininity.
Being a non-binary person who is often assumed to be cis, just like I'm a queer person who is often assumed to be straight, and an autistic person who is often assumed to be neurotypical - those things don't make me less queer, or less non-binary, or less autistic. This is obvious to me, but I feel everyone needs that reminder sometimes!
Autistic people are significantly more likely to identify as a gender other than what they were assigned at birth (Walsh R.J. et al. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 48, 4070-4078 (2018)). We also know that there is a huge correlation between neurodivergence and polyamory. Therefore, even though not everyone who is polyamorous is also non-cis or neurodivergent like me, there's enough of us that gender is a relevant conversation for a polyamory education page, and I work with a lot of trans and non-binary clients in polyamory peer support!
What is your relationship with your gender? How does gender identity interact with gender presentation for you?
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