It was while explaining agender to tiktok I realized we are…not well represented online. I personally identify as agender and a big sign for me was feeling that I was performing gender. If you want a definition of cis just to set guidelines click here.
While many genders and sexualities have extremely loose definitions (and if you feel it you are it! Unless its cultural). Some agender people feel they are trans and/or nonbinary and/or queer. Some don’t identify with any of those. Some identify with all. You know you! And don’t worry, if you make a mistake or change your mind. That’s the fun of gender!
If you are a minor and/or feel coming out would be unsafe, please never worry. Feeling it in your heart even if you can’t say it is good enough.
Signs You May Be Agender:
- You Feel uncomfortable with any gender ascribed to you (or contradictory: no dysmorphia. You don’t mind being called a gender because you are performing it).
- You feel gender is a social construct and thus silly and not worth ascribing to. Mostly you feel human.
- You are a person who does not have a specific gender identity or a traditionally recognizable gender expression (this may also be a different type of nonbinary)
- *You may also feel nonbinary/queer/trans (or not!)
- *You Feel like you are performing gender (this can be good/bad/neutral in how you feel about it)
- *You may have different names and genders for types of performance according to you yourself. (for example your daily performance is Joan, your assigned female gender. But performing female expression it might be Anna or male expression James. So on. This can also be a sign of bigender as well. I feel the difference is an agender person always feels they are Joan at the end of the day, regardless of nicknames)
Confused? Yeah we need more definitions. I want to stress this is one of the loosest genders next to simply queer and my feelings alone may not be what another agender feels. So with that in mind:
In general agender is a feeling that gender is a performance, a social/political set of expectations based on genitals at birth. You generally do not experience dysmorphia if called your assigned gender at birth (you’re afab and someone says you’re a pretty girl doesn’t bother you, or may even flatter you). But unlike cis people you tend to not mind being gendered as the opposite gender (afab performs male, is complimented on his performance and makes him happy). Unlike many (but not all!) trans people, you don’t desire to be the opposite gender, but may enjoy performing it.
Many agender people chose to express themselves according to their performance/basic self. Some keep birth names and assigned pronouns. Some don’t. Some have multiple names per performance style (I feel this is a huge part of it no one is talking about). This can also be a sign of bigender if it feels strictly fixed (i.e. male is ALWAYS John not Joan, Female is Anna not Joan. Joan is self). The way I’m describing it its not set, they aren’t so much personalities vs performances. I.e. if you primary identify as Joan then you are Joan no matter what you perform.
I also feel (but not enough data) we skew neurodivergentmore so than other genders, or at least the top 3. You can be autigender if you fit the autistic guidelines regardless of diagnosis (and you can be autigender and agender). I also believe we are probably the most artistic with our trans niblings. Performing gender can be fun! Or it can be depressing, especially when you aren’t allowed to ‘not’ be your assigned gender.
Do you have to be trans/nonbinary/queer to be agender?
I find a lot of online agender content presumes the reader is both trans and nonbinary as well. I feel like this may drive people away because they feel they aren’t that honored. I’m a strong advocate for both but I definitely present my original cis gender of female…to claim I was trans feels wrong especially when so many trans niblings are in danger for being who they are.
We should protect and advocate for them if we don’t identify as them. No you don’t need to be any of those or any mix to be agender. You can simply be agender. But you can ALSO be trans/nonbinary/queer and agender. They are as valid as those who aren’t.
My Story:
To define performing in my opinion: I like to dress up and do little dances. This has evolved into a full glam salon with wigs, eyelashes, fancy dresses and accessories. I’m never happier than when I did this (especially this pic, I felt like a game show hostess and apparently that’s all I ever wanted).
I’m assigned female at birth so that should be gender affirming. Yet I wouldn’t generally wear it just existing. Ever since I was a kid I default back to ‘blob’ the minute I’m home. This has become stronger with my being disabled (fibro, ra and so many things).
Yet I also was bothered as a kid to be misgendered as a cruelty (there goes IT THEM EW). It took me awhile to understand nonbinary, because those pronouns made me cringe from that experience. But there are no rules with agender. You may wish to use those pronouns. I stick to she/her and I feel its cheating because I look my assigned gender. Yet I never enjoyed being a woman. Girl power is hollow. It seems silly I have less rights based on my genitals at birth. And that I can wear that gorgeous purple dress but someone assigned male at birth (and identifies as cis) can’t/shouldn’t. Nevermind there are now 23 known gender combos in our chromosomes at birth which seems extra silly there are only two assigned genders.
Flags
God our original flag is dull. I understand the meaning, as we are often incorrectly presumed asexual/aroace, and ace of any type is an absence, which many people assign gray. But I see us as a split of the traditional genders (often assigned pink for female, blue for male) and yellow for performance and difference…which is the pan flag (I am also pan personally, agender doesnt ascribe a sexuality you can be any sexuality and be agender). Other agenders have agreed because we have several alternative flags:
The rainbow one is the genderless flag aka alternative agender flag. But we are often ascribed the originally grey, lime, white, black colors…when they remember us.
My Flags!
I worked on it and I call them MCM, Floral, 80s. Comment which one you like best!
My logic is this: green and pink are often seen as male and female. Green is also on the original flag along with white and black. I hate gray but I put it in the MCM one. I also tried to add blue and yellow for nonbinary, queer and trans agender people (Flower wasn’t meant to be a flag so I may have to re add those!) Blue is for whatevers which I think should be our primary identifier. After Gonzo the Great. Blue is also seen as male and part of the trans flag so it seemed important.
MCM my logic is the black makes a stage. As we often feel we’re performing gender. Floral also feels like blooming against perceived gender. 80s I made two little As in it which I think is cool. Green (our main color) against the perceived gender while nonbinary (yellow and black) run across them. I figure we’ll pick a main one and the others are art. You can buy them on products here which goes to me, a poor whatever agender.
(I free them for all agender usage and pride)
Notable Agender People
Agender was not a term until 1997. It wasn’t further taken as a gender (or lack thereof) until 2000, with the first flag being made in 2014. I.e. any out agenders are not widely known. This is what we got so far:
- Patch, a 27-year-old video game designer. Likely the first legally agender person in the United States.[18]
- Bogi Takács is a Hungarian poet, writer, psycholinguist, editor, and translator. E is currently married to R.B. Lemberg. Takács refers themself with e/em/eir/emself and Singular they pronouns.
- Actor Ellie Desautels describes themself as nonbinary, transmasculine[23], genderqueer[24], and agenderflux.[25]
- Christie Elan-Cane is a non-gendered activist based in the UK, “fighting for legal and social recognition outside the societal gender system”.[26]
- Tyler Ford (b. 1990) is an American writer and public speaker of mixed black and white Jewish ethnicity. Ford appeared as the first transgender contestant on The Glee Project in 2012. They are agender.[27]
- Raeen Roes (Angel Haze) (b. 1991), a well known agender rapper. They have been nominated for awards with MTV, O Music Awards, BET Awards, and GLAAD Music Awards. They announced on Twitter that they were agender.[citation needed]
- Andre J. (b. 1979) is an American party promoter who is a presence in the New York City fashion scene. They have been featured in photo spreads in French Vogue and V magazine. They are genderless[31][32] and agender.[33]
- Amita Kuttner, PhD., is an astrophysicist who is in the race for leader of Canada’s Green Party.[34]. They call themself nonbinary, genderfluid, and agender.[35]
- Juno Mitchell is an American model. They walked alongside Miley Cyrus in the 2020 Marc Jacobs New York Fashion Week show.[36] Their Instagram profile says they are agender.[37][38]
- Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (b. 1982) is a cosmologist and science writer based at the University of New Hampshire. She was a founding member of the American Astronomical Society’s Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy. In an interview, she described herself as a femme agender cis-sex woman.[39]
- DeAnne Smith is an award-winning Canadian-American comedian, writer and columnist. Smith is agender and transmasculine.[40]
- Bogi Takács is a Jewish poet, writer, psycholinguist, editor, and translator who has written Torah-inspired work. They won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction. Their Twitter bio says they are agender.[41]
- Eris Young is a multi-genre writer known for their debut book They/Them/Their: A Guide to Nonbinary & Genderqueer Identities, published in fall 2019.[42][43] They are agender and genderqueer.[44]
- Jesse “Plumbella” McNamara, a youtuber and twitch streamer known as one of the main heads of the Sims community, came out as agender (along with being asexual and heteroromantic) in a livestream on March 29th, 2021 and in various tweets.[citation needed]