I was really confused by a lot of things until I realized I was — I don’t think there’s even a word for what I am. It’s like, kind of agender, but kind of not, but I identify the way I was designated, but more out of laziness than anything else? Does that make sense?
I’m kinda like that person, too!
I describe it that gender isn’t all that important to my identity. (But I respect that gender is really important to other people’s identities.)
I’m female, and fine with being a lady, but if somebody called me a man, I wouldn’t mind, and if I’d been assigned male at birth, I’d probably have gone with it, I’d look just like my brothers. (OTOH I’d be super uncomfortable if people thought I was another religion, so there are still vectors of identity that actually matter to me.)
It’s a lot of words to spend on a subject that doesn’t matter to me, but there you have it.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m like: Why do we need gender?
(I realize that gender is important to other people, though.)
Deanatay
‘meh-sexual’?
Rex Vivat
I think the word for this is “apogender”?
vlademir1
I would agree, seeing as that was the most common term in use last I looked into it, but there isn’t yet enough community consensus nor beyond the community exposure to keep the terms for many nonbinary genders from being too fluid to state with certainty. For example “gender indifferent” and “gender ambivalent” are still of reasonably common usage last I checked
nobilis
Can we just call it “meh-gender”?
Deanatay
Ninja’d!
Sorta.
Meh.
PlutoniumBoss
Add to that the fact that many people like us by nature aren’t likely to make enough of an issue of it to really need a handy label. I kind of just default to assigned, so it rarely comes up, and any one it really matters to bring it up to is close enough to me to talk about the nuances and details and such.
Rex Vivat
Yeah, pretty much the same here too. If someone zapped me with an EGS-style gun and turned me into the opposite sex, I’d go “meh” and go on with my life. My gender is just not really part of my identity.
L!ghtn!ng
I’m so glad I found this thread this morning (8+ hrs after everyone else was talking about it)! I’ve never really put it into words, but that video really struck a chord with me. When I was younger, I too thought that gender was a social concept. I thought that people who made a big deal of pointing out their gender, for reasons other than to point out sexism (which I did recognize as very real), were brainwashed or looking for attention. I knew of trans* people at an intellectual level, but couldn’t understand why someone would go to so much effort to change something that I thought didn’t really matter. It wasn’t until I really met trans* people that I understood that gender really does matter to some people – just not to me.
I don’t really identify as agender or bigender or genderqueer or anything. I was raised a girl, more-or-less look feminine, and have experienced sexism firsthand, so I primarily identify as she/her but mainly because I don’t really care enough to identify otherwise (which is a privilege, absolutely). But I’ve been misgendered and haven’t cared, and I suspect that if I’d been AMAB then I would have just gone along with he/him.
I’m kind of the same with my sexual orientation – I don’t really identify with any label, although I understand that identification is more important to other people than it is for me. It’s one of the things that makes me uncomfortable sometimes with Tumblr and modern social justice culture: the expectation to always announce your pronouns and labels. I get that it’s important to other people and will use their preferred pronouns and labels, but as to me, I’m just – me, and would prefer not to have to label myself otherwise.
I too don’t really care about gender. I mean, I present as a girl and that’s what I was born as, I like having long hair and wearing makeup, and I wear high heels because I’m super-short. However, other than makeup I have like zero girly interests, I have zero female friends, all of my friends are dudes (part of why I wear heels, so I can be about their height), and online apparently I present as a dude because everyone just assumes I am one and if someone tells them otherwise they don’t really believe it. In person no one would ever mistake me for a dude but I don’t care what pronouns people use for me (and have always thought it ridiculous when women in games flip out because people aren’t psychic and didn’t know off the bat that they were women and called them “he”).
In terms of sexual orientation I’ve always short-handed it to “bi.” I find women sexually attractive, but as previously stated I do not get along with them at all and I’m not the kind of person who’s into one-night stands so an actual relationship with a woman would never work for me. I guess I too am pretty lazy at caring about this stuff since I do shorthand things to “I’m a chick” and “I’m bi” when that’s not really the whole story. ^^;;
Knuf Wons
I’m pretty similar. I do identify a little more strongly with my birth gender (if someone called me a woman, I might correct them but wouldn’t be hugely bothered by it), but I generally don’t see what the fuss is about being either beyond the genetic and reproductive repercussions.
sad and tired
after 30+ i’ve finally (mostly) figured out my gender identity, but i don’t think there’s a good word for it
i’m unflavored ice cream with chocolate chips and mint chips mixed in
the idea being that chocolate ice cream is one heteronormative gender, and mint ice cream is the other heternormative gender, and unflavored ice cream, no matter how many chocolate chips you mix in, doesn’t actually become chocolate ice cream – it only has some similar properties, sometimes, if you happen to get some chips in your spoonful. same for mint.
this is complicated by gender presentation. if chocolate ice cream is usually covered in caramel sauce and mint ice cream is usually covered in coffee-flavored sauce, then i’ve got caramel and coffee swirled all over with no regard for what’s directly beneath the sauce. good luck guessing what type of chips, if any, you’re getting today!
so yeah rather than trying to explain all this i just go with the pronouns i was assigned at birth. too old and lazy to fight for new pronouns and dunno what i’d pick anyway. hurraaay~! the privilege of being able not to care about my identity because it’s easily mistaken for ‘normal’, a large enough percentage of the time, that any dysphoria i might feel is brief and easily ignored~!
this combination of ‘passing privilege’ and ‘so far in the closet you can barely tell what you’re pretending not to be’ is a great way to take someone like Robin and get her to hurt a lot of people btw
hmm… I’m “okay with being female except for the reproductive functions and also the misogyny so basically kind of a gay male sometimes cross-dresser in the wrong body but not really interested in surgery”–not sure a great way to abbreviate that
genderfluid except specific parts I could completely do without
Anon
your post helps me feel okay about still having douts about my gender identity in my mid 20s
Dana
Vi Hart rocks my world.
Ari
*Gets very excited*
I’m trans and I get “so is there a label for this” questions a whole bunch and they make me happy because usually, if you look hard enough, there totally is.
Okay, so:
– A word you might consider is graygender. Basically, it’s agender-ish (as in, no specific sense of gender, or a weak sense of gender) but also general ambivalence about gender as a whole. Just a sense of not caring about one’s gender.
-Although lots of trans/nonbinary people want to use different pronouns or change their body in some way, not everyone does. Generally, the requirement for being considered trans/nonbinary is that you don’t have a sense of being (only) the gender you were assigned. Pronouns and your body and stuff don’t have much to do with it. Basically what I’m saying is, if you ever want to identify as trans, making major changes isn’t required to have the community there for support.
Jason
I was actually thinking when I started reading these comments that if “greygender” isn’t a term for what was being discribed it should be. And apparently it is! So that’s cool.
Self-understanding is a long journey. Mentally and emotionally healthy people will be working on it all their lives. For those who are still searching, don’t worry- you’re not alone, and you’re not broken. <3
Mr. Bulbmin
That’s a fun conversation to have with people.
“You’re . . . what?”
“Asexual. It means-”
“I know what it means, you’re not a starfish.”
“I’m not saying that I am. I’m saying that you could put literally anyone in front of me, asking for sex, and I would most likely say no, extenuating circumstances disregarded.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’ve said no to you, her, him, him, her, her, and her over there, tonight alone. That either means that everyone who approached me tonight is physically unattractive, or that I didn’t have a thing for any of them. Would you rather believe yourself ugly, or that I don’t want sexual relations?”
Microbru
I wish that term had been in use when I was younger, so I wouldn’t
have had to waste so much time pretending I was into “the thing” like
everyone else.
Neeks
Same. I went a looooong time thinking I was just straight with an extremely low (actually nonexistent) libido.
Learning there’s more than two options explains a LOT for a large segment of the population.
Birion
So, so much. Sure wish I’d known it was okay not being attracted to anyone sooner, coulda saved me years of depression.
Hari
I’m mostly ace too.
SundaesChild
Dem, mayhaps? I was really confused until I found out that was a thing. Like, “everyone says I’m full of shit or lying, so maybe I AM” confused.
SundaesChild
*Demi. Stupid autocorrect, mixing my politics with my other complex issues. I read comics to get *away* from real life!
Knuf Wons
There’s no escaping real life when reading comics written by Willis. Run while you still can!
mistrali
It took me a long time and my own experience of sexual attraction/fwb to understand exactly why allosexual people (or at least, people with a high level of sexual attraction and a high libido) were so fucking “obsessed” with romantic relationships. For many of them it’s simply a need like that of the need for friendship, only separate.
It’s like not liking chocolate and everyone around you going, “But how can you not like chocolate?!” For a while I didn’t get that it was as hard for them to understand my lack of sexual attraction as it was for me to understand their apparent fixation on romance. While I still think romance is overrated, it’s also fulfilling quite an important biological need rather than just something people do to feel special.
Just my 2c. Not denying allosexual privilege or anything, just sharing my experiences.
thejeff
Also worth remembering that romance and sex are different, if often linked, things.
It’s apparently not uncommon for asexuals to want romantic relationships, but not want the sexual part. Which is limiting, if they try for romance with someone who isn’t asexual.
Alissa
My life in a nutshell. I’m ace, but heteroromantic. This led to so much anxiety about what kind of relationship I could be in and if I’d ever find anyone.
I kinda did, too. I knew that being gay isn’t a choice because I believed the gay folks I knew who said it isn’t. (And why should I question the way they experienced their sexuality?) But plenty of the straight folks I knew said that being gay is a choice. And I knew that since I was attracted to both men and women, it was sorta-kinda a “choice” for me. So I spent quite a while believing that being straight is a choice and that straight folks are just projecting their own stuff onto gay folks.
No, the thing is she doesn’t know and this is the Bi reveal for this universe, chill the hell out
Athedia
Exactly. It is a actually a tragic moment. Leslie doesn’t look angry she looks a bit sad. For her this powerful woman she finds very attractive, is vulnerable, insecure about the truth of her sexuality.
Now they are both left with this. Does Leslie push her? Does Robin come out? Robin is obviously not comfortable being out.
This is a fuck off moment. This is an ‘Oh. Um…oh.” moment.
It can take a moment. days, weeks, for things like that to sink of. Or be forgotten, depending.
LovelyMonsters
Oh, see, I was reading it as Leslie assuming here that her gaydar was wrong and that Robin is straight, and is asking her if she, as a straight woman, can flip a switch and be attracted to women.
Obviously, we have Word of God knowledge that Robin is attracted to women at least some of the time and that the question will hit her with that in mind; but I thought Leslie is employing the ever-effective rhetorical device of asking a bigot one of the stupid, insulting questions bigots ask LGBT people all the time.
I think that may actually be what Leslie was thinking. She has no idea that her question is hitting Robin in a totally different way than she intended
anonymsly
Except I’m betting that Leslie, as a gender studies teacher and a lesbian herself, understands closeting very well. And as pointed out by several people below, Robin’s ‘it’s a question of presentation’ is the language of the closet. Robin’s actually been giving off a lot of fake-personality show-people-what-they-want-instead-of-who-I-am from the start, too – she’s got the skills of someone who’s been ‘answering the question of presentation’ for a long time.
My read on Leslie here is that she’s taking a stab in the not-quite-dark. Robin might just be a fake person, a straight woman who’s a particularly good liar, in which case the question can stand as ‘can you, a straight person, flip a switch to like women’. But I think the question really is, after Robin’s explanation, “So that’s what you do, but is it actually working?”
a4lbi
Once Robin stops being A Shit, we can call off the Fuck-Off.
BBCC
Yeah, no, Robin’s being an asshole here. Wanting her to fuck off is completely justified. Sure, she can still change, but for now, she’s being an asshole.
phyrexian rogue
The awkward thing is Robin is not even trying to be an asshole. She is simply too stupid/ignorant to realize how much she’s hurting people.
thejeff
brainwashed.
But mostly heaps and heaps of denial. And privilege she doesn’t want to give up. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” — Upton Sinclair
I’m sure she’s had exposure to this before, from Roz if nowhere else. Easily dismissed as her silly kid sister, I suppose. Not so easy when her own emotions are involved.
Still comes across as “asshole” though. And does as much damage. Leslie would be perfectly justified in telling her to fuck off. But there’s that bit of an opening that might let her change. Leslie’s also justified in trying to reach that.
Stepping on people’s toes doesn’t only hurt when it’s on purpose.
Jason
Ignorance can do every bit as much damage as malice. More, sometimes, because the ignorant person simply can’t understand why that person is so upset, why are they being so mean?
If someone is bad for your overall wellbeing, you have every right to shut them out of your life- with absolutely no regard for intent. If someone has proved that they are willing and able to grow and change, then sure- maybe think about giving them a chance, but you still absolutely have the right to do what is best for yourself. It doesn’t matter if it hurts the other person or if it might have been a “teachable moment”.
Leorale
I agree that it’s the bi reveal (unless you jump to correct conclusions when she first makes eyes at Leslie, as Roz did). I don’t agree that people should hafta chill out about it, though, as many of us on here have been impacted by the real people that Robin represents. Yelling at Robin is cathartic. you chill.
Tualha
Well, it depends on what you want to accomplish. You want catharsis? Then sure, yell all the fuck you want. It won’t change anyone’s mind, it’ll just piss them off and harden their position, but you’ll feel better. Or, on the other hand, you could try to engage, with empathy and compassion. If they’re someone like Falwell or Phelps, you won’t change their mind, but lots of people aren’t like that. They’re just ignorant. Treat them with respect, listen to them, present your own point of view, and you have a good change of effecting real change.
It’s not about chilling to make people comfortable with acting like assholes. It’s about realizing that very few people are assholes by nature, and that with patience, their minds can be changed. It’s about acting like Roz instead of like Hothead.
This is a subject much on my mind lately, as my parents voted for Trump. I’ve been trying to write them a letter that will make them see what a stupid idea that was. Not easy. They’re quite old and set in their ways, and they’ve been Republican their entire adult lives, as far as I can tell. And I have my own anger to overcome. Been reading a lot of Buddhism lately.
Leorale
We can’t change Robin’s mind. She can’t hear us yell at her or be gentle with her, because she’s a fictional character.
I wish you luck and support with talking to your folks, though. Sounds difficult and stressful, but important.
Stella
Er…Robin’s not real? She can’t read our comments?
Like, yeah, yelling at a fictional character is hella cathartic. I’d rather blow off steam here than at real people. I feel like Catharsis is one of the chief roles of fiction in general?
BBCC
A) There are some views not worth treating like respect. Bigotry is one of them.
B) Respectfully? Bullshit. Plenty of people have their minds changed not with friendly words, but by people blatantly saying ‘You’re an asshole who’s fucking me over. Stop being shitty to me.’ And even if they don’t listen? Someone else might. I’ve learned far more about bigotry I don’t experience by listening to folks angrily venting and shouting at people screwing them over than I did from those nice and friendly educational posts. Because most of them water things down. In their efforts not to hurt feelings or step on toes, they don’t actually make anyone face the reality of what their bigotry causes. It causes pain, anger, bitterness, distrust, fear, etc. whether they mean to or not, and if they can’t handle seeing the consequences of their bullshit, maybe they shouldn’t cause those feelings via bigotry anyways.
I’m so fucking done with people pretending getting angry ‘doesn’t solve anything’, ‘just makes it worse’ or ‘doesn’t change minds’. It is so untrue in my experience. The nicer voices are also easier ignored for some people, because if this was an actual problem, they’d get upset right? But when they do get upset it turns into ‘you weren’t being nice, so I don’t have to listen to you!’ As if they listened in the first place. A point is true if a point is true – it being delivered angrily does not make it less so.
Leslie sharing her story nicely might work for some people. Other people need a Sal to angrily scream a bombshell at them or a Roz to thoroughly chew them up and spit them out in public.
BBCC
All of that said, I hope your letter to your parents goes well. That sounds really rough and I hope your chosen method works.
Leorale
Also, you mentioned patience so you probably already know this, but in case you don’t, there is no perfect letter that will make your parents see the error of their ways. This is probably going to require lots of imperfect conversations, over a long time. Thank you for doing it.
BBCC
Yeah, it’s most likely to be a long ride, but I respect the hell out of you for undertaking it. Best of luck!
It is also worth noting that you are unlikely to be able to change their minds all at once. A little bit at a time might be more realistic both as an expectation and a strategy
Actually, funny story, pretty much anything can harden the heart of a bigot and get them to double down. Come in strong and they double down in defense. Come in soft and they assume it must not matter to you and continue to dehumanize you while using you as “their X friend” every time they want to get out of being called a bigot.
Beg for your humanity and they assume they must be right given you’re having to beg for humane treatment. Cut them off and they continue to radicalize on their own bitter that you’re not talking to them anymore. Punch them in the face and they haul you off to jail and sell stories about how “violent those types of people are”.
Now, it’s not universal. Any one of these can also be what causes a bigot to soften. Having someone leave can be a powerful sign that they were in error. Getting hit can get a bigot to back off sometimes. Hearing earnest appeals from people they care about, real stories can melt some of the learned hatred. Getting chewed out can cut through the self-denial.
It varies what works and for some, nothing really works and trying to pull the person out of bigotry just means being abused by them over and over again.
So what we can do is not blind ourselves and demand one method of reaching out and tone policing we see as everyone who is “not helping”. Because what does work universally is the accumulation of the bodies of all those who came before throwing their stories and life experiences and raw responses at the world to try and craft a world that is no longer killing them slowly.
It’s brutal, it’s slow, but as more people know personally, hear the stories that are silenced, see real humanity in its complex messy emotionality, they find it harder and harder to hold their hatreds close and nurse them. At least on average.
Also socially discouraging bigotry also helps just to keep the bigots from finding and radicalizing people in desperate situations and selling them hatred as a one stop shop for fixing their lives.
435 thoughts on “Dee-Ell”
Ana Chronistic
“you mean it doesn’t work that way?”
Lily Joyce
I honestly thought it did before I realized I was pan.
Thor
So second star to the right, and straight on ’til morning?
Leorale
Naw, naw, it means they’re into satyrs, or possibly kitchenware. Everyone just wants to take a wok on the wild side.
DarkoNeko
Cooks are the best pansexuals.
Reltzik
Nonono, she just gives negative reviews.
KingOfGreyfell
I thought it meant she liked flutes.
Reltzik
Maybe she’s into camera swivel?
Accolon
I have to say, this comment thread may be home to the most tolerant and mean people of all time. I love it.
Ana Chronistic
they are, especially when you realize “pan” also means “bread” in like 5447587854 languages
Needfuldoer
“Peter Bread” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Schol-R-LEA
I am *so* using “Peter Bread” as a character name (of alias, if I ever need one) some day.
marianne
So tempted to make a joke about baguettes. You could say my temptation is rising. A triple entendre!
Stu
“and straight on until morning”
Not sure if that was an intentional pun or not.
Athedia
And I thought people were lying until I figured out I was ace…. That was an awkward moment.
Pablo360
I was really confused by a lot of things until I realized I was — I don’t think there’s even a word for what I am. It’s like, kind of agender, but kind of not, but I identify the way I was designated, but more out of laziness than anything else? Does that make sense?
Basically like this person.
Leorale
I’m kinda like that person, too!
I describe it that gender isn’t all that important to my identity. (But I respect that gender is really important to other people’s identities.)
I’m female, and fine with being a lady, but if somebody called me a man, I wouldn’t mind, and if I’d been assigned male at birth, I’d probably have gone with it, I’d look just like my brothers. (OTOH I’d be super uncomfortable if people thought I was another religion, so there are still vectors of identity that actually matter to me.)
It’s a lot of words to spend on a subject that doesn’t matter to me, but there you have it.
Pablo360
On the one hand, it would be so much easier if someone created a word to describe that.
On the other hand, by its very nature, nobody would care enough to popularize the word to the point where it would actually be useful as a word.
Hmmph.
Pablo360
The best expression for it I’ve ever heard comes from the commentary for El Goonish Shive:
“Gender identity: (non-committal shrug)”
nobilis
Yeah, that’s me.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m like: Why do we need gender?
(I realize that gender is important to other people, though.)
Deanatay
‘meh-sexual’?
Rex Vivat
I think the word for this is “apogender”?
vlademir1
I would agree, seeing as that was the most common term in use last I looked into it, but there isn’t yet enough community consensus nor beyond the community exposure to keep the terms for many nonbinary genders from being too fluid to state with certainty. For example “gender indifferent” and “gender ambivalent” are still of reasonably common usage last I checked
nobilis
Can we just call it “meh-gender”?
Deanatay
Ninja’d!
Sorta.
Meh.
PlutoniumBoss
Add to that the fact that many people like us by nature aren’t likely to make enough of an issue of it to really need a handy label. I kind of just default to assigned, so it rarely comes up, and any one it really matters to bring it up to is close enough to me to talk about the nuances and details and such.
Rex Vivat
Yeah, pretty much the same here too. If someone zapped me with an EGS-style gun and turned me into the opposite sex, I’d go “meh” and go on with my life. My gender is just not really part of my identity.
L!ghtn!ng
I’m so glad I found this thread this morning (8+ hrs after everyone else was talking about it)! I’ve never really put it into words, but that video really struck a chord with me. When I was younger, I too thought that gender was a social concept. I thought that people who made a big deal of pointing out their gender, for reasons other than to point out sexism (which I did recognize as very real), were brainwashed or looking for attention. I knew of trans* people at an intellectual level, but couldn’t understand why someone would go to so much effort to change something that I thought didn’t really matter. It wasn’t until I really met trans* people that I understood that gender really does matter to some people – just not to me.
I don’t really identify as agender or bigender or genderqueer or anything. I was raised a girl, more-or-less look feminine, and have experienced sexism firsthand, so I primarily identify as she/her but mainly because I don’t really care enough to identify otherwise (which is a privilege, absolutely). But I’ve been misgendered and haven’t cared, and I suspect that if I’d been AMAB then I would have just gone along with he/him.
I’m kind of the same with my sexual orientation – I don’t really identify with any label, although I understand that identification is more important to other people than it is for me. It’s one of the things that makes me uncomfortable sometimes with Tumblr and modern social justice culture: the expectation to always announce your pronouns and labels. I get that it’s important to other people and will use their preferred pronouns and labels, but as to me, I’m just – me, and would prefer not to have to label myself otherwise.
Dragon_Nataku
I too don’t really care about gender. I mean, I present as a girl and that’s what I was born as, I like having long hair and wearing makeup, and I wear high heels because I’m super-short. However, other than makeup I have like zero girly interests, I have zero female friends, all of my friends are dudes (part of why I wear heels, so I can be about their height), and online apparently I present as a dude because everyone just assumes I am one and if someone tells them otherwise they don’t really believe it. In person no one would ever mistake me for a dude but I don’t care what pronouns people use for me (and have always thought it ridiculous when women in games flip out because people aren’t psychic and didn’t know off the bat that they were women and called them “he”).
In terms of sexual orientation I’ve always short-handed it to “bi.” I find women sexually attractive, but as previously stated I do not get along with them at all and I’m not the kind of person who’s into one-night stands so an actual relationship with a woman would never work for me. I guess I too am pretty lazy at caring about this stuff since I do shorthand things to “I’m a chick” and “I’m bi” when that’s not really the whole story. ^^;;
Knuf Wons
I’m pretty similar. I do identify a little more strongly with my birth gender (if someone called me a woman, I might correct them but wouldn’t be hugely bothered by it), but I generally don’t see what the fuss is about being either beyond the genetic and reproductive repercussions.
sad and tired
after 30+ i’ve finally (mostly) figured out my gender identity, but i don’t think there’s a good word for it
i’m unflavored ice cream with chocolate chips and mint chips mixed in
the idea being that chocolate ice cream is one heteronormative gender, and mint ice cream is the other heternormative gender, and unflavored ice cream, no matter how many chocolate chips you mix in, doesn’t actually become chocolate ice cream – it only has some similar properties, sometimes, if you happen to get some chips in your spoonful. same for mint.
this is complicated by gender presentation. if chocolate ice cream is usually covered in caramel sauce and mint ice cream is usually covered in coffee-flavored sauce, then i’ve got caramel and coffee swirled all over with no regard for what’s directly beneath the sauce. good luck guessing what type of chips, if any, you’re getting today!
so yeah rather than trying to explain all this i just go with the pronouns i was assigned at birth. too old and lazy to fight for new pronouns and dunno what i’d pick anyway. hurraaay~! the privilege of being able not to care about my identity because it’s easily mistaken for ‘normal’, a large enough percentage of the time, that any dysphoria i might feel is brief and easily ignored~!
this combination of ‘passing privilege’ and ‘so far in the closet you can barely tell what you’re pretending not to be’ is a great way to take someone like Robin and get her to hurt a lot of people btw
Ana Chronistic
hmm… I’m “okay with being female except for the reproductive functions and also the misogyny so basically kind of a gay male sometimes cross-dresser in the wrong body but not really interested in surgery”–not sure a great way to abbreviate that
genderfluid except specific parts I could completely do without
Anon
your post helps me feel okay about still having douts about my gender identity in my mid 20s
Dana
Vi Hart rocks my world.
Ari
*Gets very excited*
I’m trans and I get “so is there a label for this” questions a whole bunch and they make me happy because usually, if you look hard enough, there totally is.
Okay, so:
– A word you might consider is graygender. Basically, it’s agender-ish (as in, no specific sense of gender, or a weak sense of gender) but also general ambivalence about gender as a whole. Just a sense of not caring about one’s gender.
-Although lots of trans/nonbinary people want to use different pronouns or change their body in some way, not everyone does. Generally, the requirement for being considered trans/nonbinary is that you don’t have a sense of being (only) the gender you were assigned. Pronouns and your body and stuff don’t have much to do with it. Basically what I’m saying is, if you ever want to identify as trans, making major changes isn’t required to have the community there for support.
Jason
I was actually thinking when I started reading these comments that if “greygender” isn’t a term for what was being discribed it should be. And apparently it is! So that’s cool.
Self-understanding is a long journey. Mentally and emotionally healthy people will be working on it all their lives. For those who are still searching, don’t worry- you’re not alone, and you’re not broken. <3
Mr. Bulbmin
That’s a fun conversation to have with people.
“You’re . . . what?”
“Asexual. It means-”
“I know what it means, you’re not a starfish.”
“I’m not saying that I am. I’m saying that you could put literally anyone in front of me, asking for sex, and I would most likely say no, extenuating circumstances disregarded.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’ve said no to you, her, him, him, her, her, and her over there, tonight alone. That either means that everyone who approached me tonight is physically unattractive, or that I didn’t have a thing for any of them. Would you rather believe yourself ugly, or that I don’t want sexual relations?”
Microbru
I wish that term had been in use when I was younger, so I wouldn’t
have had to waste so much time pretending I was into “the thing” like
everyone else.
Neeks
Same. I went a looooong time thinking I was just straight with an extremely low (actually nonexistent) libido.
Historyman68
I’m a starfish.
Riku
Why not both?
Mollyscribbles
Learning there’s more than two options explains a LOT for a large segment of the population.
Birion
So, so much. Sure wish I’d known it was okay not being attracted to anyone sooner, coulda saved me years of depression.
Hari
I’m mostly ace too.
SundaesChild
Dem, mayhaps? I was really confused until I found out that was a thing. Like, “everyone says I’m full of shit or lying, so maybe I AM” confused.
SundaesChild
*Demi. Stupid autocorrect, mixing my politics with my other complex issues. I read comics to get *away* from real life!
Knuf Wons
There’s no escaping real life when reading comics written by Willis. Run while you still can!
mistrali
It took me a long time and my own experience of sexual attraction/fwb to understand exactly why allosexual people (or at least, people with a high level of sexual attraction and a high libido) were so fucking “obsessed” with romantic relationships. For many of them it’s simply a need like that of the need for friendship, only separate.
It’s like not liking chocolate and everyone around you going, “But how can you not like chocolate?!” For a while I didn’t get that it was as hard for them to understand my lack of sexual attraction as it was for me to understand their apparent fixation on romance. While I still think romance is overrated, it’s also fulfilling quite an important biological need rather than just something people do to feel special.
Just my 2c. Not denying allosexual privilege or anything, just sharing my experiences.
thejeff
Also worth remembering that romance and sex are different, if often linked, things.
It’s apparently not uncommon for asexuals to want romantic relationships, but not want the sexual part. Which is limiting, if they try for romance with someone who isn’t asexual.
Alissa
My life in a nutshell. I’m ace, but heteroromantic. This led to so much anxiety about what kind of relationship I could be in and if I’d ever find anyone.
Kit
I kinda did, too. I knew that being gay isn’t a choice because I believed the gay folks I knew who said it isn’t. (And why should I question the way they experienced their sexuality?) But plenty of the straight folks I knew said that being gay is a choice. And I knew that since I was attracted to both men and women, it was sorta-kinda a “choice” for me. So I spent quite a while believing that being straight is a choice and that straight folks are just projecting their own stuff onto gay folks.
Bi invisibility can really mess with you.
JetstreamGW
Well, I mean, yeah it does work that way. You can live your life lying constantly. That’s an option.
It’s a shitty option that’ll kill your soul, but you can do it.
lia47
alright fuck off robin
Schpoonman
Yes please.
wheelpath
No, the thing is she doesn’t know and this is the Bi reveal for this universe, chill the hell out
Athedia
Exactly. It is a actually a tragic moment. Leslie doesn’t look angry she looks a bit sad. For her this powerful woman she finds very attractive, is vulnerable, insecure about the truth of her sexuality.
Now they are both left with this. Does Leslie push her? Does Robin come out? Robin is obviously not comfortable being out.
This is a fuck off moment. This is an ‘Oh. Um…oh.” moment.
DarkoNeko
It can take a moment. days, weeks, for things like that to sink of. Or be forgotten, depending.
LovelyMonsters
Oh, see, I was reading it as Leslie assuming here that her gaydar was wrong and that Robin is straight, and is asking her if she, as a straight woman, can flip a switch and be attracted to women.
Obviously, we have Word of God knowledge that Robin is attracted to women at least some of the time and that the question will hit her with that in mind; but I thought Leslie is employing the ever-effective rhetorical device of asking a bigot one of the stupid, insulting questions bigots ask LGBT people all the time.
Fart Captor
I think that may actually be what Leslie was thinking. She has no idea that her question is hitting Robin in a totally different way than she intended
anonymsly
Except I’m betting that Leslie, as a gender studies teacher and a lesbian herself, understands closeting very well. And as pointed out by several people below, Robin’s ‘it’s a question of presentation’ is the language of the closet. Robin’s actually been giving off a lot of fake-personality show-people-what-they-want-instead-of-who-I-am from the start, too – she’s got the skills of someone who’s been ‘answering the question of presentation’ for a long time.
My read on Leslie here is that she’s taking a stab in the not-quite-dark. Robin might just be a fake person, a straight woman who’s a particularly good liar, in which case the question can stand as ‘can you, a straight person, flip a switch to like women’. But I think the question really is, after Robin’s explanation, “So that’s what you do, but is it actually working?”
a4lbi
Once Robin stops being A Shit, we can call off the Fuck-Off.
BBCC
Yeah, no, Robin’s being an asshole here. Wanting her to fuck off is completely justified. Sure, she can still change, but for now, she’s being an asshole.
phyrexian rogue
The awkward thing is Robin is not even trying to be an asshole. She is simply too stupid/ignorant to realize how much she’s hurting people.
thejeff
brainwashed.
But mostly heaps and heaps of denial. And privilege she doesn’t want to give up. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” — Upton Sinclair
I’m sure she’s had exposure to this before, from Roz if nowhere else. Easily dismissed as her silly kid sister, I suppose. Not so easy when her own emotions are involved.
Still comes across as “asshole” though. And does as much damage. Leslie would be perfectly justified in telling her to fuck off. But there’s that bit of an opening that might let her change. Leslie’s also justified in trying to reach that.
Pablo360
Ignorantia culus non excusat.
BBCC
Stepping on people’s toes doesn’t only hurt when it’s on purpose.
Jason
Ignorance can do every bit as much damage as malice. More, sometimes, because the ignorant person simply can’t understand why that person is so upset, why are they being so mean?
If someone is bad for your overall wellbeing, you have every right to shut them out of your life- with absolutely no regard for intent. If someone has proved that they are willing and able to grow and change, then sure- maybe think about giving them a chance, but you still absolutely have the right to do what is best for yourself. It doesn’t matter if it hurts the other person or if it might have been a “teachable moment”.
Leorale
I agree that it’s the bi reveal (unless you jump to correct conclusions when she first makes eyes at Leslie, as Roz did). I don’t agree that people should hafta chill out about it, though, as many of us on here have been impacted by the real people that Robin represents. Yelling at Robin is cathartic. you chill.
Tualha
Well, it depends on what you want to accomplish. You want catharsis? Then sure, yell all the fuck you want. It won’t change anyone’s mind, it’ll just piss them off and harden their position, but you’ll feel better. Or, on the other hand, you could try to engage, with empathy and compassion. If they’re someone like Falwell or Phelps, you won’t change their mind, but lots of people aren’t like that. They’re just ignorant. Treat them with respect, listen to them, present your own point of view, and you have a good change of effecting real change.
It’s not about chilling to make people comfortable with acting like assholes. It’s about realizing that very few people are assholes by nature, and that with patience, their minds can be changed. It’s about acting like Roz instead of like Hothead.
This is a subject much on my mind lately, as my parents voted for Trump. I’ve been trying to write them a letter that will make them see what a stupid idea that was. Not easy. They’re quite old and set in their ways, and they’ve been Republican their entire adult lives, as far as I can tell. And I have my own anger to overcome. Been reading a lot of Buddhism lately.
Leorale
We can’t change Robin’s mind. She can’t hear us yell at her or be gentle with her, because she’s a fictional character.
I wish you luck and support with talking to your folks, though. Sounds difficult and stressful, but important.
Stella
Er…Robin’s not real? She can’t read our comments?
Like, yeah, yelling at a fictional character is hella cathartic. I’d rather blow off steam here than at real people. I feel like Catharsis is one of the chief roles of fiction in general?
BBCC
A) There are some views not worth treating like respect. Bigotry is one of them.
B) Respectfully? Bullshit. Plenty of people have their minds changed not with friendly words, but by people blatantly saying ‘You’re an asshole who’s fucking me over. Stop being shitty to me.’ And even if they don’t listen? Someone else might. I’ve learned far more about bigotry I don’t experience by listening to folks angrily venting and shouting at people screwing them over than I did from those nice and friendly educational posts. Because most of them water things down. In their efforts not to hurt feelings or step on toes, they don’t actually make anyone face the reality of what their bigotry causes. It causes pain, anger, bitterness, distrust, fear, etc. whether they mean to or not, and if they can’t handle seeing the consequences of their bullshit, maybe they shouldn’t cause those feelings via bigotry anyways.
I’m so fucking done with people pretending getting angry ‘doesn’t solve anything’, ‘just makes it worse’ or ‘doesn’t change minds’. It is so untrue in my experience. The nicer voices are also easier ignored for some people, because if this was an actual problem, they’d get upset right? But when they do get upset it turns into ‘you weren’t being nice, so I don’t have to listen to you!’ As if they listened in the first place. A point is true if a point is true – it being delivered angrily does not make it less so.
Leslie sharing her story nicely might work for some people. Other people need a Sal to angrily scream a bombshell at them or a Roz to thoroughly chew them up and spit them out in public.
BBCC
All of that said, I hope your letter to your parents goes well. That sounds really rough and I hope your chosen method works.
Leorale
Also, you mentioned patience so you probably already know this, but in case you don’t, there is no perfect letter that will make your parents see the error of their ways. This is probably going to require lots of imperfect conversations, over a long time. Thank you for doing it.
BBCC
Yeah, it’s most likely to be a long ride, but I respect the hell out of you for undertaking it. Best of luck!
Fart Captor
It is also worth noting that you are unlikely to be able to change their minds all at once. A little bit at a time might be more realistic both as an expectation and a strategy
Cerberus
Actually, funny story, pretty much anything can harden the heart of a bigot and get them to double down. Come in strong and they double down in defense. Come in soft and they assume it must not matter to you and continue to dehumanize you while using you as “their X friend” every time they want to get out of being called a bigot.
Beg for your humanity and they assume they must be right given you’re having to beg for humane treatment. Cut them off and they continue to radicalize on their own bitter that you’re not talking to them anymore. Punch them in the face and they haul you off to jail and sell stories about how “violent those types of people are”.
Now, it’s not universal. Any one of these can also be what causes a bigot to soften. Having someone leave can be a powerful sign that they were in error. Getting hit can get a bigot to back off sometimes. Hearing earnest appeals from people they care about, real stories can melt some of the learned hatred. Getting chewed out can cut through the self-denial.
It varies what works and for some, nothing really works and trying to pull the person out of bigotry just means being abused by them over and over again.
So what we can do is not blind ourselves and demand one method of reaching out and tone policing we see as everyone who is “not helping”. Because what does work universally is the accumulation of the bodies of all those who came before throwing their stories and life experiences and raw responses at the world to try and craft a world that is no longer killing them slowly.
It’s brutal, it’s slow, but as more people know personally, hear the stories that are silenced, see real humanity in its complex messy emotionality, they find it harder and harder to hold their hatreds close and nurse them. At least on average.
Also socially discouraging bigotry also helps just to keep the bigots from finding and radicalizing people in desperate situations and selling them hatred as a one stop shop for fixing their lives.
Falcon