(1/4)hello, i uh. i guess im just looking for some supportive words... ive been IDing as genderless for a while. when i originally learned of non binary genders, i didnt quite understand it. if there are so many genders, and people get hurt and mistreated over what they identify, and gender is entirely a personal perception of yourself, and is a social construct, why do we even have it? i spent a lot of time trying to figure out what i was too, because i realized that if all these other options-

(2/4) exist, its silly not to explore them and see where i fit in this new gender system. thinking about gender confused, frustrated, and scared me. i tried to feel my gender but i just... couldnt. i felt maybe vaguely boy, but i kept telling myself that was just me being a “tomboy”. how would i know what it means to feel like a boy? gender isnt even real! i also remember telling my friend that i felt we shouldnt even have gender. its not even a tangible thing, and it just gets people hurt. she told me “maybe the reason you cant figure out your gender and the reason gender seems so pointless to you is because you dont have one?” and it felt like everything made sense. i had a new respect for all the other genders out there. they didnt make sense to me because i didnt have a gender! i cant percieve gender, but they can! to them, they can feel exactly what it is to be a man, a woman, both, etc. everything felt right for a while. but recently i feel as though im starting to feel gender....? mostly boy, but with a little bit of girl too? yet i also still want to reject gender entirely and remain genderless. i even toyed with being trigender (boy, girl, and agender) but that label sort of scared me because its such a complex gender and clearly, for whatever reason, gender is a scary and mysterious thing for me. everytime i find myself questioning my gender it gives me mad anxiety. i hate not knowing what i am. do you have any words of encouragement for me...?

First of all, gender is scary and confusing, and you’re not alone in having anxiety over gender and questioning. Secondly, you don’t have to understand gender in order to have it. Your fear of gender doesn’t disqualify you from being trigender, if that’s you.

Questioning is nerve-wracking for most people, and for some it does give severe anxiety. That’s okay. I would take some deep breaths and focus on what you do know. You know lots of other things about yourself that aren’t related to gender. You know that everyone has a different experience of gender. You know that you’re starting to feel boy and a little bit of girl.

If you think you are feeling just boy and girl, that’s it, you can use bigender or androgyne. If you think there’s something else too, you can use the label ambonec - male, female, and neither. Either way, there is at least one word you can use for yourself.

If neither of those is satisfactory, you might find one of these terms useful:

Genderanxious: A gender that is undefined because the act of finding a label, or of having a gender, is a trigger for anxiety.

Kynigender: A gender which is not able to be pinpointed due to the stress of the questioning process causing anxiety

Nesciogender or Nesciōgender: A gender one is not completely sure of due to one’s neurotype disallowing a clear understanding of the concept, but has a vague sense of what it could be; i.e. nescioboy, nescioagender, etc.Latin nesciō "I do not know"

Nōlōgender: A term for neurodivergent people who have difficulty grasping the concept of gender. Distinct from nesciōgender in that the individual has no particular desire to investigate their gender, as doing so is overly difficult due to their inability to understand the concept of gender.From latin nōlō, ((i) do not want).

Genderdisturbed: Having a gender that you cannot or do not want to define due to anxiety, repulsion, disturbance, etc..

Gendertrapped: A feeling that one has been forced to identify with a gender that one does not want or relate to.

Peroagender: Wanting to be agender, but not identifying as agender (derived from perogender).

Quoigender: Similar to quoi- as an orientation, this term describes someone who feels that the concept of having a gender does not apply or does not make sense for them, or who rejects the concept of gender entirely as it applies to them.

I may have gone slightly overboard on the terms, but the point is there are lots of words for how you feel, and people made those words, so you’re not alone in having these feelings.

Hope this helps!

Kai