State of the gender, 2019

[crossposted with Facebook]

So, Facebook did the memory thing and apparently two years ago today I was doing some serious gendertalk on The Internets. It felt like a good time to update and refine that!

So, general reminder for everyone:

I am a person (or spider). I am not a woman/girl/lady/etc (or man/boy/etc)¹. I am neither female nor male, I am agender or genderqueer.

My pronouns are they/them/theirs, unless I am in a work-context (students, coworkers, admin, parents) at which point I use the incorrect "she/her/hers" pronouns. I am sad and frustrated by this, but hope to be able to be out at work once I have professional status (May 2020, if all goes well).

My title is "Mx", not Miss or Ms and definitely not Mrs. Again, work-context means I use "miss" but only for those specific populations. If you can read this post, you should use my correct pronouns and title².

My body has a uterus, a vagina, a vulva(etc), and breasts. I don't have female genitals. On rare occasion³, I shed my uterine lining at which point I use menstruation supplies, not feminine supplies. Please try to use medically accurate language when talking about these things, not just for me, but for everyone.

I prefer that the people I am romantically or sexually entangled with refer to me as "partner", but I accept "girlfriend" from people I have that kind of explicit relationship with.

Please feel free to correct other people (gently, briefly⁴) if they refer to me as woman, or use "she" pronouns for me. I will also try to correct people. Sometimes I don't bother because it's not worth it.

I am the kind of open person that you are welcome to ask questions of pretty much all the time, but you are especially welcome to do so on this post. I will answer any question about my gender, or gender in general so long as it does not feel malicious.

***

[1] I am both a "girl scout" and a "gentleman" though, and will not be the slightest bit bothered if you use those specific words to describe me.

[2] On some airlines, I am "Dr" because they're shitty enough to make titles mandatory and don't have any other genderneutral options.

[3] I have put a lot of effort into making this happen as infrequently as possible, because dysphoria and also mess.

[4] It is...exhausting having to comfort someone making a Big Deal out of having misgendered you. "she-shit-they" is a running joke with some of the SCD crowd as to what my gender is, and that's _perfect_. Everyone does accidental misgenderings sometimes, hell, most of us non-cis seem to do it to ourselves, it's okay, just fix it and move on

Thoughts on other words:

"your majesty" or "their highness" rather than any other royalty titles (I have heard of princex, but I don't like it for myself.) If you want to be incredibly specifically accurate to just me, I am the "Lord High Queen of Everything"

Laura reminded me that I meant to say that "female assigned" is the correct term to use if you are talking about something that directly has to do with, say, my ID or my medical care. Similarly, I will often use "female-socialized" or "female-aligned" to talk about myself culturally and socially --I was raised differently than I would have been if I were the same person with different genitals, not just by my parents, but my every person who interacted with me. Sometimes that is relevant.

"female" by itself is laughably wrong.

Under the cut are some good bits from the comments (which have been mostly REALLY great because it turns out I have Good Friends. I'm so happy and pleased that people are being kind to each other and open and not assuming bad intent.

( frequently asked questions! (where frequently means 'once') )

~Sor
MOOP!