State of the gender, 2019
Jan. 4th, 2019 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyress[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!
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.
Definite cop-out, because my health records are marked F and I haven't bothered to try and have this talk with my PCP, who I only see once or twice a year.
In general, I am fond of the phrase "FAAB" - Female Assigned At Birth. Given that the majority[1] of people who are FAAB have a vagina/vulva/clitoris, have a uterus, have XX chromosomes, I think it gets the right ideas across.
It's worth noting that while I know the state of my external genitals, and I know I have a uterus (because I menstruate), and I know I produce some estrogen (because of my secondary sex characteristics like breasts), I don't actually know what my chromosomes are. The most likely answer is "XX" but I believe X or XXX or XXY are all plausible. (I am not a geneticist).
If I engaged in some form of medical transitioning, it would be part of the things I mentioned to doctors, like my heart surgery and ADHD medication. Until/unless(?) that happens, I will stick with either using the specific body parts for specific concerns, or "Female-assigned" for general terms.
[1]Important side note: Doctors aren't perfect! Intersex exists! The only thing you can ID by looking at a squirmy naked baby that just popped out somehow is what genitals it appears to have, and even sometimes those aren't totally clear.
(There was some later discussion from people who *are* more researched geneticists, so the specific combos I listed are not right, but it gets the broad idea --that some people have unexpected chromosomes-- across.)
***
She also asked about sir/ma'am equivalents:
***
xiphias posted a Janet gif from The Good Place --one of the many many many times she says "not a girl"
***
My roommate Kendra asked whether I cared about AFAB vs FAAB and also commented about menstruation, which hit me on a note and I responded a LOT:
(The unrelated-but-serious issues keeping me from getting an IUD are one-hundred percent related to yesterday's sexfilter post.)
~Sor
MOOP!
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.
Definite cop-out, because my health records are marked F and I haven't bothered to try and have this talk with my PCP, who I only see once or twice a year.
In general, I am fond of the phrase "FAAB" - Female Assigned At Birth. Given that the majority[1] of people who are FAAB have a vagina/vulva/clitoris, have a uterus, have XX chromosomes, I think it gets the right ideas across.
It's worth noting that while I know the state of my external genitals, and I know I have a uterus (because I menstruate), and I know I produce some estrogen (because of my secondary sex characteristics like breasts), I don't actually know what my chromosomes are. The most likely answer is "XX" but I believe X or XXX or XXY are all plausible. (I am not a geneticist).
If I engaged in some form of medical transitioning, it would be part of the things I mentioned to doctors, like my heart surgery and ADHD medication. Until/unless(?) that happens, I will stick with either using the specific body parts for specific concerns, or "Female-assigned" for general terms.
[1]Important side note: Doctors aren't perfect! Intersex exists! The only thing you can ID by looking at a squirmy naked baby that just popped out somehow is what genitals it appears to have, and even sometimes those aren't totally clear.
(There was some later discussion from people who *are* more researched geneticists, so the specific combos I listed are not right, but it gets the broad idea --that some people have unexpected chromosomes-- across.)
***
She also asked about sir/ma'am equivalents:
Ugh. I have been searching for an answer to that question for YEARS. "Comrade" "Friend" and "Hon" all get suggested but they all have flaws and none imply the correct formality. One level up of formal and you've got "gentlefolks" or "gentlebeing" but I've yet to find a sufficient sir/ma'am equivalent.
((On an _extremely_ personal never expect anyone to use or remember this level, I use "xan" (pronounced to rhyme with John, not Jan). This is a made up by *me* honoriffic, so I very much do not expect any traction or use by other people.))
***
xiphias posted a Janet gif from The Good Place --one of the many many many times she says "not a girl"YES!
It is separately problematic that the vast majority of agender characters are robots/aliens/otherwise not human, but Janet taken as an individual character is THE BEST and I love her so much.
I think my genuinely favourite thing about her is how she has empowered me to just rattle off her "not a girl"/"not a woman"/"not a lady" lines in that same cheery reminder tone of voice. It is _exactly_ how I strive to handle being misgendered, with patient aplomb.
(In writing this comment, I was struck by the need to go research her pronouns. The show-runner refers to her with she/her pronouns, and I found some pretty good notes by fans observing that she's a win for people who identify as both non-binary and women.)
***
My roommate Kendra asked whether I cared about AFAB vs FAAB and also commented about menstruation, which hit me on a note and I responded a LOT:
I don't have particularly strong feelings about AFAB vs FAAB --I prefer the latter, but ultimately don't care. I have very strong feelings about FAAB/AFAB vs CAFAB (or anything that adds the "coercively" label into the acronym). I understand how other people could feel it applies to them, but *especially* given how very cool and accepting my mother has been with mine and my sister's changing pronouns, it feels really disingenuous to imply that I have been coerced into being female.
Sometime in early college or so, I read my friend Woozle's thoughts on menstruation, which boiled down to "medical science has come really far and in fact has solved this problem to some degree[1] so why the fuck do people still have to endure this oh right misogyny.". It was really eye-opening --I feel like it's the first time I ever felt I had explicit permission to NOT want to have periods. Like I didn't have to try and work with this dumb thing to enjoy it, I was allowed to be upset and to try and fix it.
As things stand right now, I don't think I've menstruated since early September 2017. I love my birth control regime _very very much_.
***
[1] Stringing together the pill (and skipping the placebo weeks) means I don't menstruate. I'm pretty lucky, in that the pill does not do any of the side effects that I don't want (including make my breasts bigger, which happened to a relative who was thrilled --I would be very upset.) However, I know that's not the case for everyone and that there're lots of women for whom hormonal birth control doesn't work.
I've considered trying to get an IUD (especially given the political climate where it feels possible for birth control to become illegal) but the risk that it would make my periods heavier/worse/more frequent is TERRIFYING. That, plus some unrelated (but serious) other issues makes it a no-go, which really scares and frustrates me when I think about it too much so I'm gonna stop that now.
(The unrelated-but-serious issues keeping me from getting an IUD are one-hundred percent related to yesterday's sexfilter post.)
~Sor
MOOP!