My Gender
After 6 months of blogging all about gender here at Neutrois Nonsense, I realized I haven’t really bothered to explain my gender – Neutrois. Sure, there are definitions and lists here or there, but I have yet to delve into why that’s me, why this label fits me, and why I found myself when I found this word.
There are differences between being genderqueer, androgynous, bi-gender, tri-gender, two-spirit, neutrois, or other (infinite) variations of genders – differences not just in wording or labels, but in how a person experiences each gender, in the very essence of each concept. Gender neutral is tricky to explain, especially when disentangling the difference between gender neutral and genderless and agender. One pain point is trying to define those differences when everybody uses different definitions of the words in the first place! And it gets more complicated when all definitions are valid, because honestly, they are still under construction, and each person finds themselves described in different words in different ways for different reasons. So, I won’t try to explain the definitions so much as just try to explain me, in hopes that this might clarify things by itself.
Stereotypes
I’m going to break it down with some stereotypes, and yeah, I know stereotypes don’t define you or your gender and bla bla, but bear with me.
Pink
I have always hated being a girl. Being seen as a girl, being called a girl, doing girl things. I hate dresses, skirts, makeup, long hair, pink, dolls, high heels, (the list could go on…) anything that would be deemed girly. I dislike being called lady or ma’am. I despise being seen as weaker, more fragile, more emotional. It’s awkward when guys open doors for me. Any girly stereotype, I hate it when applied to me. I have no girly attributes in me. (Actually, I probably do – we all do – except, none of them qualify as a defining characteristic of me). But most of all, I hate being seen as having any girl attributes.
Blue
While I always wanted to be a boy, as a 3 year old youngster or a 25 year old youngster, I still don’t partake in stereotypical boy things. I like to exercise, to rock climb and go to to yoga and be active, and I’ve probably tried almost every sport you can think of at least once. But boys don’t like to exercise, they like Sports – the ESPN version, that is. And I can’t stand Sports. I hate watching football, or futbol, or baseball, and much less basketball (tall people scare me). Moreover, I really don’t get the whole obsession with cars or motorcycles, or guns or war or first-person shooters. I don’t even jump at being a gentleman – opening doors for girls is awkward. As a kid I didn’t play with trucks or G.I.Joes or run around in the mud, and to this day I am panic-attack-ly scared of any kind of creepy crawly bug. So, I don’t hate having boy attributes, I just don’t have any, and I would hate it if people imposed them on me.
Gray
Thus, I am the absence of the stereotypical characeristics of either gender. Instead, I embrace neutral characteristics, which belong to neither side.
Sure, all of my preferred behaviours and expressions can be found in both girls and boys. And at some point if you break it down enough, yes, all girls and boys eat and drink and sleep, which might been seen as neutral. And both girls and boys like to draw and play in the sandbox. Just like both girls and boys play sports.
Yet none of these are particularly girly or particularly boyish. But a girl playing football – now that’s manly; and a boy doing ballet – kinda girly. There are just some things that are deemed to belong very clearly to just one side, and when people cross over, it is seen as a transgression. These are all great, but these are all not me.
Dolls are for girls, trucks are for boys, and puzzles are neutral. And my gender is a puzzle.
Sorry For The Stereotypes – Hopefully You Get It Now
I’m not a femme boy or a butch girl – I am too butch to be femme, too femme to be butch.
It’s not embracing both sides, or one side; it’s embracing neither. It’s not an absence of gender, and it’s not not-caring about my gender. Quite the contrary – I care very strongly about my gender, my gender expression, and my gender perception.
I have a gender, and it’s a neutral gender.
Sounds similar to my story. Good explanation!
In one of my songs many years ago, entitled “Fool in the Middle,” I had a verse, “One side pink and one side blue / purple’s gonna have to do / people can be very cruel when you’re / stuck in the middle.” It’s pretty rough (I was still learning the basics of music production) but it’s towards the bottom of the page at http://beesbuzz.biz/music/songfight/#001390
I feel very much the same way. Hope you don’t mind if I show this post to a few people who become eternally confused when I try to explain my situation to them. I feel like it would clear up those pesky questions quite considerably.
This is a great way to explain it – even though I have to deal with all the creepy crawly bugs
I think you explained yourself quite well and very clearly. I do not know why people would have difficulty understanding, yet I am sure they often do. While not neutrois myself, I do have somewhat extensive times/areas of my life and personality that are if not fully neutral, then extremely blended in terms of gender. For me I guess it comes from spending so many years in the male gendered realm, now living in the female gendered world and my past and present blurring together.
Very cool, Maddox. Explaining the difference between neutral and none is a bit hard when I don’t know what it feels like to be neutral, so hearing your experience helps. I really liked your description, “It’s not embracing both sides, or one side; it’s embracing neither.”
I’ve always known I was not a man or a woman, but at first I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was a neutral gender or a lack of gender. In the end I decided it was a lack of gender because I just wanted gender to stop existing altogether; it made absolutely no sense to me and people just would not leave me alone about it. So I guess you could say that while you embrace the ‘neither’, I reject all of it. (When it comes to myself, that is. I love learning about other people’s genders and I love seeing how others intentionally express their genders.)
I am working toward having a body that looks gender-neutral, but that’s only because I want to have a body that looks genderless and I know that isn’t possible. People see gender everywhere. They see it where it doesn’t even exist.
All of that being said, we’ve got some things in common — I’ve lost many a staring contest with creepy crawlies.
By the way, thanks for the linkage!
I love how you differentiate so clearly between no gender and a neutral gender. You’ve articulated something I’ve always felt but couldn’t put words to. I’ve had a few friends tell me they believe gender doesn’t truly exist, it’s just a cultural thing, and while I agree that gender is influenced by culture (what is seen as “manly” or “girly” can be different in different cultures), I strongly believe that gender is real, and exists. And that mine is not male or female, and that’s where it gets tricky to explain to people
Thank you 
thanks for sharing, maddox! i’m reallyreally stoked that you wrote this post; i’ve always found this stuff confusing. genderless vs gender-neutral makes a lot more sense now than it used to, so thanks! yay!
I feel very much similarly to what you expressed here and I thank you for writing this out so clearly as I would have a hard time expressing it myself.
So if gender is a color wheel, with pink= girl and blue = boy, with purple being both at once, does that make you…orange?
Hahaha! Indeed, I’m always wearing something orange!
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Your description of gender is facsinating. I’ll be exploring more of your blog. Oh, and thanks for the follow.