Exploring and Community

[veganicecream]

Hello!

Last year, I was shown the genderbread person and suddenly a lot of things made so much sense! This led to an impressive amount of youtubing in a short time-frame accompanied by a significant amount of googling, and reading of a couple of books (not that there appear to be a lot on the subject). Ash Hardell's youtube channel helped me so much.

Basically, I am non-binary. Which explains previous obsessions I've had with gender neutral pronouns, and numerous incidents in childhood. I don't have a term that fits perfectly for me - there are many circumstances where I feel like a woman, but so many where I feel agender or just non-binary and being designated as "woman" is a complete cognitive dissonance.

I don't have community and have only come out to a few. Those outside the LGBTQIA+ community have never heard of it, they don't know what CIS is.

I have a fear that being very "out" will exclude me from women's spaces, which I don't want. It's like I'm in a curious venn diagram of "woman", "agender" and "non-binary". But then I suspect that the I am partly holding on to some of "woman" because I fear losing that belonging, being shutout, losing community.

I want to explore and understand. I don't know if any of this made any sense.

[Iona]

May 8, 2020 15:07:04 GMT 8 veganicecream said:

Hello!

Last year, I was shown the genderbread person and suddenly a lot of things made so much sense! This led to an impressive amount of youtubing in a short time-frame accompanied by a significant amount of googling, and reading of a couple of books (not that there appear to be a lot on the subject). Ash Hardell's youtube channel helped me so much.

Basically, I am non-binary. Which explains previous obsessions I've had with gender neutral pronouns, and numerous incidents in childhood. I don't have a term that fits perfectly for me - there are many circumstances where I feel like a woman, but so many where I feel agender or just non-binary and being designated as "woman" is a complete cognitive dissonance.

I don't have community and have only come out to a few. Those outside the LGBTQIA+ community have never heard of it, they don't know what CIS is.

I have a fear that being very "out" will exclude me from women's spaces, which I don't want. It's like I'm in a curious venn diagram of "woman", "agender" and "non-binary". But then I suspect that the I am partly holding on to some of "woman" because I fear losing that belonging, being shutout, losing community.

I want to explore and understand. I don't know if any of this made any sense.

Hi veganicecream, and welcome to the forum!

Don't worry, you're making plenty of sense. And also don't worry on our account about not having the perfect terms to describe yourself - I wonder whether any terms can possibly encompass the complexity of our genders!

I do hope you're able to find at least something of a community here, if just online!

[Yuki]

May 8, 2020 15:07:04 GMT 8 veganicecream said:

Hello!

Last year, I was shown the genderbread person and suddenly a lot of things made so much sense! This led to an impressive amount of youtubing in a short time-frame accompanied by a significant amount of googling, and reading of a couple of books (not that there appear to be a lot on the subject). Ash Hardell's youtube channel helped me so much.

Basically, I am non-binary. Which explains previous obsessions I've had with gender neutral pronouns, and numerous incidents in childhood. I don't have a term that fits perfectly for me - there are many circumstances where I feel like a woman, but so many where I feel agender or just non-binary and being designated as "woman" is a complete cognitive dissonance.

I don't have community and have only come out to a few. Those outside the LGBTQIA+ community have never heard of it, they don't know what CIS is.

I have a fear that being very "out" will exclude me from women's spaces, which I don't want. It's like I'm in a curious venn diagram of "woman", "agender" and "non-binary". But then I suspect that the I am partly holding on to some of "woman" because I fear losing that belonging, being shutout, losing community.

I want to explore and understand. I don't know if any of this made any sense.

Hi, and welcome!

I'm somewhat the same as you, as far as where my gender sits most of the time.

I saw something explained by someone else that made sense of some of this for me.

They said basically that, even though they are nonbinary, they are still affected by society seeing them as a woman. So a lot of women's things still apply to them, even though they are not a woman at all, other than how society sees them.

So, for certain things, they still identify with women's issues and still group themselves with women in those contexts.

They wrote it better than I am able to rephrase it, and I don't think I could actually find it right now to post it, so I hope that makes sense.

But I don't think you necessarily have to exclude yourself from women's spaces in order to be nonbinary. If people view you as feminine at all, or if you're AFAB and nonbinary, then there can still be a lot of relatability there. That's fairly normal.

Most women's stuff does tend to include nonbinary also, (the ones who are aware of it, anyway) for those who want to be included. I haven't personally seen any specifically exclude nonbinary people.

I mean, I'm sure they exist.. but that's part of a community you probably don't want to be a part of, anyway.

So, embrace both, if that's what you want.

[Leena]

Welcome to the forum, veganicecream!

I did quite a lot of googling when I was first coming to terms with not being cis. It was just a start of a longer exploration, and one I don't know will ever be finished.

I tend to avoid exclusive spaces of any kind personally.

[veganicecream]

May 8, 2020 22:45:26 GMT 8 Yuki said:

Hi, and welcome!

I'm somewhat the same as you, as far as where my gender sits most of the time.

I saw something explained by someone else that made sense of some of this for me.

They said basically that, even though they are nonbinary, they are still affected by society seeing them as a woman. So a lot of women's things still apply to them, even though they are not a woman at all, other than how society sees them.

So, for certain things, they still identify with women's issues and still group themselves with women in those contexts.

They wrote it better than I am able to rephrase it, and I don't think I could actually find it right now to post it, so I hope that makes sense.

But I don't think you necessarily have to exclude yourself from women's spaces in order to be nonbinary. If people view you as feminine at all, or if you're AFAB and nonbinary, then there can still be a lot of relatability there. That's fairly normal.

Most women's stuff does tend to include nonbinary also, (the ones who are aware of it, anyway) for those who want to be included. I haven't personally seen any specifically exclude nonbinary people.

I mean, I'm sure they exist.. but that's part of a community you probably don't want to be a part of, anyway.

So, embrace both, if that's what you want.

Thanks! That does make some sense. I am AFAB and nonbinary, so there are a lot of relatable experiences.

I find just defining "woman" quite hard, and when I've asked CIS-women, they also struggle. I briefly tried re-defining it to align with me, but it just doesn't work.

[Ativan Prescribed]

There is no one way to define gender at all, it depends on who you are and where you think you are, but nobody has a one fits all definition.
One of the things about NB is that you simply don't have to define it, it is what it is to you and thats nobodies business.
You are never ever obligated to define your gender no matter who you are, its easier and better to define why you wear a certain color of clothes on any given day, that has relevance, your gender is nobodies business but your own.
And the struggle to define it to yourself will be never ending, there is no real reason why you have to define yourself to yourself.