Pronouns- An explanation and Request

"For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that." - Mark Twain
"I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.” - Frances Moore Lappe

Something that I'm sure annoys/confuses the hell out of some people who try to learn about non-binary genders is that it's a bit like learning a new language. Binary transgendered people generally use terms understood and accepted in society- Transition, Surgery, Hormones, Op(eration), Sex, Man, Woman, Gender, etc. They might use them a bit differently, but they're still accepted English words. Maybe they'll get into andro/gynephile, but I rarely see that. When you get into other genders- you get those words, sure. You also get Bigender, Androgyne, Neutrois, Intergender, Genderqueer, etc. All of which my browser is telling me with angry red dots are not English words. And then there are pronouns.

Uninformed vs Ignorant

"Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.” -Jean de la Fontaine
"A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated." -Horace Mann

I like to differentiate between these two, because I think 'ignorant' is a bit of a loaded word. I don't like calling someone who simply hasn't seen these terms before 'ignorant', they just aren't aware of it yet and haven't had a chance to learn, even if it is technically accurate. To walk into a strange new world and immediately be called 'ignorant' for being new might be hurtful and make them less willing to learn. Considering what I deal with a lot of the time- closing people's minds is not a good thing.

Asexuality and Orientation

"Sex is God's joke on human beings." -Bette Davis
"Sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock.

I try my very best to make sure that this is not a secret, but I am Asexual. This essentially means that I don't experience sexual attraction, which is a sticky enough thing to define so I won't even try. I also don't have any personal interest in sex, and find the whole thing a bit squicky. The last one isn't a common thing among asexuals, it's just a personal issue I have.

Now, I honestly don't care if you want to have sex. I don't care who with. I don't care what objects you involve. As long as it's all consensual- it's fine by me. I also don't want to know about it, so please don't go out of your way to tell me about it. If there's something I'm telling you about that you genuinely don't want to hear about, I promise I'll do my best to stop telling you about it as well.

I've seen a lot of transgender people identify as asexual before transitioning, only to realize they aren't during or afterwards. There are also some who identified as asexual throughout, and maybe even a few who identified as sexual before but realized they were asexual afterwards. I'm totally fine with people having a fluid orientation, and acknowledge the chance that I may become sexual one day. But I bring this up because I think it's pretty unlikely that my sexuality is caused by my gender dysphoria.

My ideal body would be without genitals at all. I don't think I'll be getting this unless I become a billionaire, but that is the ideal. While sex is possible without genitals- the fact I'm not interested in having any major sex organs says a bit of something. For another thing, I really can't imagine a body that I'd want to have sex in or a person I'd want to have sex with. Even when I have "sex dreams" it's just two people who are fully clothed making out- neither of whom are me. There's just some bump where I try to reconcile "me" with "having sex". It just doesn't fit together.

However, me and dating are pretty damn reconcilable. This probably confuses a few people- I've seen a lot of "the only difference between a friend and a girlfriend is sex" sentiments out there. Well, if that was true, we wouldn't need terms like "Friend with Benefits" because that's all dating/marriage/etc would be. We wouldn't have a problem of someone cheating on their spouse with an online relationship, because if there wasn't any sex how could it be cheating? There is a difference between friend-love and romantic-love, it's just hard to put your finger on what it is so it's easier to just say it's sex. Look at it like this:

Sexual Relationship-Friends with Benefits=Romantic Relationship

In other words, I want a romantic relationship without all that sex stuff. As I said earlier- you guys can have all that sex stuff. But I don't want it. In fact, you can have mine. Here- take extra. As you can imagine, I pretty much only consider dating other asexuals. I realize that an asexual/sexual relationship is possible, but I have no interest in compromising sexually, so unless I find a fully celibate or polyamorous sexual that I'm attracted to, it really isn't worth the heartache. But to get into who I am interested in dating a bit more, just for the curious:

'Panromantic' (-romantic refers to romantic orientation) is the simplest way of putting it because gender/sex doesn't really matter to me- but I dislike the all-encompassingness of it. I'm attracted to non-conformity in terms of both gender and presentation, as well as every day life. But there really isn't a word for that. So mostly, I just say I'm asexual.

Neutrois

"I don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence." -Jim Harrison
"I'm not convinced that what are traditionally considered to be male energies or qualities or female energies or qualities really have as much to do with gender as many people think they do." -Andrew Cohen

I am a transsexual Neutrois.

Transsexual means I intend to medically alter my body to match my gender. Neutrois means that I feel my gender is neither male nor female, and not some mix of the two.

I've had people ask me why I don't just say androgyne- and the simple answer is that it's not right for me. Androgynes are people who identify as a mix of male and female, while I seek to get rid of gender signifiers they seek to combine them. Saying a neutrois is an androgyne is a bit like saying an asexual is a bisexual- yes, they're both more or less equally attracted to both sexes, but in very different ways. Which makes it very amusing when asexuals tell me I should just identify as an androgyne.

What was your name again?

'The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.' ~Marshall McLuhan
'Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.' ~Salman Rushdie

I do not have a name. No, really, I don't. There's a name on my birth certificate, a name on my passport, and a name on my State ID (long story, no driver's license). They actually don't all quite match, which is an even longer story. I keep meaning to update my birth certificate to match my State ID- but either way, that isn't my name. There's a nickname I've gone by online for... Geez, almost 10 years now. But it's a very immature name so I don't like using it much any more.