Anonymous asked:
aroacearborvitae answered:
No offense taken, it can seem a little odd to someone who hasn’t seen stuff like that before, and thank you for asking respectfully! It’s true that gender and sexual and/or romantic orientation are two different dimensions of a person, and operate independently of each other. Presuming someone’s sexuality because of their gender or vice versa is shitty and incorrect. However, because of the society we live in, which ties sexuality and gender together, there are many cases where gender can be affected by sexuality. Within those, it’s a different experience for everyone, fully on an individual basis.
A quick rundown on gender first: It’s how you express yourself, how you inwardly feel about societal norms, and the idea/concept of yourself that you have. It’s why gender questioning is such an exhausting process that has many twists and turns (but you come out of it knowing and expressing yourself so much better). Those are hard things to know, and no one can know them but you! So gender is an internal concept (and a societal construction at that, in that what is a “man” and what is a “woman” change over time with the culture). It’s also different for everyone. If you take two cisgender boys, they’re both going to have different ways of feeling/being their gender and how they feel like boys.
In addition, presentation doesn’t equal gender! Presentation can include your clothes, accessories, mannerisms, name, pronouns… basically what you “present” to the world. Is a transgender boy who wants to present masculine but presents feminine because they’re closeted any less trans? Nope! Is a trans boy who acts feminine that isn’t closeted any less trans, or any less a boy? Nope! This is because how a person presents is often an extension of their gender, but there is not necessarily a correlation. People who don’t present according to their typical gender role are called gender nonconforming (gnc), no matter their gender identity. A cis girl or a trans girl wearing tuxedos would both be gnc. Presentation is very important for many trans and nonbinary people, as it’s how they express themselves and their gender, and can be used to create gender euphoria and/or alleviate gender dysphoria.
Alright, now that we’ve had The Gender Crash Course, let’s get to the actual answer to your question. Continued under the cut.
Hi! I’d like to add my own thoughts to this, as aforementioned loosely-identified gnc cis girl.
I don’t particularly use arogender for myself because I don’t like having too many labels for my identity personally, but my gender is influenced by my aromanticism (and to some degree my asexuality). I’m afab and fine with being seen and referred to as a girl, but I’m fairly gnc (or at least I’d like to be, ideally) and traditional ideals of femininity and womanhood make me uncomfortable. Most of the time I’d prefer to present kind of androgynously; part of this comes from wanting to subvert the gender norms that tie my body to heteronormative ideals about love and womanhood, and part of it is just for personal comfort.
For me, it comes from an intersection of misogyny and aromisia/heteronormativity/amatonormativity/etc. that makes me feel disconnected from other women, oftentimes even other non-het women. I often felt this way even as a kid; I was never super into stereotypical “girly” things, and being unable to talk about boys like most girls my age is something I’m sure many other queer women can relate to. This disconnect strengthened as I got older. Even now, although most of my friends also identify as female, I am constantly reminded that my own personal sense of gender is inherently different from everyone else’s. Gender, especially womanhood, is so heavily defined by falling in love that sometimes it feels impossible to see my own experiences reflected in those of other women (which arotaro wrote about regarding fiction here).
My feelings about gender aren’t 100% informed by being aromantic, but being unable to relate to 99% of other women because I cannot fall in love makes me lose a lot of my connection to my gender. I think arogender as a concept is our community’s way of expressing that disconnect.
