Good evening. I am Pneumonica. Recently, on another forum (one of the two in which I'm "out", now three), I admitted to being genderless. It seemed as though people were very okay with it - a lot of confusion about pronoun usage, etc. I don't actually care much about pronouns - "it" doesn't apply to people, in English there's no genderless that does. However, being a linguist I'm well aware of the fact that artificial language change is nearly impossible. I think French is one of the few languages that has been successfully changed in any meaningful way artificially.
Anyways, it came to a head when a forum contest wasn't announced as being a "gender-split" contest. The previous one had been, and I had bowed out of it for specific reasons of gender identity. This didn't really offend me either - it was a "cuteness" contest, and gender-identity does partially define people's "cute" response, so I could at least see their argument. This time, I was neither told about the split nor asked what to do about it. The mod put me in the male category, and then was indignant when I demanded to be removed. (I admit I was terse on the matter - it did make me angry.) Others began to speak out, some in my favor and some against. The wonderful "what's in your pants" argument was raised in just those terms.
Anyways, efluvium hit the rotor, and now I remain lurking in that forum because a number of people are people I still care about. It was certainly illuminating, and I was left feeling somewhat cored out on the inside. I e-mailed a number of people (and if any of them are on this forum - thank you, you've been helpful). It lead in its meandering way in this direction, and I finally decided to jump in.
Anyways, I'm witholding my real name because I do that on all fora I'm on, but I'm genderless. I haven't told my family, but I've told my fiancee, and I've told a few friends who mostly haven't been supportive (one was, in the wonderful way which is "curiousity", perhaps the best form of support I've gotten). I'm a tabletop roleplaying gamer, and I listen predominantly to the Residents (currently one of the saddest songs in the world is up on my playlist,
My Window) and to a lesser extent other avante-garde, no-wave, and experimental music.
I also am long-winded, in case that's not obvious.
Just as a question, when do I get privilege to upload an avatar pic or add a signature? And as a comment, I have read through the TOS/R2LB.
