‘My gender is like an empty lot’

[Asche]

'My gender is like an empty lot' − the people who reject man, woman and any other gender label

https://theconversation.com/my-gender-is-like-an-empty-lot-the-people-who-reject-man-woman-and-any-other-gender-label-267286 🔗

Canton Winer Assistant Professor of Sociology, Northern Illinois University
Published: October 30, 2025


When I asked Manisha to describe her gender identity, she gave a simple answer: "Meh."

"I don't have a gender identity," Manisha explained. "I get that other people look at me and see a woman but, for myself, there's a blank space where my gender 'should' be. My gender is 'none.'"

... In my work as a sociologist, I had been interviewing asexual individuals. ...
Like Manisha, more than a third of the 77 people I talked to were uncomfortable with defining themselves through the lens of gender. Gender was, as I came to describe it, detached from their sense of self.

[Asche]

This article really struck me because it describes my own attitude towards gender.

[Lori Dee ✅]

This article really struck me because it describes my own attitude towards gender.

Thank you for sharing, Asche!

[Lori Dee ✅]

Also from the above article:

These individuals said they felt that gender was irrelevant, unimportant, pointless and, overall, not a helpful framework for understanding and defining themselves.

I love this.

[Pema]

Thank you, Asche. This is wonderful and also describes very well how I feel about gender.

I loved that line, too, Lori. And this bit as well:

Western societies generally assume that everyone does – and should – have a gender identity. But what people who experience gender detachment show is that the very system of gender categorization is itself a social construct: an idea based on cultural norms rather than in empirical reality. I call this assumption compulsory gender.

Which is very much in line with what I was trying to say here:

"Compulsory heterosexuality, often shortened to comphet, is the theory that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced upon people by a patriarchal, allonormative, and heteronormative society."

Again, I thought, "YES! And this also applies to cisnormativity and just about everything else that society labels 'normal,' rendering all other behaviors aberrant." But very little of it is innate or "natural." We have been actively prevented from pursuing and expressing our true nature by the culture in which we've been raised and forced instead to conform and assimilate to "what has always been" (even though it hasn't).

To me, it all sounds a lot like, "Are you a Shimmerblast fan or a Klotzenhammer fan?" I don't really even understand the question or why it exists. It very literally feels like being forced to play a game that I care nothing about.