For any sense of community, society, religion or even friendship, you need identifiable similarities. Symbols are a common love for something or reflect a common distaste. But without symbols or indicative signs, how do you make something visible? How does one become friends with the invisible?
Agender refers to a gender orientation where the individual rejects gender, believing themselves to be neither male, nor female, nor a combination thereof. Yet, not all agender individuals express their rejection visibly. Many are just like everyone else around you — silent, quiet, and hiding safely in the loneliest crevices of their mind their true self-expression.
I was born with male genitalia. During the onset of puberty, I hated every bit of masculinity that emerged. I despised my voice for being unable to reach those higher notes. I hated the excessive body and facial hair and loathed my musculature for depriving me of my previously existent flexibility. All my life people have asked me if I was a woman, why I was as girly, and for the most part, I went along with it. I was a queer child. I accepted it even then — I said, “I am lonely, yes. You’re very right. I am girly. And yes, perhaps most of what I do is ‘gay’ as hell.”
Yet, it was only in 2017 that I could come out as an agender individual. The move meant a few things for my friends. They would refer to me by my chosen name, “Q”, and would use “they/them” pronouns while referring to me. Further, it was a request for them to treat me with the benefit of the doubt — that I was still lonely, and still afraid. In private or other not-so-public settings, I loved clothing of all kinds, finding no reason why I shouldn’t. My elder sister and I shared the same foot and shoulder sizes, and I enjoyed helping her shop by trying pairs of heels and other clothing, to save her time. She used to apply nail polish to my nails, and dress me up, and I liked it. Publicly, I was largely a cisgender and heterosexual person.
With time, after coming out, I gradually grew the courage to experiment. A necklace, at first, perhaps a few rings, some nail polish on my feet, every now and then, hidden within my shoes. I shaved each day and felt prettier each time the foam washed away. It was also an intellectual journey, to deconstruct my patriarchal perspectives. I came to accept my body hair — my shaving was, to me, a statement to every non-male body there that body hair was masculine. And I knew I was the embodiment of the fact that it was not. Just look at our movies — the hairy, the disfigured, and the insane are favourite tropes, making things worse for all the sexes, people with disabilities, and those living with mental illness, respectively.
So I exist, as I am. Some days I dress up, saree-clad, expression ultimate. Other days I’m in a shirt and jeans, unshaven, and as masculine-projecting as ever. Yet, I ask the world to not see me as male or female, but as Q. As I am. As weak, as emotional, as strong, as rational, as sexual, as lazy, as sensitive, and as absurd.
Being agender falls under the non-binary and transgender umbrellas. Yet, I am privileged. I have been a ‘man’ for the most part of my life, and I still, to a large extent, enjoy male privileges. My masculinity has been toxic (as has been my femininity). And unlike me, who possesses the ability to do this, many thousands and millions do not. To many genderqueer individuals, gender expression is not a choice. It is how they are. Even after the thousands of middle-class and upper-class folks celebrated the reading down of Section 377 (#NeverGoBack), thousands of transgender individuals are harassed by the police on the streets, sexually abused in police stations, humiliated and broken. I have the privilege they never will. I accept the responsibility for the conscious and unconscious crimes of my masculinity.
Since the time I came out, I have thought of how one must deconstruct their preconceived gendered notions. How to, that is, un-gender our life while being mindful of gendered violence, direct and symbolic. Relationships, intimate spaces and how do we un-gender the rituals we have built around love, sex, and abuse? What if the submissive partner was the one on top?
Being agender is an experiment, also including viewing others as un-gendered bodies. In a crowd, while I used to see men and women, now I attempt to see just human beings. I attempt to love and lust for them all, equally. Since the time I came out, I’ve experienced two things at the core of my queer identity — loneliness, and a need to defend every element of my being.
Online dating sites give me the ability to project both of this. I am lonely, socially awkward, and hence write and type better than I speak. With online dating, I need not defend myself as people view me. I can project myself as who I wish to be. I can smile my brightest, take my pictures as I wish to be seen, and be a whole new person — all while being myself more than I’ve ever been.
Does that usually work out? No, it does not. Our country has a long way to go. People still look for classist patriarchal ideas of beauty. Dark skin, curly hair, body fat, and anything except the size-zero woman, or the muscular, masculine man is unattractive. ‘Weirdness’ is not a positive trait. The lonely are weird…are queer.
But I get to try, which is more than most do, with age. I can wish and hope for conversations where the person on the other end is chatting with the person I always wanted to be. I can be uninhibited, knowing that every left swipe is a possibility — not always for romance, sometimes it’s much more…un-complicated than that.
As an agender person, I wish to be exceptional, but also normal. I want to be exceptional for my being, not for my gender, or lack thereof. I inhabit the realm of abstraction and complexity, but through my words, through text, I am the simplest person you’ll ever meet, the happiest, and one who is at peace with cruel society, as it currently is. Through text, I am a possibility. A wish.