Agender and Society

Agender and Society Jack Dallessio

Gender is everywhere you look. Every store has sections for the two genders. Men to the right, women to the left. Blue is the color for men, and pink is the color for women. Society makes the idea of gender very cut and dry. In modern American society, there are two genders, male and female. In some places, people who are Transgender are shamed, but after their change they are supposed to fit into the stereotypical role of the gender they switched into. If they don’t fit in, they are considered outcasts. In some southern states, law requires transgender people to use restrooms according to their gender assigned at birth, and not their current gender.

Agender people are often excluded from society. Being agender means that a person is without a gender, much like being asexual, which is being without sexuality. It is defined as “denoting or relating to a person who does not identify themselves as having a particular gender.” People who are agender often, but not always, take gender neutral pronounces, such as they/them. They often identify more as a person, rather than a single gender. Dr. Chapman, a psychiatrist at the Children's Health Genecis Program in Dallas, says this about agendered youth: “There’s a lot of overlap in the terminology. Agender typically means being genderless, without a gender identity or gender neutral… A person who is agender sees themselves as neither man nor woman, has no gender identity, or no gender to express. This is an example of someone who may also identify as genderqueer or non-binary. Similar terms to agender include genderless, gender neutral, and neutrois.”

Agender people are the spectrum of genders. Most are assigned a gender at birth, and later in life begin to identify as agender. Some people face scrutiny for coming out, especially in deeply fundamental religious areas. People face persecution from their school, their family, and religious organizations once they come out. They could be publicly shamed or even thrown out of the house. When this happens, the children have nowhere to go.

Agender people often identify with other labels as well as agender. These labels can’t be other genders such as Gender Queer or Gender non-binary. Other synonyms for agender are genderblank, genderfree, genderless, gendervoid, non-gendered, and null gender. There is a wide spectrum of genders that agender people can also take. Being agender doesn’t necessarily mean being asexual as well. While some agender people are asexual, some also have sexual relationships with other people

There’s a lot to fix in today’s society regarding gender. We should make gender neutral bathrooms commonplace. We should open up all occupations to any sex, including the promotion of gender neutral and women’s sports. We should remove taxes on women’s health products, because they are necessary for women. All of this needs to be done with a mindset that there are more than 2 genders, and that we must respect what people identify as.

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Sojwal, Senti. "What Does "Agender" Mean? 6 Things To Know About People With Non-Binary Identities." Bustle. Bustle, 16 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Jan. 2017. <https://www.bustle.com/articles/109255-what-does-agender-mean-6-things-to-know-about-people-with-non-binary-identities>.

Agender." Agender - Nonbinary.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017. <http://nonbinary.org/wiki/Agender>.

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Agender and Society Jack Dallessio

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