On Being Gender-Ambiguous on the Internet

As those of you who have read my rant on gender and sexuality might remember, I identify as genderqueer. In everyday (meatspace) life this isn't always apparent, especially to people who don't know me well, because, lets face it, I don't look very ambiguous. I have long hair and a fairly voluminous chest paired with quite a bit of oomph in the general area of my hips. It's no surprise that, after a look at my distinctly feminine physique, no one and I mean NO ONE bothers to ask how I see myself on the gender front.

Sometimes this bothers me, because I would pretty much sell everything I own for a safe, effective, and lasting (and functional!) way to make my body reflect my inner being accurately, but to my knowledge this sort of thing does not exist and even if it would, everything I own would not be enough. In any case, I can live with people assuming. Everyone assumes a lot about other people, its part of how people work, and though I'd like to change some assumptions really badly (such as 'feminine guys are always gay' and 'all women are emotionally needy') I'm not too bothered about people in real life assuming I'm a woman. Although I'm very open about my identity and I'll happily talk about it to strangers if the subject comes up, I don't feel like explaining the intricacies of gender theory to every random passer-by. It's selfish, but there it is.

The one place I get really enthusiastic about this sort of thing is, as you might've guessed, the internet.

The internet gives me a chance to present myself as gender ambiguous in a way that real life doesn't allow me to. I can choose a picture of me, or of some object, that doesn't directly call to mind either gender, and without the visual cues, I can go out and be myself, knowing that my gender will probably not be apparent. (This provides a secondary benefit: I've noticed that (mostly male) people take me just a slight bit more seriously when they think I'm male, and they don't flirt with me so much. I don't like being flirted with just because I'm female.)

Now, I've been on the internet for a while, sometimes actively presentig as a guy, sometimes as a girl, and lately, I've been leaving the question out in the open a lot. Interestingly, this has only led to MORE attention to my percieved gender with some people. Again, to my experience they are mostly male. They somehow can not fathom that I might be neither male not female, and they badger me time after time because, you know, they just want to know.

"I'm not trying to say anything, but are you a guy or a girl?"
"I'm really sorry for asking, but I'm confused... are you female?"

I wonder why this is so incredibly important for people who I might talk to several times a week, who are not what I'd call close friends by any means, but who've come to know me a little, who know what games I play and what music I like, and what subjects I like to rant about, who might even know about my social 'issues' because I've trusted them enough to tell them. All of this might somehow change because of my gender? Is it that they want to know whether they can see my as a romantic interest? (Regardless of gender, the answer is usually yes.) Is it because they want to know whether they can see me as sexual object? (The answer here is usually no.)

I don't know, but they are very, VERY insistant about it. So insistant that I usually end up telling them that, well, I'm really neither. I'm sort of... genderqueer. This usually prompts th question:

"Well, okay, but what are you, biologically?"

Everyone who's had to do with gender identification that falls outside of the norm will understand how intensely irritating this question is. (Starting with the fact that the term 'biologically' is flawed.) Despite the friendship I've built, they want to know what's in my pants, as if it's an absolutely vital thing to know. With most of my internet friends, it simply is none of their business. What's in my pants, be it a vagina or a penis or a sparkly dildo, is my business, and that of any potential lovers. Of which I have none. So there you have it.

I answer this question with an internal sigh and an explanation that it really doesn't matter and I might very well change it if I could, but yes, I will reluctantly admit that I have ladybits. And please don't treat me any different than before you knew this, I ask them.

Unfortunately, once the pussy is out of the bag (pun completely and utterly intended), things change. Sometimes people try to hit on me, in which case the motivation for asking was probably in wanting to know whether they could see me as a sexual object. Sometimes they ort of stop talking to me much, which could have a lot of different reasons, one of them that I might have given them a bit of a lecture on gender theory. By far the most common thing to happen is that they start calling me nicknames.

Yes, nicknames. And not th sort of mutually approved things I get called all over the interwebs like Silver or Sil or even 'kitteh'. Nope, they start calling me their 'dear' and 'sweets' and 'chicka' and 'sweetheart'. I think it's obvious by the way I bring this up, but I do not appreciate people calling me names like these, especially when we are not close friends. I will allow some people to do this, but it's really the exception to the rule, especially when it comes out of nowhere like this.

I once confronted a guy who did this, and his excuse was that he 'did it to all his women friends'.

I pity his women friends.

In short, don't harrass people about their gender, it often doesn't matter all that much unless maybe you want to get involved in a romantic sense and you want to make sure you're compatible, but even in that case, don't harrass and/or badger people about it. And unless you know me exceptionally well, well enough to know the names of my cats, don't call me your dear. You are allowed to call me your Leather Daddy, though, and if that's too much for you to type, save yourself the effort and stick to Silver.