Gender Neutral/Genderqueer/Intersex

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I found it somewhat awkward when registering for this site, there was only a "Male" and "Female" option for gender. Most websites I've registered for had a "Other" or "Nondisclosed" or some third option. I picked male because I was raised male, but I don't actually identify as such.

for a long time now I've actually identified as gender neutral. I don't really feel comfortable drifting too far into either gender presentation. So I've found something of a happy medium and generally strangers aren't sure how to identify me (I get ma'amed almost as frequently as I get "sired").

Learned not too long ago that i was actually born with an intersex condition. Didn't really change much but a lot of things make sense that didn't used to.

I've heard that gender nonconformity is somewhat common among people with autism spectrum disorders, I was wondering if there was anyone else with similar experiences.

I didn't find it strange but now that you mention it I guess maybe the site should have other options or let you put what you want. About the intersex thing one thing I get a lot is people asking me if I am gay. Or asuming I am. I don't consider myself feminine but I am articulate and not into sports. Also I am not heavy handed with people or overly macho. People have often told me I remind them of SHeldon from the show Big Bang Theory and that they think he is gay. I swear this whole perceiving me as gay (which I don't even believe is a black and white objective thing) has followed me around since middle school.However I'm used to it now. If someone asks if I am gay I might as well say ok sure. I mean It's not like I'm having sex anyway

I don't watch Big Bang Theory (or tv in general) but I think the actor that plays that character is actually gay, so i can see where people might get that perception.

Also to clarify intersex is a physical biological condition rather than a state of mind.

Yeah, I stick with "undisclosed" generally, but not so much because I care about disclosing as because of not identifying with gender. (I'm genderless and in my worldview gender doesn't exist at all period - I know that to other people gender does exist, but in mine it doesn't and no matter how much I know it exists to others I cannot figure out how it exists to them, it doesn't exist to me.) But I don't like putting "other" because that makes a bigger deal about it than I want to.

Yeah it's the same for me. I don't really see gender in other people, or it's usually not their first identifiable trait. I don't make assumptions about someones gender identity and avoid using pronouns until people make it clear what they prefer.

I think it is true that autistic people have a bigger tendency to cross the gender boundaries, my therapists and autism expert says so any way. I just took male on my profile because i really don't care much about a few letters but definitely would have picked "other" if i could as i don't really identify as one or the other. But lately i been able to incorporate my feelings into dressing androgynous and its good.

I marked down female but would have chosen other if it were available. Basically because I physically transitioned in the past ... so if gender were actually a binary (how boring!) I know what end I definitely would not want to be at.

I'm gender queer (agendered) but just went with my biological sex just for the sake of putting something in

I'm glad you posted this, because I feel exactly the same. It's hard describing myself to people who still live in a binary defined world. I've slowly come out on Facebook through the things I post about, so I think people do know I'm not a typical man, but it's still a struggle.

Also, I get perceived as gay a lot, even at times where I'm dressed really masculine. This seems to be mostly exclusive for males as well. It takes a lot for a woman to have her sexuality questioned, but very little for a guy.

I consider myself genderqueer, and don't appreciate having to lie by checking a M/F checkbox.

I am surprised boards even ask for it really as about the only thing that matters on the net is pronoun usage. If someone wants to present themselves as another gender on the net they can do it quite easily so it is basically something we inherited from state IDs (although I never could figure out why they thought it was useful info either). I use Second Life quite a bit and it is not even on your profile, although you are free to add it to the free-text fields if you want. Maybe it is the circles I am in, but I have yet to encounter someone who was not obviously one of the 2 major genders annoyed when people did not know how to refer to them by.

When talking to a doctor at a Gender Identity Clinic, he told me that they deal with way more people with an ASD than most other bits of the NHS. About 10x as many, he said. I thought that was really interesting.

I'm nonbinary, and the Male/Female bit on the sign-up form was totally unhelpful for me too. I left it at the default, but I wish there had been a nonbinary option.

Interesting that would happen at a Gender Identity Clinic. They should be the first ones to realise the issues.

Oh sorry, those two paragraphs were two separate issues but I wasn't very obvious about it. The paragraph about the Male/Female form was referring to the sign-up form here on WrongPlanet.net, not the GIC.

The GIC are actually really good. They have neutral bathrooms, and they don't use titles or pronouns in their letters. My report from the last doctor did have a load of gendered pronouns in it after I told him very clearly that I was a "they" and not a "he" or a "she" though. Grrr.

Doh! I should have caught that. Jumping in logic like that seems natural to me and I completely missed it when someone else did it.

It is not like it would be impossible to implement. Other sites do it (even leaving a free-text field for it and/or adding specialized fields) and they seem to be running the same software.

Here in DC gender neutral bathrooms are required by law so they are pretty common. Of course a lot of places still segregate them but doing so is illegal.

Physicians, out of it being directly relevant, are thinking in terms of biological sex rather than gender. They also often have superiority complexes. Combine the two and it is pretty easy for them to use the wrong pronouns. Not that it makes it right, but that is a common mentality there.

Wow! Nice one, DC! You are so right about the doctors. *sigh*