how to be gender neutral in a gender orientated world

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even on here there is no option for (prefer not to say) in the gender option. i have a female body but i am gender neutral and also asexual but am attracted to women.

i wear mens baggy tank tops and either baggy shorts or baggy trackies all the time and i have my hair braided back. i can only wear one shoe at the moment but what i do wear is always a boys shoe. i have a high pitched voice so that realy does not help and i tend to squeel when i get exited. since i am in a wheelchair i cant change the way i walk (unless there is a masculine way to use a wheelchair) and i have cerebral palsy so i do weird things with my body sometimes. when i have to carry things i either use pockets or a rucksack/messenger bag or hold them on my lap when in my chair. my mobility scooter has an office chair style seat so i just relax into that when on it and try to look relaxed.

please feel free to say how you manage or struggle to be gender neutral.

You sound pretty similar to me. I find it difficult because people seem to have to fit others into a 'box', either 'male' or 'female'. Sometimes I have been read as male but usually female and it always throws me off. I tend to wear black or blue jeans, combats, t-shirts which could be considered unisex, checked/flannel shirts, leather jacket or other jacket, converse type shoes or Dr. Martens, hats, fingerless gloves. I use a backpack. Unfortunately I also have a high-pitched voice and I think maybe I don't have 'confident'-looking body language or something which doesn't help as people often see me as female. Because of things like that I don't think I can always appear as I'd like to because of trying to compensate for things like that.

That's a struggle for anyone my friend, my girlfriend is bi and I'm straight bordering on neutral. The neutrality just happens on its' own, via pure necessity... I wear the same hippie clothes I did before being neutral meant whatever neutral means over here! >.>

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tanks for replying LookingLost. you sound like you would look pretty convincing as gender neutral. i know how difficult it is to look confident when you dont feel it.

Thanks, you too. I know, do you ever think you might be behaving confidently or something, then someone makes a comment suggesting the opposite?

no. that has not happened to me as i have never felt confident really. but i could imagine it would be upsetting.

I haven't either, but sometimes I try to pretend to be confident or comfortable so that people don't approach me to tell me I look shy or uncomfortable.

i tend to get ignored since i am in a wheelchair and people act like im not there and not let me past so i end up having to force my way through the human road blocks that i come across.

i just keep away from people and i tend to growl at people (i know its weird) and generally act like a wolf.

i just keep away from people as i hate people

That's ridiculous that people act like you're not there. I don't understand why.

Don't suppose growling is that weird, if it keeps people away from you and that's what you want then I guess it does what you wanted. I just make muttering sort of noises that don't really sound like anything.

i guess that works as well haha. you do not realize how anti wheelchair society is until you are in one but you are right i do not want people to be near me but i sometimes end up crushed as people do not care that i am there and i end up having a breakdown/panic attack.

its better when i am on my mobility scooter as people have no excuse not to see me as it is a big road legal thing but it still happens.

how do you cope with going out in public?

Do you know why people act like that? Sorry to hear that the way people treat you makes you have breakdowns/panic attacks.

Do you prefer your wheelchair or your mobility scooter over the other, or use each depending on what you're doing? If that's a stupid question I'm sorry and you don't have to answer.

I suppose it depends on the environment how I cope in public. Sometimes I have breakdowns/panic attacks/meltdowns or something, sometimes I can hold it in and get through whatever I'm doing until I can get time by myself to sort of 'recharge'. I think I find it draining whatever happens though. What about you, aside from what you've already said?

i use my wheelchair if i am with other people and my mobility scooter if i am on my own as where i live it is very hilly so i would get really stuck if i went out on my wheelchair on my own.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Thanks for answering.

Its very annoying x-x I present fairly gender neutral but the fact I wear a purse makes me look female.

I manage to get away with being fairly neutral, depending on who's looking and what preconceptions they might have. I know it's natural for transfolk to be self conscious and paranoid that something is preventing them from "passing" but it seems to me a crazy amount of it is actually about the other person, not you. Some people might just look at your description of your clothing and think "male," because that's the way they believe males dress, and your voice might completely slip by them after they have made that determination and put you in that category in their heads.
With the no options thing, today I was up on my own tiny gender neutral soapbox when I enrolled for a training course, and they had a personal details page with a dropdown menu thing with "male" and "female."
It was a mandatory question and the application would not go through if you didn't answer (which makes no difference anyway, what goes it matter if your students are male or female?) with no other option.
Then there was a compulsory declaration that made you swear you had provided no false information.
Well. I wrote them an email telling them that they had given me no choice but to provide false information, as they had not included an option for me to tell the truth. I am legally and physically not male, nor female. I am legally "unspecified," or on some documents, "X."
If there is legal precedent for people like me, then mainstream training organisations should have the capacity to obey the damn law.

why do people have to be so identified with a gender?
you just are what you are physically and you think how you think genetically, and who cares what "gender" is associated with anything?

i do not think like either a man or a woman, but i do not want to find some description that tells me what i am.
i am too busy being who i am to care about that.