The difference between being Agender and feeling disconnected

I've noticed that there are quite a lot of people here that identify as agender combined with trans and truthfully it makes me uncomfortable. The reason being that before I recognized that I was trans, I identified as agender and I know how easy it is to confuse the disconnect caused by gender dysphoria with being agender. Seeing being disconnected as a primary part of our gender identity is incredibly harmful as it impends on our ability to fully accept ourselves for who we are and hurts our ability to construct a stable gender identity. I'll try to explain what it means to be disconnected by relating my own story.

Looking back, I never felt male yet I also didn't identify as female until only recently. Instead I felt as if there was only emptiness when I tried to think of gender, a void that made it hard to focus on the idea and my mind rejected the thought of having a gender. I was unaware of the changes that were going on around me with regards to gender, not really knowing how puberty effected both boys and girls, everything felt distant and weird and I struggled to even focus on my reflection in the mirror. Before puberty, I seemed to be more aware of the existence of gender, I prayed to wake up as female after all yet something changed once my body started to change and I started to feel lost. When I was 15.5 I had cancer and the disconnect that was growing since I was 12 became complete. I escaped and hid from the world, numbing my mind through video games and feeling as if I didn't belong among others. At 25 I wrote a poem about walking among people and feeling alone and asking if they saw the darkness that lies inside of me, it ended on a seemingly positive note that I escaped the crowd and sat on the grass with nature all around me, however the last words made it negative again: "Yet the darkness still remains". This is a theme in my writing over the years, being lost in the darkness and being unable to find my way out. However, I never felt depressed, there was no deep sadness that made everything negative. Instead, it was a feeling of emptiness that made it hard for me to see myself as anything, I couldn't connect myself to sexuality, I couldn't see myself as a parent or as a romantic partner, I couldn't imagine myself working or going out and being social, friends never had meaning to me and my reflection felt distant because I was disconnected.

During all this time I had no gender as a result of this disconnect, for 20 years since I was 15 masculinity and femininity were vague concepts that held little meaning to me. I was agender to all intents and purpose, even now, most days I don't feel as if I am female and it is a constant struggle for me to not escape into the void... yet, during those moments that I do feel female, when the dysphoria lifts for a short while, I feel a surge of life flow through my body and the world fills with color. I feel connected to the world and to my emotions and life has meaning.

The disconnect that I feel is fairly extreme because of the severe childhood trauma but most people who are trans feel it to some extent because of how hard it is to cope with gender dysphoria. The disconnect seems to be a coping mechanism and it protects us from experiencing the true horror of being in a body that is wrong. It protects us from depression by numbing us and from the intense discomfort caused by gender dysphoria. It more importantly allows us to survive without a real identity, it makes us a sort of spirit and we start feeling like we are seperate from others, observing them and seeing the world through multiple different perspectives. For a long time I viewed my open mindedness as a gift, failing to realize that it comes at a huge cost, that people need to have stable perspectives to become intimate with each other and feel in control of their lives and truly alive.

You can't have both worlds, being disconnected is the opposite of having an identity and you will never be able to feel truly alive as long as you hang on to the thought that the disconnect is a part of who you are. I am 34 and I lived most of my life in a void, feeling a terrible emptiness that I saw as inseperable from who I am, this is not a life that anyone should ever want, so please be very careful about not recognizing the disconnect for what it is, about seeing yourself as inherently genderless when you are not. Don't embrace the darkness and emptiness, instead, embrace life and the beautiful person you really are deep inside.

(&&&)

Yael

 

I originally wrote the post with a friend in mind who I was worried about because they were struggling with the issue that I wrote about here and I believed it was stopping them from moving forward, they later on really did accept that they were trans.

What I wrote was really for those who connected with my story and saw themselves within it. I also believe it can be helpful to people who are agender as it can help them understand how trans people can use the agender label as a transition label and from where the need to use the label comes from. In the end, we are here to support each other and help each other come to terms with who we are inside and hopefully this thread did help a few people understand themselves better. (*hug*)

The sad thing is that 8 months later, I am still struggling to remain connected and it still hurts as it did at the time. It can be so hard to hold on to that spark of life when you' ve lived your life in the shadows. Every day that passes, I feel more distant and numb and it becomes a tiny bit harder to remind myself who I am, to remember how it feels to be alive and see the world in color. When you so rarely connect, the idea that you are really trans becomes so much harder to hold on to. I have no real way to express who I am right now, nothing to help me reinforce my identity and I am so frightened that I will eventually fall back into the void and never find my way out again.

This is a side of being trans that people don' t really talk about much, it can make it harder to accept ourselves as trans when our gender is veiled by the abyss created by our own minds to protect ourselves.

Thank you Ayase and Alder, it does help to know that someone found meaning in my words and found my post helpful. Truthfully, these are the sort of replies that help keep me going and writing here. So again, thank you. (*hug*)

Eveline