95 Dudeisms

Since the strike(s) started, I have applied to easily 500+ jobs. From long-shot VP positions to a 3-week remote gig for a local house in Omaha, and everything in between.

All of them — I think it’s a federal requirement? — have a section where they ask for your gender. Most of them have 3 answers to choose from: “Male”, “Female”, and some form of “Other”/”Non-Binary”/”Prefer Not To Say”. Some of them even have a much longer list of options, trying to cover the wide variety of ways people have chosen to label their particular expression of gender (or lack therof).

And over 500 times, I marked the box labeld “Male”. And over 500 times, the first thought that crossed my mind was, “That answer is not giving you the information you think it is.” When they see “Male” on the application, it gives a wide but finite number of options for what kind of person that could be.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to people who know me that very few — and often none — of those possible definitions of “Male” apply to me. Checking the box marked “Male” isn’t just wrong: it might be an active lie, giving the people on the other end a specifically incorrect impression of who I am and what kind of person I strive to be.

But what to do? I’ve been thinking about this, to lesser and greater extents, for the better part of the last 25 years. I’m definitely not “Female”. I’m also not trans, neither -vestite nor -sexual. (Though I do prefer a colorful, soft, flowing, comfortable shirt over something like an Izod polo, but to me that’s not a question of gender, it’s about how much you love/hate yourself. And/or how messy whatever you’re eating is.)

And maybe it’s just me — well, I know it’s definitely at least me, but I don’t know how myopic I am on this — but the most common association with Non-Binary is something androgenous. As though the venn diagram between Non-Binary and A-Gender is a circle. Bald people who might be a really effemenite boy or really masculine girl, but you’ll never know which.

And that’s not me either. Not to get to graphic, but I’m very happy with the gendered hardware I have, including all of the emotional/physiological/sexual drives that arise from it. Non-gendered hardware is a different story, I’d trade in my shitty back and broken knees for off-market prosthetics in a heartbeat. But all the stuff that is typically associated with physical gender differentiators: I’ve been very happy with the stock equipment. I have no desire to actively run away from any of my primary physical characteristics, whether they are traditionally feminine (long hair, a permentantly-limp wrist) or masculine (my beard, broad shoulders, hairy chest, hairy arms, hairy legs, hairy back, hairy shoulders, oh dear god so much fucking hair everywhere).

So androgeny and/or a-gender is as much a non-option for me as is identifying as Female.

And then, finally, my emotions and sense of self finally caught up with my actual words.

For a long time now, I’ve been trying to preach — within my limited sphere of inflence, and within my limited life experiences — that we’re only at the very beginning of what’s going to be a much larger sea change in so far as how people identify themselves, both to themselves and to others.

Is it a better world where you have three options for gender identification — Male, Female, and Non-Binary — than two? Yes, of course. But it’s still all grounded in the same linear framework. We’ve just replaced a Binary with a Trinary. And if we add another option, say Pan-Gendered, then that’s more options, and it’s better, but it’s still just replacing a Trinay with a Quadrinary.

We are still forced into defining ourselves in relation to a limited number of “default, pre-defined templates”. Doesn’t matter if there are two or three or twenty or fifty. We’re still expected to define ourselves in comparison to some abstract ideal of a specifically-defined way of living.

And people, once you strip away the programming, are not preselected from a limited number of options.

Are there days where I feel more of my lived experience is associated with things that traditionally have a Male-gendered component to their definition? Yes. Do I feel there are days where more of my lived experience is associated with things that traditionally have a Female-gendered component to their definition? Yes, absolutely.

Do I feel that the majority of my lived experiences every day are not connected to nor — and should not be — defined in any way by a traditionally-gendered component? Turns out, very much yes. At least by any current definition of Male or Female that I’m aware of right now.

I will take a moment to say that having pre-existing guideposts visible and usable to orient yourself in the chaos that is life is essential, and life-saving. Every single person who ever lived shouldn’t have to re-invent the gender and sexuality wheel from scratch. But here’s the “but”: like any other outside structure in life, if you cling to those guideposts and markers as both life-vests and anchors, and define yourself and everyone else by their relation to your claimed-place…you will have a limited and skewed view of the wonders that unlimited reality has to offer, and will live a limited life as a result.

We’re supposed to use those guideposts and markers as aides to help us navigate through the endless Here and Now.

I’ve got a lot more to say on this, but it’s time for a tldr;

Some of my lived experiences line up with what would traditionally be defined as Male. Some line up with Female. That vast majority do not align with either of them.

And so this isn’t so much me stepping out and living my “true” life, though I hope to find more truth now that I’m casting off these gender-specific labels. I’m not changing my physical appearance, any more than I normally would, nor am I planning to change how I act, neither in broad strokes nor in moment-to-moment actions.

It’s just that “Male” does not accurately describe any of that, so I’m not using it anymore.

So hello. My name is Matt. I am neither Male nor Female; I am Non-Binary. I have no idea what that means, except what it means I’m not. I hope to figure that out for myself now.