Sometimes, I feel like an impostor. A poser. To the world, I am a male. I have the parts in working condition. I must be male.

          Am I male?

          Am I?

          I must be, otherwise… “What are you, freak?!” The demons that dwell in my head scream at me.

          “You can’t not have a gender!”

          “What are you, an idiot?”

          “If you look like a he, you’re a he. Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

          I somehow always manage to pull myself out of this train of thought. I don’t know how I do it.

          There’s this weird incongruity betwixt how I see me and how society sees me. Excluding a few close friends and others online due to wonderful internet anonymity, I am not “out” as agender. It’s the same thing with my asexuality. How can you describe the feeling of lacking an attribute that nearly all the world shares. How do I explain how I don’t have a gender. Will I get acceptance or outright denial of such a claim? Does it matter?

          I’ve been thinking a lot about gender recently, or more specifically, my lack thereof. I think about how I use the facade of a male for every day-to-day life. It’s not that I’m comfortable in my body, nor am I uncomfortable. It’s just… detached. This feeling has plagued my thoughts. I thought it was abnormal. Well, in a sense, it is. If I were to use the term “abnormal” to mean not-widespread, then it would be. But that doesn’t, or rather shouldn’t matter to me. Should it?

          Playing the mask of male isn’t the only way I think I’m an impostor. I’m also not agender. I can’t be. I must merely be pretending. How can I know what I don’t have?

          The second-guessing, it’s evident in my writing. You could see it in my thoughts if you could read my mind. One thing that has really helped placate me was developing my own model of understanding gender. I even made a video on it. Here, I’ll quote a relevant part: “There would also be a condition of a ‘lack of agreement or disagreement,’ or general apathy, this is how I view my agenderism (though some agender individuals may view this in alternate ways, you get the basic gist).”

          I guess it’s the writing that helped. There’s something about articulating my thoughts that I find comforting. Hey look, it’s happening right now!

          Is it weird that I don’t know what I’m supposed to be writing? I wanted to write about how I feel like an impostor in some sort of “doublethink” kind of way. I guess I veered off-track. I started writing about my inner thoughts and feelings and now I’m writing about how I’m writing about my inner thoughts and feelings. That can really throw someone off, that level of meta. Hmm… should I write about some personal experiences now?

          Alright, let’s see. I really only started to figure out that I was agender after I started to get to the root of what gender is. Ideas festered in my mind and I made an entire YouTube video based on that. It was a weird attempt at reconciling the ideas of social constructivism, performativism, and innateness.

          If I believed gender was nothing but a social construct, doesn’t that mean everyone would technically be agender? That’s a point I was at for some time. That caused a lot of issues as well. I didn’t know what I was. Some sort of thing?

          Y’know, I’ve noticed a weird trend in my writing. I absolutely love italics. See, I did it again?!

          As I’m writing this out on my computer, my word processor keeps wanting to correct the term “agender” to “gender.” Literally converting a word to its antonym.

          At some point, recently, I had commented that I was the four a’s. Asexual. Aromantic. Atheist. Agender. Another way that I find myself second-guessing myself. I think that I might like identifying with things that I’m not. Is my agenderism a phase? Am I caught up in some leftist conspiracy to destroy gender, obliterate Western civilization, and turn the FRICKIN’ FROGS GAY?!

          Probably. Do I care? No. Something else that has been common with me recently, apathy. It comes in waves of lethargy, I just don’t care. Is that normal? Again, do I care? No.

          I’ve noticed that I’m struggling to stick to the topic of agenderism. It does seem a bit difficult to write about one’s lack of a gender identity, to be honest.  Maybe I’ll touch up on one more topic before I leave.

          Toxic masculinity. How am I still affected by it? I guess years of conditioning don’t just evaporate once you realize a truth about yourself.

          I really should be wrapping up now, I borrowed some books from the library and need to finish them up before I return them.

"Once upon a time..."

by (Grappling Hooks)

Note: This entry is a spiritual continuation of "An Impostor."

Once upon a time there was a little child who thought too much. All day, the child would think. The child's parents didn't like that. They were concerned for their child. How was their child to grow up, get a steady job, get married, and carry on the family name if the child were to think all day? The child's peers were not fond of the child as well. They were cruel to the child. They taunted and teased. The minor annoyances that children inflict upon others. The child went to school as well. The child's school teachers did not like the child either. To them, the child was a danger. A disruption. The child was defiant of their authority, contradicted them.

The child really did think too much.

The child thought this too. Day and night, in waking hour and sleep, thoughts were the plague of the child's mind. Thoughts beginning with "Why?" and "How?" The child knew this was not normal. The child was aware of their abnormalities in other ways as well. For instance, the child never seemed to be interested in matters of love. This was no concern for the child at merely six years of age, but, as time passed, it started to become noticeable as they entered adolescence.

Just as well, the child realized something else: the child did not like pink or blue. Did not fit the divide. The child was pushed to one side, the side befitting what was between the child's legs. Forced and shackled to a color, the child grew sad. The child grew detached. The child went quietly, putting on an act of blue. The act was so good, the child even fooled themself. Years later, the child saw through their own lies. The child is not happy, but the child knows. The child knows that they stand apart from ideas of blue or pink entirely. The child knows, and that is enough.