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Agender

'Agender' is a self-chosen label indicating that someone experiences the personal sense of 'gender' as absent or not applicable. The Greek prefix 'a-' means 'without'. Agender is generally placed under the broader heading non-binary, although some who use the label prefer to see themselves as 'outside' the entire gender schema.

What is meant by it?

People who call themselves agender describe their experience as 'genderlessness' or as constant neutrality. For one person it concerns a total absence of any sense of masculinity or femininity; for another, indifference to the entire concept of gender. The experience is by definition subjective and not objectively measurable.

A critical observation: agender is sometimes presented as an 'identity', whereas it is in fact rather a rejection of the very concept of gender identity. Someone who says 'I have no gender' is in a sense claiming precisely what most people historically thought – namely, that 'inner gender' is not a separate property. That is an interesting starting point, and it simultaneously undermines the assumption that everyone has such an inner gender.

Distinction and overlap

Agender is sometimes used as a synonym for gender-neutral or neutrois, but the terms do not coincide exactly. Neutrois emphasises a 'neutral' bodily presentation; agender describes more the absence of an inner gender feeling. Related too are aporagender and maverique, which describe an autonomous gender feeling distinct from male/female. What someone precisely means by agender depends strongly on the person. There is no clinical definition.

Social and practical aspects

In most social and institutional contexts it is assumed that people are male or female – which, factually, is usually correct, because bodily sex is binary. For people who describe themselves as agender, this can feel uncomfortable. The Transgender Law of 2023 does not provide for a 'genderless' registration. Some agender people leave their registration as it is because none of the available options matches their experience.

Critical perspectives

Whether 'absence of gender' is in itself an identity is a conceptually debatable point. Feminist and gender-critical thinkers point out that many people – throughout the ages – have never experienced themselves as particularly 'gendered'; that this is now presented as a rare label suggests that the label functions chiefly within a specific contemporary discourse. That does not deny that the experience is real for the person themselves, but it does qualify the claim that this is a separate category within 'the gender spectrum'.