Agender

'Agender' is a self-chosen label indicating that someone experiences the personal sense of 'gender' as absent or inapplicable. The Greek prefix 'a-' means 'without'. Agender is generally placed under the broader umbrella of non-binary, although some people who use the label prefer to see themselves as 'outside' the entire gender framework.

What does it mean?

People who describe themselves as agender characterise their experience as 'genderlessness' or as constant neutrality. For some, it means the complete absence of any sense of masculinity or femininity; for others, indifference towards the concept of gender as a whole. The experience is subjective by definition and cannot be measured objectively.

A critical observation: agender is sometimes presented as an 'identity', while in practice it is more a rejection of the concept of gender identity itself. Someone who says 'I have no gender' is, in a sense, asserting exactly what most people historically believed — namely that 'inner gender' is not an independent characteristic. That is an interesting starting point, while at the same time undermining the assumption that everyone has such an inner gender.

Distinctions and overlap

Agender is sometimes used as a synonym for gender-neutral or neutrois, but the terms do not exactly overlap. Neutrois emphasises a 'neutral' physical presentation; agender describes more specifically the absence of an inner sense of gender. Related terms include aporagender and maverique, which describe an autonomous sense of gender separate from male and female. Precisely what someone means by agender depends heavily on the individual. There is no clinical definition.

Social and practical aspects

In most social and institutional contexts, people are assumed to be male or female — which is generally accurate in factual terms, because biological sex is binary. For people who describe themselves as agender, this can feel uncomfortable. The 2014 Transgender Act does not provide for 'genderless' registration. Some agender people leave their registration unchanged because none of the available options corresponds to their experience.

The legal dossier on the Transgender Act and self-identification can be found at zelfidentificatie.nl.

Critical perspectives

Whether the 'absence of gender' is itself an identity is conceptually debatable. Feminist and gender-critical thinkers point out that many people — throughout history — have never experienced themselves as particularly 'gendered'; presenting this now as a rare label suggests that the label primarily operates within a specific contemporary discourse. This does not deny that the experience is real for the person themselves, but it does put into perspective the claim that it constitutes a separate category within 'the gender spectrum'. For those who do not feel a gender and wonder what is going on, a straightforward explanation can be found at transgendercheck.nl.