I grew up in a very conservative, almost fundamental or fundamental adjacent, Christian setting and I honestly did not know until recently that things like being asexual and agender existed. It feels so weird to be working all this out at age 41 - not bad,but very weird. It has taken years to unindoctrinate myself and escape all the lies I was raised on. I definitely wish I had known about the entire lgbtq spectrum far sooner. I am quite confident in the fact that I am a queer platonic asexual, but I could use feedback on if I could belong here/fit as agender.

Gender has always seemed like an arbitrary social construct and just another way for people to categorize each other at a glance. I mean, the traits assigned to gender vary across time and societies, proving it’s not some universal truth. I think biological sex exists as far as DNA, but it’s not a binary factor and only plays a role in the basics of biology like organs likely to be present at birth and certain medical/disease predispositions. But my being autistic often leaves me feeling as if much of society and the “unspoken” social rules make no sense.

Growing up I knew I definitely did not identify as male, so I figured female was my only other choice even though it didn’t fit either. I pretty much just ignored the standard societal pressure to be “feminine” and did my own thing. Within the religious setting, that alone was fairly scandalous at times.

My confusion comes from the fact that I present as a fairly typical, if “tomboyish”, female and that I have no real desire to adjust that. It’s kind of just what’s familiar after so long and honestly I detest change (autistic, OCD spectrum disorder). Plus it’s honestly just easier for me, as awful as that sounds, to not change my presentation given the conservative area where I live (small Midwestern city with more Trump flags than I can even estimate).

You guys must get asked things like this all the time, I apologize. I’m just not even sure where to go to learn more. And I apologize for writing a novella here!