Non-Binary vs. Agender

One of the people that reads my blog on a regular basis and always makes comments on them, posed a question to in my blog ”Neither Nor”. I’m gonna try my best to provide the answer.

Their question is as follows. (Hey Meredith, would you write sometime about the difference between using the term "non-binary" and using the term "agender"? Agender strikes me as more positive in the sense that it doesn't have to refer to the common binary framing of gender. I'd appreciate hearing your experience or perspective, or what it being used in various places and why.)

So I kinda hit upon this question a little bit in my previous post talking about how when saying the word agender people hear it in a different way. People hear “a gender”. So if I say, “I’m agender” and people think I say, “I’m a gender”. They ask “Well what gender are you?” This does open a dialog of explaining the definition of what ”agender” is. I don’t mind doing this, especially when the person is open to learning.

So the way I explain is that this means I don’t identify with any gender, which means I feel genderless. Most of the time it is left there. But sometimes I get people that go on with more questions like - How is that possible? - Why do you feel that way? My response to both of these questions is, “well exactly how you feel the gender you are.”

I would agree that agender is a more positive word for someone that is the gender I am. However, the reason I use non-binary is because that is a more commonly used term. When the people hear I’m non-binary, their might be someone that knows what that Is and the first question is, “what pronouns do you use?” This doesn‘t open the dialogue of totally having to explain my gender identity and there are places that I don’t want to go into detail. Those places consist of places I feel like people are not willing to learn or there isn’t time to go into detail.

The places that I would use the term agender would be where I know that a majority of people would understand that term. For example younger LGBTQ people, because they are more aware of all the different terms people use to describe their gender identity. Another place I might use the term agender would be if I knew people might be interesting in learning. I will tell you that I have used the term gender neutral to describe my gender as well, this term is also one that makes it easier for the average person to understand my gender identity in more detail. I just default to non-binary because this a term that is becoming used more frequent.

In my opinion I feel lots on people that are non-binary say they are non-binary instead of agender, bigender, gender fluid, and all other terms used, is because non-binary is a term that is used more frequently and will lead to the question of, “well what pronouns do you use?” In most cases. So by getting that question instead of having to explain your gender identity to someone, this makes me feel more validated as a person. I also guess if people that identify as non-binary would start to use the term that describes their gender identity better , that would help people to understand more.

I hope this answered your question. If it made you have more questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to hunt down an answer for you.