I have a strange relationship with gender, you know? Yeah, you probably know.

One time, my friend briefly mentioned that she views me more as a man. I wouldn't say it made me euphoric, but it did make me feel slightly happier, kind of like a cloudy spring day. And for a while I was wondering what the cause of that might have been.

Is it because I am technically transmasc? But that couldn't be it - my gender identity is outside the binary and I don't want to be viewed as man or woman (at least I think so). I never felt particularly thrilled being recognized as enby either. I kept wondering what was going on, since I can't just walk away from this dilemna without trying to rationalize my feelings.

I think I finally found the answer. The key to it lies in my fascination with robots and the ways they explore gender.

In media, I often come across robots, machines, and AI that technically don't have a gender, but get gendered anyway. For example, FORMAT from MINDHACK (my favorite indie game by the way). The game is originally in Japanese, so translating it into English required a lot of communication between the developers and the English translator, Makiko Iwasaki. In one of the blogs detailing the translation process, Iwasaki-san stated that the main reason other characters use she/her for FORMAT is her feminine voice (she also has a somewhat motherly personality). FORMAT is, factually, genderless; but the people around her view her as female through associations with the human concept of gender.

There are also cases of robots choosing their gender or conforming to the one assigned to them. Either way, fictional robots can have very different views on this inherently human concept: they may adapt to it, accept it, or reject it.

Firstly, I relate to feeling like an outsider to gender. I don't feel like it's an idea that is inherent to me like it is to some other humans. This is a somewhat common experience for enby and especially agender folks, I think? The more I live, the more I realize that agender is probably the best label for my identity, haha. I never really vibed with actual transgender characters as much as I did with robots (or aliens and monsters in some cases).

But let's get back to the topic. This made me think: maybe I want to have this kind of gender experience as well? What if instead being a person with concrete gender and pronouns, I want other people to just use whatever pronouns they thought fit me?

Unfortunately, I live in a human body that signals to others that I am biologically female. People call me 'she' because I look like one (though I do get mistaken for a guy occasionally), and they automatically view me as female in sex and gender. If I were a robot (or generally nonhuman), even if I looked feminine, people would use she/her not because I am an actual girl, but because I remind them of one.

I wish to live in a world where instead of literally being a girl, a guy, or something else, I just reminded people of one, and that would be the reason people assume I am a 'she' or a 'he' or a 'they'. I wish people would know, deep down, that I am genderless, and that they would use gendered pronouns for me out of convenience. Does this make any sense? Is this anything?

And I know that this wish can't be fulfilled... For now, at least. We'll see if transferring my consciousness in a machine becomes an option before I die. I speculate that if technology ever advanced to this point, this kind of procedure would only be available to super rich people anyway.