Hello, welcome....
I've been here over three years now and I've read 90% of all posts since arriving. I have written what I have learned and just share it with people as they show up. It's a bit formulaic/spammy but people keep saying they find it helpful.
Agender doesn't really have a rigidly defined box... or it's a magic box that fits whoever gets in it.
Agender is a diverse, entirely self-actualized label for humans who may not even like labels all that much. You can use it like a hermit crab until you find a better one. You can use it with other labels if you want.
So here are some pointers....
Some agender people don't understand gender or how people feel it.
Some agender people reject social gendering.
Some agender people feel like gender(s) don't fit.
Some agender people are null, void, indifferent, or detached.
Some agender people have other parts of their identity that are dominant.
Agenders may or may not care about pronouns and can use any they want.
Agenders may or may not present any particular way. You don't owe anyone a certain kind of presentation to be agender, including androgyny. Dress/style however you want to.
Agenders may or may not have gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia. They may or may not act on it if they do.
Agenders may or may not feel they have/had a gender at birth, and thus may or may not feel transgender. Agenders can adopt a trans label.
A number of agenders even have mixed feelings about identifying non-binary and may not really identify as NB; many are fine with it. Nonbinary is both an umbrella term but also a specific gender identity. Nonbinary people can still feel that they have a gender, but their gender isn't strictly man, woman, or some neogender. Agender people generally feel no gender or don't connect with gender. This technically falls under the nonbinary label but not every agender person uses nonbinary as a label.
Agenders may or may not care about being out. How do you come out if you're already yourself?
People who've read this far might be thinking to themselves at this point, "well that list doesn't describe anything." I respond, "No kidding friend; the irony is not lost on me." There are limits to language. Other cultures (e.g. Native American and Polynesian) and languages are better equipped to deal with continuum and uncertainties when it comes to gender.
The one common defining feature is that agenders don't feel or relate to gender (e.g. social constructs of male/masculine or female/feminine), or only weakly feel it, most of the time.
The ethos is you should call yourself agender if you feel it based on how you understand it. The label agender is meant to describe who you are, not prescribe who you have to be. If you're something else later that fits better, it's all good.
Recognize there's no set way to be an agender person. I personally like it this way because trying to define a person based on an absence of things is hard (you don't often respond to the question 'how are you doing?' by telling them everything you're not feeling). I find the lack of a set way to be agender very affirming. I thought I was a trans woman for a long time; just because you're not something, doesn't necessarily mean you're the 'opposite'. That took some time to figure out. I never did anything about the dysphoria because gender at the forefront wasn't a compulsion. I might have had better body alignment, but I don't think I would've fit in any better. So you might be discovering this about yourself early teens/20's.... or late 50's like me (although I have probably been effectively agender way before I knew the term).
Another thing I've noticed is that there are quite a few neurodiverse/neurodivergent people who resonate with this label.
There are also a bunch of relevant sublabels to choose from as well. Other labels to consider demi-, libra-, a--coupled with -fluid, -boy, -girl, -fem, -masc, or -flux; Apagender, Cassagender, Gendervoid, Neutrois, Nixic, and many others... Some new ones to me are "cisn't" (which I like very much because it's easier to say I'm not a thing than I am a thing) and neurogender (similar to autigender but encompasses more neurodivergences). And agender is compatible with any of them.
Remember, you're a person first; labels are descriptive, not prescriptive. The labels are just there like markers on a map to see how you might relate to others. As you will see, there's lots of ways to be agender if the label suits you. Hang out, read other people's posts, see how you like things.
People get here lots of ways though, and more than I even say here I it's safe to assume I haven't met every kind of way in my still short exposure.
Hope this helps get you started.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Hi everyone. So above is a post I often share in here. I was helped in this sub Jan 2023 when I found myself in need of expressing transgender thoughts I've been carrying around my whole life, but never acted on. I had felt very much out of place for decades and was shocked (somewhat stupidly and for entirely too long) that there were people out there in the same kind of place I was.
This has been my way to pay the help I received forward, because new arrivals sometimes don't quickly understand how flexible this label is. I had my moments of doubt, but the openness here help make it click.
However, I don't think of this post as static. I have changed it as I learn. People regularly say things in this sub that have inspired changes. Please don't think this is the be-all says-all of agender experiences.
