On the term cis-genderless

Versión en español

Note: I distinguish the biological sex from the psychosocial gender.

I have recently found in AVEN forums the concept of cis-genderless. In its Gender Definitions Master List we find the following definition:

Cis-genderless: The state of being in which one identifies as what they were assigned at birth (usually male or female, though sometimes intersex) without having feelings or concepts pertaining to gender. A genderless individual with no dysphoria.

According to this definition, a cis-genderless person identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth (cis) but not with the corresponding gender, lacking a gender identity (genderless). We could say that they are an agender person without dysphoria. The usage of cis as sex identity, rather than as gender identity, could be marked as cis-sexual vs. cisgender. This distinction is very pertinent in our case, since a cis-genderless person is cis-sexual but not cisgender, though not transgender, either.

I think it’s useful to distinguish cis regarding sex and regarding gender when they are not aligned, as well as for highlighting tht bone can be cis-sexual and not consequently cisgender. In the case of cis-genderless it might happen as to romantic asexual people who, when unaware of the concepts, think they must have a sexual orientation aligned with their romantic orientation. In both cases, what happens is invisibility certain A-spectra, which are assimilated to another concept that is usually aligned with it.

Personally, though I can’t find a satisfactory translation of cis-genderless into Spanish (cis-agénero?), the definition resonate in me as it happened with the concepts of asexuality when I read them for the first time, though I didn’t fully identify with them just then. In 2017 I wondered if I could be cis-genderless with the definition I had, identifying as cis-sexual but doubting about the genderless part. As in 2008 I took note of the term asexual and I ended recognizing me as so, now I do identify as agender regarding gender, and thus as cis-genderless.