Neurodivergence and Gender
Alice Scarlet Death
Gender isn’t how you dress. It isn’t your chromosomes. It’s how you identify in your brain, but most people assume it’s a neurotypical brain. A brain free from PTSD, ADHD, personality disorders, developmental disorders, and all those things that can be boiled down to “my brain is wired different and I perceive the world in a different way.”
Today we’re going to talk about the often disincluded topic of how to approach gender when your mind isn’t necessarily like everyone else’s.
I have already discussed at length regarding Autigender. I’d like to explore neurodiversity as a whole.
Neurodiversity refers to one’s brain functioning being atypical. Examples such as mood, learning, attention, and other sorts of mental difficulties. Stemming from this is the concept of neurogender, where your concept of gender is largely constructed by your brain behaviour.
For instance, I have difficulty understanding gender as it is understood by other people. My borderline personality disorder keeps me from having a lack of identity, dissociated from most feelings.
When I get manic I feel like my gender is female. When I’m dissociating, which is often, I fee like I’m some sort of gender nihilist, void gender, and nonbinary.
For some people the changes tend to be more fluid. Generally speaking, these are reactions to mood disorders, if only because a changed mood would be more likely to cause a changed gender.
These sorts of gender identities often manifest as conceptual genders not rooted in traditional male and female societal roles.
Not everyone chooses to identify as neurogender. There a growing amount of nonbinary identities that can easily explain the things you’re feeling without bringing your mental health into it. Terms like aporagender and abro/libragender are often used in nonbinary circles to describe what could also be described as identities under the neurogender umbrella.
Happy pride month!
