gender indifferent

by nat raum

sometimes i think about how daniel levy said schitt’s creek was written in a world without homophobia, and then i think about the poem i had to write without pronouns during my mfa poetry workshop, and how i felt like my first point of feedback would be that no one knew what gender anyone was. i decided my response would be exactly, because isn’t that what i create, in this setting where no one who reads can place themself and doesn’t quite understand what’s going on? a world without gender?

someone on the internet (i don’t remember) once said that gender is not innate. this felt simultaneously comforting and upsetting—on one hand, thank god i am not the only person on earth who could not seem to make girl or boy work. on the other, well, i don’t think gender performance is brainwashing by design, but the way i learned it was close. all this connection to the same kind of womanhood i’ve been told i’m missing—perhaps it’s nice to know that there’s no one way of understanding it. there is no more shame in the disconnect.

rarely are there words for the type of homogeneity i grew up with. you were cis and het and white and even then, you had to play sports, or no one thought you were worth speaking to. the girls assigned sexualities—i was gay long before i was gay. the boys hurled casual ableism on the four-square court, but i have always been a little insane too. everyone who made an effort to understand me is either queer or dead now.

think about it, though. a world without gender. a world without insipid utero-centric feminism, without men going their own way. what i mean, i guess, is a system in which everyone decides for themself before being fed the worst of the binary. i’ve seen the binary; the binary is great. but what i want is far beyond that. someone else i don’t remember talked about how questioning gender, breaking down its roles benefits everyone. if only everyone could see it. what i want is to normalize feeling nothing and all its advantages.

what is it, if not indifference? i do not hate genders that are not my own. but i also can’t seem to see the why for myself. so i wish for a world in which everyone starts off feeling this way. i long for a universe where gender is not assigned, but built up over time. maybe then i’d feel a bit less alone.

nat raum (b. 1996) is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. They’re the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press and the author of this book will not save you, the abyss is staring back, random access memory, and others. Past and upcoming publishers of their writing include Gone Lawn, Split Lip Magazine, Allium, and BRUISER. Find them online at natraum.com.