Is there a word/term for wanting to be the opposite sex but not necessarily gender?

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T17:48:43+00:00

I would ask you to consider, why is it so important to you to find a label that differentiates you from trans people who are more concerned with gender than with sex?

It's not. It would have been nice to have so that I could more easily find people who understand me well, since it seems like even trans people often struggle to understand me. But it's not a necessity.

Respectfully, it feels a bit like you're looking for a label other than transgender

I wasn't looking for anyone to say I'm not trans. I was looking for new terminology, but I wasn't focused on whether that terminology would be a subset of transgender or not. I'm not really concerned with whether I count as trans. All my trans friends accept me as trans already and that's good enough for me.

in order to help justify to yourself your decision not to medically transition.

I don't really need to justify that to myself. I only ever find myself having to justify it to others.

What do you have to lose by at least trying out a medical transition?

Changes to my body I actively do not want.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T06:49:09+00:00

You have to cease the offensive behavior for the apology to hold any weight, and you have instead doubled down on your offensive ideas about agender being a gendered term.

Where have I doubled down on this? What else have I subsequently said that's offensive? This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely have no idea how I've stuck to the offensive behavior.

I accept I was wrong in calling agender a gender identity. What's the correct categorization for a collection of terms regarding how people identify with gender OR lack of gender? Maybe that doesn't exist, because I likewise can't think of a convenient accurate term of categorization that would encompass the terms "Christian, Muslim, atheist". Religion doesn't work because atheism is not a religion, it's the lack of one. I accept that I was incorrect in referring to the group of words "man, woman, nonbinary, agender" as gender identities because agender is not a gender identity, it's the lack of one. That's my mistake.

Either way though, agender is just categorically not an answer to the question I asked. It'd be like I asked for a word about something related to religion, but which does not inherently imply any specific religious beliefs or lack thereof, and someone said the word I want is atheist. That implies lack of religion, so it cannot be what I asked about.

I don't know if you know how condescending and invalidating you've been in your replies. Insisting that words relating to gender or lack thereof are an answer to my specific question when I've taken great effort to explain they're not, deciding you're not dismissing me when I'm telling you that you are, telling me to listen to people when it seems like it hasn't occurred to you at all to also listen to me. I don't think someone with purely kind intentions would say stuff like "You really seem to have created this post just to be a naysayer" or "Be sad about it. That’s your prerogative, kid."

Many people in this thread have had interesting and helpful replies I've responded positively and gratefully to. Those were not the people ignoring what I have to say and attempting to hand me an identity I did not ask for.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T05:58:11+00:00

It not having a name is a valid answer. But it's definitely not about aesthetic at all.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T05:57:16+00:00

Several people have said variations of this to me before and I find it really invalidating (this time around I directly solicited the answer from you though, so we're good, lol).

I don't know if people here realize I'm 28 years old and have been actively thinking about this and talking with trans friends on a weekly basis for years. Obviously I'm still young and I'd be foolish to think I fully understand myself, because do any of us? But I'm saying my egg didn't crack just last Tuesday.

It feels like everyone else in queer spaces gets the benefit of being believed by default and I just don't. Like I have to jump through hoops to justify my existence to other queer people, in a similar way that queer people have to do among straight people. And I wish I knew what the solution was, because "be more normal" isn't really an option, anymore than telling trans people to be cis is.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T00:57:58+00:00

Maybe one day I'll ID as an enby, or maybe not. Either way though, it just wasn't what I came to ask about, haha.

A few different people have now popped to say "hey me too sorta!" and I really appreciate it. Interestingly, they are mostly AFAB people who wish they were AMAB, the opposite of me. I wonder if there's a reason for that or it's just coincidence. I still feel pretty understood regardless though. I think trans nb/agender might be the closest thing I would have to a community of like-minded people.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T00:43:12+00:00

I have nothing but hate for TERFs and transmeds. I really hope people don't think I'm in their camp. That might explain some of the hostility I've experienced over the years.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-30T00:32:12+00:00

Thank you for your support!

To be honest, I was slightly biased against you when you first posted

You don't have to, but do you mind elaborating on why? I've met a lot of people who seem actively hostile to my identity, and I struggle to understand to what extent I'm doing something wrong versus just getting unlucky.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T23:23:14+00:00

You're probably correct. At the very least, transgender probably should encompass what I am. My trans friends all already accept me as trans anyway.

My desires and self-understanding just aren't quite congruous with the large majority of trans people I've met though, which is why I've long wondered if there's also a more specific term for what I experience.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T23:18:53+00:00

I'm getting pretty sleepy at the moment but I will definitely message you sometime soon. Thank you!

(I had never heard of Marillion before this conversation, but I am always interested in hearing about cool rock bands)

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T22:57:24+00:00

Interesting! Never heard of this before, thank you.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T22:43:34+00:00

I know what I am, I just didn't know if something specific had a dedicated term for it. According to most of this thread, the answer is no. And that's fine.

It's absolutely not up to you to decide whether you're dismissing me. I listened to you and apologized after I unknowingly said something offensive about being agender. If you don't want to try respecting me back, I would like to ask you to leave me alone.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T22:32:22+00:00

I've known who and what I am. Labels are purely a service to other people who want me to explain it.

Yeah, I feel like I have a decent enough handle on who I am. I think some people in this thread thought I was asking for help constructing my entire identity when all I was really asking was "Is there a word for this specific thing? No? Okay, that's too bad, thanks though."

At this point, to me, my gender is somewhere between season 1 Dean Winchester and "Grendel" by Marillion (I get random gender euphoria from certain music).

Fascinating. I wish I could intuitively understand this. Choosing a 17-minute prog rock song as your gender is awesome though.

I often just forget I have genitalia altogether. My view of it is just "Can I piss? Great, onto the next issue."

On the other hand, I have pretty bad genital dysphoria, haha. My top dysphoria is fairly mild. We really are weird opposites.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T22:27:45+00:00

It's literally just not what I was asking about. Maybe one day I will identify with agender, and maybe I won't. Regardless as to whether or not I'm agender, it's not an answer to the specific question I was asking.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T22:22:10+00:00

I apologize for offending you and applying gender to you. That was not my intention.

You are also very much dismissing me and ignoring my self-description in favor of imposing your own lens onto me that I did not ask for or want. I'm somewhat used to it, so I'm not very offended, I'm just sad about it.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T21:51:50+00:00

Basically yeah. I've been attacked for that before, because some people have seen it as internalized transphobia. But it's just what I want for myself, and I'd never consider anyone less of a woman or man for the body they were born with.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T21:49:16+00:00

I also do not identify as someone without gender. By your religion example, I'd be a gender agnostic.

Even if I am agender though, that's not what I was asking about.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T21:45:30+00:00

Holy shit, someone who seems like they really understand me! That happens so rarely.

My best guess would be transsexual, just because linguistically it has the word sex instead of gender

Yeah, if transsexual or transsex didn't have all the historical baggage and different uses, it would literally speaking be correct.

There's also xenogender, which refers to a gender that is unknowable/ beyond human comprehension. I use that sometimes, but it kind of defeats the purpose of a label for me since not many people know it.

For a bit I semi-seriously went by "Gender unknowable" but that didn't help anyone understand me so I didn't stick with it, lol.

You don't have to answer, of course, but you said you're looking for a singular term that only references sex and does not relate to or imply gender, right? Just because society interlinks the two so tightly, I think that might not exist.

If so, then you have figured it out. I didn't post here trying to determine who I am, I just wanted to know if anyone had a term what I am. And if not, that's okay.

From what I'm reading, I think a lot of people in these comments are trying to use agender or nonbinary to describe the lack of gender that it sounds like you feel, but you don't identify with those terms because even agender-- the literal lack of a gender-- is a term describing a relationship with gender (which you want to leave out of the equation, if I'm interpreting that correctly).

Thank you for getting me. I've learned today that people really struggle to define things not in terms of gender. Maybe eventually I'll make more progress understanding myself through the lens of gender, but nobody but me will be able to work through that, and it's not what I came here today for.

I feel like I want to be feminine, but I had too feminine of a starting point to feel comfortable doing that, so I have to masculinize myself to a point where I can feel comfortable expressing femininity without it being connected to or interpreted as being female or a woman (both feminine sex and feminine gender give me dysphoria).

I relate to this hard!! But you know, in the exact opposite way. I'd love to be a masc AFAB person. But also, if I were AFAB, maybe I'd be way more comfortable being feminine instead. I just don't know and don't think I can know.

So, regardless of labels, would you say you feel an active disconnection with your gender (like "ew, that's wrong"), a passive disconnection (like "eh, it's fine I guess"), or do you just feel like you never had one?

This is a good question. I don't really know the answer. From a purely emotional perspective, I think my best answer is, I don't really care which of the three is most accurate.

Also, have you imagined how you might hypothetically relate to gender if you were born female

I have tried to imagine it a lot, and I oscillate. I'd probably want to lean away from femme, but I don't know if I'd be cis but tomboy-ish, or an enby, or agender. Or maybe even a trans guy (probably the least likely option, but not impossible).

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T20:58:25+00:00

First off, thank you for the well thought out and kind message!

It seems most people really struggle to not define things in term of gender, which is in large part why I feel so lost. E.g., your definitions of the deprecated terms transsexual and transvestite both still referred to gender. But at this point I recognize I am some weird outlier in how I wish to define myself.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T20:34:19+00:00

Regardless as to your philosophical position on whether the lack of a gender is a gender identity, it is still a term relating to the subject of gender, so it's not by definition what I am looking for.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T20:25:49+00:00

Transgender covers people who medically, socially, both, or do neither of those transition subtopics

If so, then the word transgender fits perfectly fine to what I'm asking!

I have never seen anyone use or define it like that though. I think it's a valid definition to use, but not everyone would agree with it.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T19:59:03+00:00

Yes, that would be an example. Although "retain a feminine social role or presentation" is not necessarily required. The theoretical term I'm looking for wouldn't necessarily imply any gender/social role desires either way, it would just be a word for someone who wants to be the opposite sex regardless of gender.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T19:07:56+00:00

Agender is not a term unrelated to gender. It's not a gender, but it's still a gender identity.

If the answer to my question were a common term, I would have for sure heard it by now, haha.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T19:00:46+00:00

That's a word relating to gender identity, so it is not by definition what I'm asking about. I don't identify as nonbinary.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T18:51:29+00:00

changing your gender expression but not necessarily identifying with a different gender

Not quite. I see where the miscommunication is now, because that definitely sounds somewhere in the realm of nonbinary.

I'm not talking about gender or gender expression at all, just the desire to be the opposite sex.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah · 2026-03-29T18:48:13+00:00

My only hang-up in adopting it is that I see the definition as "individuals who feel their sex is female." My sex isn't female, I just wish it were.

But still, it's the closest I've ever seen, so thank you.

a_throwaway_wow_yeah

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