Mx Alex the Genderfluid Pheonix
A comic before I go away this weekend!
This isn’t Alex’s only two forms- each time they burn through to a different gender, we just happened to catch this change. Sometimes they turn up with the wrong body configuration for their gender, which is both a mind fuck and a nightmare on forms.
Fred works part time in Ace cakes to subsidise his research grant. It’s tough being an explorer!
New poll format- you can vote multiple times and for several monsters so if you really want one just spam away.
What monster should I do next?
they have my name!!!!
D’aww, he’s learning! I also love Alex’s reactions.
OMG IT’S A PHOENIX! MY FAVORITE ANIMAL IN ALL THE WORLD EVER!! Also, genderfluid phoenix? Clever :3
I spy the “Ace Cakes” logo……. Is Fred working for Madame Lucy Decline now??? -read description- Nice. :D
Judging from the “oh shit” reaction on the first panel, Alex seems actually kind of annoyed at the apparently-unwanted change…
Speaking as a genderfluid person–yeah, that’s pretty much exactly how I feel when I’m out and about and have a sudden and/or extreme gender shift.
Thank you, Tab!
As a fluid person – yep i shiffed from female to male right before a presentation in front of my class a couple weeks ago. Fourtunetly i had a break for 5 minutes for me to run out and change into my binder.
Apologies if asking is rude, but could you explain what you mean? I’ve heard of genderfluid folks waking up as one gender or another, but changing their whole personal mental-image or whatever is used to self-define gender suddenly and in the middle of the day or whatever… having a bit of trouble picturing something that spontaneous occuring, abruptly changing such a core part of one’s identity as gender, the way someone else might change their mind about toppings in the middle of ordering a pizza.
Again, sorry if it’s rude, but I’m new to the whole LGBT+ thing and wanna learn whatever I can… and I’m not the best at wording things, nor am I always sure what questions are good to ask or not.
I’m not sure how someone can explain it any better. I can be a third data point for it though; it does happen.
Are you from a science background maybe? You know how if you’re in a weird temperature/pressure point for a laser, where neither frequency really fits, the laser can suddenly jump from one frequency to another, just bam! and it changes without going through any frequencies in between? Gender fluid for me feels like being the laser. Ok, if you haven’t tried to do a fabry-perot calibration with a laser that keeps jumping between a few discrete frequencies, that analogy probably doesn’t help.
Shit. I can’t explain this without quantum mechanics, so I’ll leave that crappy analogy up.
Ok, trying again: you’ve got multiple discrete gender states, which can exist in superposition, and you can suddenly jump between them without going through anything in the middle. Just, one moment, I’m this gender, and the next moment, I’m that gender.
Maybe breaking down gender will help? When I am male, male gender roles apply to my behavior, and I expect in my subconscious to be treated like a guy by others. At any given time, this can switch and I then expect female gender roles and expect other people to treat me like a woman. Or neutral, I go through that too. I seem to have just those 3 states.
Independently of my social role, my sense of my body will also move. So, my brain will expect my body to be shaped one way or another. How concrete those expectations are varies (the phantom limb/body awareness sensation might be weak or very over powering. I might have multiple bodies superimposed upon each other simultaneously. But the bodies themselves are pretty consistently shaped; its always the same male or female or neutral body). And, it just changes at random. I think I normally block out my sense of body, so I mostly only notice when I relax a LOT.
My brain isn’t kind enough to line up my social gender with how it thinks my body is shaped, and its a real nightmare when my gender and body sense don’t line up. (I like Tab’s comment that “Sometimes they turn up with the wrong body configuration for their gender, which is both a mind fuck and a nightmare on forms.”, this is very much how it feels to me). Say I was assigned gender 1 at birth, and my brain currently thinks I’m in my gender 2 body, but that my social gender is still gender 1. I feel like I’m a transgender member of gender 1 because I really do feel like my body is shaped like gender 2 but ought to be shaped like gender 1. But, obviously I’m not a member of trans-gender-1! I pass really well as gender 1, my body conforms to gender 1 standards. I ought to be happy with it, but I’m experiencing a TON of dysphoria both because its not shaped like I think it will be shaped, and because I don’t want it to be shaped like I think its shaped.
Its not like pizza toppings though. If my pizza toppings are not what I wanted, then whatever. But dysphoria hurts, mentally or physically. I mean, if I had a choice about it, or it mattered as little as pizza toppings, I’d just be cis gender most of the time and save myself the pain.
You just made my day! I was a physics major in college. Your analogy is perfect. :-)
I am very glad I made your day! …I wonder if we had the same genderfluid lab equipment.
I didn’t realize until years after college that maybe quantum mechanics was intuitive because I was gender fluid. :)
Apologies if the “pizza” remark came off poorly – as I said, wording is not my strongest suit.
I didn’t mean to suggest it didn’t matter, it just was something I was having trouble wrapping my mind around, that someone’s self-image could so drastically change, and do it so quickly and seemingly without one choosing it – that’s what I meant, that it sounded like someone ordering a large pepperoni deep-dish, then before they hang up, the pizza-place saying they instead will get a vegetarian thin-crust. That rapid and apparently-uncontrollable shift is something I can’t easily envision.
I meant no offense in my initial remarks, it’s just after I’ve come to terms with myself and become part of the LGBT+ community, I’ve wound up having it practically drummed into my skull how core to one’s identity that gender is, like it was some kind of immutable bedrock – a trans woman has always been a woman, even when she had a full beard and answered to a masculine name before beginning transition, for example – so the idea of that bedrock changing, especially seemingly without one’s control and rapidly without warning, is something I am finding quite mindboggling.
No offense taken; just wanted to be clear how it was different than pizza toppings. (I am playing teacher right now; if I wasn’t up for it, I’d go to a different webpage rather than answer. Internet is good like that, whereas in-person is not).
:)
> a trans woman has always been a woman, even when she had a full beard and answered to a masculine name before beginning transition, for example
This depends on the trans woman. Immutable seems to be more common, but, not all transwomen got to where they are now though an immutable path. (I mean, generally one spends a good chunk of time in the “appear X, actually Y” state, because the medical industry requires it. Not trying to debate that. But, gender does evolve for some people slowly over time). Even if not immutable, it is common to want your past self referred to with your current pronouns.
To be clear, you’re not offending me; this immutable business is a common story about trans people that I hear and its driving me nuts because it is legit hurting and confusing people.
Gender fluid example:
I definitely had the “oh, well, I’m cis sometimes so I can’t be trans” thing going on for years. Which was super bad for me. “Oh gosh, I wish I could transition and get my removed…” isn’t a cis person thought in my experience. But, being cis for 5 minutes every month or so was enough to make me think I was just cis and bad at it, instead of trans and awesome at it, and delayed any removal of by decades. :(
In retrospect this is SO TERRIBLY cis-centric, that somehow 5 minutes of cis-ness would invalidate hours and hours of trans-ness. So, it is embarrassing to talk about; like wow was I the product of my environment and the stories I was told.
Genderqueer but not fluid example:
Someone else in my life says that she used to be male growing up, but now isn’t. She has a sense for when the change over happened.
Trying again to explain what my gender is like (and maybe Mx. Alex’s too):
Are you from an electrical engineering background, maybe? Imagine in your brain is a circuit that represents your gender.
Imagine instead that you have a few different versions of the circuit, and each one is a different gender, but only one circuit runs at a time. What decides which circuit is some brain-magic you have no control over. A switch flips and the output of the overall “gender” black box just changes between the circuits you’ve got.
Then just add in that the circuits can run at the same time for some people.
… What’s your background? I might be able to construct a metaphor if I know what you work in. :)
Photoshop! That could be an artsy example! Each gender could be a layer. Someone else is setting your layers to some specific transparencies. The transparencies change without your control. So, there are lots of potential gender “images”, but the set of pictures possible to construct is constrained to the layers already present. And usually, whoever is setting the transparencies picks 1 layer at 100% and the other layers at 0%, though not always.
… I dunno. My switching frequency, my specific genders, the intensity I feel them at, the sorts of dysphoria I get… these are all still bedrocks. My bedrock has just got gabbro and claystone and schist, and most people only have one type of rock.
And, one day my gender might just switch to stable. Or a new gender show up. It hasn’t happened for me during my life (I can see signs of switching in art and notebooks from when I was tiny and in denial), but it still might happen, since it seems to have happened to my friends.
The above is really good examples of gender fluidity. It’s true that the idea that gender is concrete kept me from identifying as trans or genderqueer for a long time even though I’m usually male or non-binary/in between, (DFAB). Another good example is emotionally speaking. Gender is a emotion about how you perceive yourself in terms of gender/how you want others to see you. When you go around your not concretely happy and ecstatic all the time are you? Well my gender emotion isn’t a emotion that’s set in stone for me. It flows or changes between male, female or somewhere in between. Like how you can be happy, sad or ,meh
Hey, it wouldn’t let me reply to the comment I wanted to, so I have gone a bit higher up. I dunno if you have any interest in this, but you have described some things that have been running through my head, especially of late… I was wondering if I could steal you and talk for a little?
I totally get if you don’t want to take on the gender fuckery of a stranger, but if you do, I could so use the help… I don’t have people who seem to view gender as you do in my life, and it makes this VERY difficult to figure out…
Well thank you for saving me the trouble of explaining in a very long complicated way to get my point across. I tend to do that a lot and your analogys and descriptions are perfect.
Well thank you for saving me the trouble of explaining in a very long complicated way to get my point across. I tend to do that a lot and your analogys and descriptions are perfect. Thank you
You worked with my idea!
This turned out so cool!
Poor Fred is learning so much in so little time that’s gotta be exhausting
It might help to specify what Ms President is, I think that’s why they’re not bagging a lot of votes.
“Ms” is a female equivalent of “Mr”, a female title that doesn’t indicate marital status. I’ve also heard it used for divorced women, although I suspect that was not the norm.
Unless I’ve missed something, Ms President would be a female president of unknown marital status (because, really, why do we need to know that about women before we know ANYTHING else about them?)
Hmm.. I wonder if that is a cultural thing. Or American society (as usual) is a little weird.
As I’ve always known it – Ms. (Miss) has always meant an unmarried woman. Mrs. (Missus) means a married woman. Mr. (Mister) you can never tell, you either have to ask or look for a wedding ring. More recently, and I don’t know what the abbreviation would be, there are women who like “Mizz” (Mz? maybe?) as an in-between choice for woman who don’t want their status as either single or married to be taken into account or have it possible affect whatever business they are carrying out.
Again, this is what I have been taught and I kind of assume most Americans think. -shrugs- Am willing to learn, change, and grow and just use whatever titles people prefer lol
Possibly cultural (I’m a Brit), or it’s possible I’m off the mark. I don’t think I’m misinformed about the title, but I’m not certain enough to go without saying it’s possible. ;)
Where I am in America, “Miss” isn’t abbreviated, and Ms. is pronounced “Mizz”, and is used in the ways both of you describe for it, or if you’re referring to someone whose marital status you don’t yet know. It’s becoming more common than “miss”, I think because it doesn’t have the same implications of youth/childishness.
Also American here, hailing from Seattle, Florida, and Boston. My experience in all locations is like Michelle’s: Miss=not abbreviated; Ms.=”Mizz” is preferred for business communication, as it does not assume marital status; and “Mrs.” is pronounced like “misses.”
I know that Second Wave Feminists advocated for the use of “Ms.” in the 1960’s and 70’s, as an honorific for women that, like Mr., did not make her marital status part of her “title.” Ms. Magazine was founded in the early 70’s by Gloria Steinem, and the title was no accident, I think.
[back from a quick Google jaunt] Interesting. Apparently the term Ms. was proposed in 1901 more as an etiquette fix for that awkward moment when you don’t know whether a feminine-presenting person is hitched or not. Then it came into widespread use after advocacy in the 60’s and 70’s:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0
Righty, in my world at the moment, I’m perceived as female but I’m actually male (just doing the stealth thing a little longer). When choosing titles on forms that expect me to choose sex/gender F, I usually choose ‘Miss’, but only as an indicator of age – I’m only 20 years old, and I’m a baby-faced 20 year old at that.
When I finally present as male and live as male, if I had the choice, I’d probably choose to be addressed as ‘Master’ rather than ‘Mr.’, even though Master is the typical title for the younger lad.
to my knowledge, ‘master’ is generally more about power or relative class than about age. The only examples I can think of when it is used to refer to a young man is when that young man is part of an aristocratic family / being referred to by his servants. You should (obviously) use whatever title you feel comfortable with but master generally implies that you are more dominant than the person calling you master and, therefore, effects the identity of the other as well (as in bdsm contexts)
Master is actually becoming more nutrel rather than gendered however t isn’t much.
It may also be a generational thing. My British grandmother (who was born before WWI), and others in the family of her generation, used to send my brother and me packages, when we were little, addressed to “Master [Brother] [Lastname]” and “Mistress Kryss [Lastname]”.
“Miss” is an abbreviation in itself, short for “Mistress”; but our society has mostly dropped any other connotations or meanings of that full title in favour of the “lover of a married man who is not married to him” meaning, unfortunately. It’s a shame; I love Terry Pratchett’s way with Granny Weatherwax being formally addressed as “Mistress Weatherwax” without any loss of respect whatsoever. It suits her absolutely, by the way, far more than “Madam” would have (which would have been inappropriate anyways, since she never married).
“Mistress” and “Master” as formal ways of addressing (even if just in mail) the under-age members of a household (as opposed to “Mr” and “Mrs” –short for “Missus”, incidentally) may be a British thing, though, and not common to North America. Certainly it is more common in the works of writers like Enid Blyton or Dorothy L. Sayers than anyone else I’ve read.
Also wondering if ‘burns through to a different gender’ means the gender result upon bursting into flames is randomized or if they literally never go through the same gender twice. The latter sounds like it’d be a pretty difficult situation, ow
Have you ever thought of making Minority Monster pins? I usually wear plain T-shirts, but I would buy a Mx Alex pin in a heartbeat. (Or a necklace, or a bracelet, or a patch…)
or a shirt…
*shrug* I wouldn’t buy one, but they’re clearly popular.
the spelling hurts but the concept is beautiful <3
How… would one pronounce “Mx”?
I believe it’s pronounced “Mix”.
I use Mixter, which I think sounds like an awesome DJ.
They both sound awesome actually.
I use Mx and yep pronounced Mix.
@tab – mixter, that sounds cool :) . I’ll be right abck asking for a neutral title to use if/when im ever a parent xD
Um, if any of you are comfortable doing so, would any of the gender fluid readers here be willing to explain a bit what that means, or what it feels like? Trying to research the term has come up with a lot of contradicting and/or confusing results, and I’m curious as to what the identity looks like from the inside.
this link may help, its quite similitic in its explanation but you may find it helps a little
(tab hope you dont mind me posting to another persons comic for gender explanations )
http://www.comic-rocket.com/read/genderfluid/1
That still makes more sense than half of what I found on my own. Thanks!
yeah, that pretty much sums it up in a nutshell for me. Of course human beings can be far more complicated, but overall we are who we are and we feel what we feel. We are dynamic not static, ever changing.
I love this!!!!
A note though, phoenix is spelled with the o first, not the e.
Haha, it’s taken me this long to see it because my brain is like that. I’ll fix soon!
still not fixed ^^;
Thank you for that–professors are always misspelling my name even when it’s right in front of them, and my friends literally mutter “fo-ee-nix” when they’re writing.
More Alex please :D
Excellent comic!! I just have one small gripe with the wording in panel 3. If you mean to say that Alex is requesting she/her pronouns, it’s better to specify that, since she/her pronouns aren’t inherently “female”. For example, I’m a genderqueer-ish person who uses she/her pronouns, but I’m certainly not female, so saying that I use “female pronouns” is incorrect.
OMG Alex is adorable! <3 <3 <3~~!
Tab, thank you so much! I empathize a bunch with Mx. Alex!
Man, why did I never think of this?! “I’ll have a double-shot latte with a side of male pronouns please”
This makes me feel so much better in a lot of ways. I’ve always worried if it’s alright to switch pronouns to match my frequently-shifting gender. Some people also can’t get their heads around me changing suddenly or the fact that I have more than 2 genders. It’s really good to know that I’m not the only one out there! Thank you so much, Tab.
YES! More people with more than 2 genders! More people with frequent shifts!!
How is changing pronouns going? I went with 1 pronoun for simplicity, and wonder how the other way would have worked out.
Yeah! !
Well I’ve talked to my friends about it and they said that hey could keep up with my pronouns if I wore something like differently colored bracelets — one for each gender.
However, I’m really terrible with correcting people about pronouns (I’m always afraid it will make them feel bad and derail the conversation) so right now I’m sticking to “he/him/his” because I usually feel pretty masculine no matter my gender.
Just curious, but which pronoun did you go with and why?
*I realize now it’s not clear what my background is. I’m biologically female and everyone still calls me “she.” I’m working on it. =/
I went with “they” because its both accurate when I’m neutral, and not-wrong when I’m male or female (and was concerned about getting gender-assigned-at-birth constantly if I went a “just guess” route). For people who can’t use the singular they, I’ve asked them to just use my name, since its 1 syllable so it works out alright for that.
this involves correcting people a fair bit :/
but! Sometimes they get it right and its wonderful!! :D And sometimes they get it right while I’m neutral and its double-wonderful! :D :D
1:1 interactions are least likely to use any third person pronouns to refer to me, so I like those best still.
^_^ wow so many gender fluid people!!
I’m actually gender fluid with a mainly female to androgynous switch thankfully when I’ve got a gender it tends stick around for awhile .I’ve got a solid feminine but a gender neutral nickname so on my non cis-gendered days I usually go by my nickname!! I’ve got a really great family and set of friends to back me up.
Seeing you write this is such an intense relief to me… I tend to be fluid between/around/whatever something agender-ish and female, and for some reason just felt really awkward about it… I don’t really have any other genderfluid people in my life, and the other non-binary but static people I know just… well they are great, but not a ton of help you know?
My name is Teal-Rose, and I notice some days I like the whole thing, others Teal, others Rose. I have started to notice they may be connected to my shifts… Sometimes I am solid for a long time, no issues, other times I don’t stay anywhere long enough to recognize I stopped at all and just feel like a big garbled mess. Ever have days like that?
https://www.etsy.com/listing/213450169/genderfluid-pronouns-necklace-custom
I have been eyeing that for the needs which you voiced for myself, maybe it will be good for you too ^^. I always doubt myself because, while I would prefer people follow with they or she given my identity at the time, I am not totally off-put by either one regardless of identity at the time (as I am trans-feminine no matter my identity most times). It makes me feel like I am doing it wrong or something ^^:
But it sounds like you do that with the him pronouns, so I don’t feel so alone *offers hug*
I hope to hear back from you! A lot of this is new for me, and hearing other people’s stories that match mine for the first time ever is pretty reassuring!
You should do a minority monster who’s demisexual too :)
+1
Agreed!
My Cis mind has given up on me. I now think I know what cis means.
Easily confused, but trying god damn it.
Okay *deep breath* how did you genderfluid readers here discover you where genderfluid? I’m afab and have always thought of myself as Cis, but I’m pretty sure I switched to being a guy, or close to a guy, for about 20 hours yesterday. And now I just feel mindfucked. Also if I really think about it, I have’nt really felt 100% Female all my life. Like I said; mindfuck. So how did you know?
Update: it’s been two days and I’ve gone back to Female after being male ( or maybe i was a demi guy, idk) to propably non binary (I honestly had no idea) back to female, then to some kind of mix, then to what I think is propably agender, and now I’m Female again. Wtf even is this?! (Yeah, still mindfucked btw). Also I think I’m having mental motionsickness.
I am there with you, I fully get it… It isn’t exact, but typically if you are questioning it, odds are you have a little something going on. Again this is in no way a positive answer, but I have found it helpful in my moments of doubt.
Some genderfluid, genderqueer, bi/multigendered folks do flip around very quickly in short periods of time, others longer times, and some times you can get both (be one for months then bam! one day you cycle 10 times). It is confusing, it is trying to be certain about something uncertain (not to say we can’t know, just that it isn’t a solid thing).
It reminds me of intermittent illnesses, where people try to convince us it is just in our head, that if it were REAL it would follow some kind of logic, and be easy to find. And just as with those illnesses, our identities can sometimes have us doubting ourselves…
I want to be clear I am not calling gender fluidity an illness though ^^;. I know I am not giving you a ton of answers, but I hope I have validated your feelings a little. I know for me, while I for sure have prefered pronouns and such, I don’t seem to get much dyshphoria if I am feeling agendered and get she, or female and get they. It pokes me a little, but nothing major, and that makes me doubt my identity so hard some days… that if I was actually genderfluid it would bother me more… but I try to remind myself there is no one way to be genderfluid (though it wouldn’t hurt to hear it from others some times haha)
I am right there with you.
Thank you :)
Little late, but still feel you should get input.
First, your feelings are COMPLETELY VALID. Your experience is similar to mine, and many others. I personally stick with neutral pronouns, but anything feminine just sucks most of the time, male pronouns don’t always hurt, sometimes they feel better.
I agree with the above comment, if you are questioning, you probably got some stuff up there. But hey! welcome to the fabulous world outside the binary. It is a roller coaster, a terror and a thrill. Truth is we all got a little femininity and masculinity and other. But some of us more strongly identify with outside the western typical boy girl boxes, and that’s ok. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
If you want to further explore outward gender expression, do it! I personally love thrift store shopping because it’s cheap and lots of clothes there are kind of flashy (my thing, don’t have to be yours). I pack both my bra and binder so I can choose clothes for whatever I might be feeling.
Whether or not you are cis, breaking gender laws can be real freeing, and hell of a lot of fun ;)
Important thing is that whatever you do or however you choose to proceed, you get to a place where you are comfortable and happy with who you are, inside and out.
I love this one! Phoenixes are my favorite animal and I love the idea of a genderfluid phoenix :)
This is very heart warming