AUTHOR: Canton Winer, Northern Illinois University

TITLE: “My Gender Is Like an Empty Lot:” Gender Detachment and Ungendering Among
Asexual Individuals

ABSTRACT: Feminist scholars have written for decades about the radical potential—if not the
necessity—of ungendering for resisting gender inequality. Yet, the bulk of this work has been
theoretical, and other scholars have questioned whether ungendering is even possible. Drawing
on interviews with 30 asexual individuals, I present empirical findings that lend support to the
plausibility of ungendering. Based on my findings, I introduce the concept of gender detachment,
which refers to individually-held notions that gender presentation and/or identity is irrelevant,
unimportant, pointless, and/or overall not a topic of great personal concern. I argue that the
difficulty of navigating these feelings reveals gender as a compulsory system of categorization. I
discuss connections to and differences from the concepts of degendering, ungendering, undoing
gender, redoing gender, disidentification, nonbinary identification, and gender vertigo. I also
consider gender detachment’s potential for radical resistance to gender (and the inequality gender
produces) and the potential complications in realizing that potential.

To Cite:
APA
Winer, C. (2023, July 21). “My Gender Is Like an Empty Lot:” Gender Detachment and
Ungendering Among Asexual Individuals. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CAG7U
MLA
Winer, Canton. “‘My Gender Is Like an Empty Lot:’ Gender Detachment and Ungendering Among
Asexual Individuals.” OSF, 21 July 2023. Web.
Chicago
Winer, Canton. 2023. “‘My Gender Is Like an Empty Lot:’ Gender Detachment and Ungendering
Among Asexual Individuals.” OSF. July 21. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/CAG7U.
 Feminist scholars have long anticipated some type of ungendering, or the end of gender

as we know it (e.g. Firestone 1971; Rubin 1975; Wittig 1980). In the final chapter of

Masculinities, Connell (2005) called it “unavoidable.” Risman's (1999) concept of “gender

vertigo” highlighted a “post-gendered world” as a goal of liberation. Deutsch (2007) argued of

the importance of “undoing gender” in resisting and eliminating the gender system. Butler (1990)

emphasized the radical potential of destabilizing discrete, naturalized gender categories. Lorber

(2000; 2005; 2021) has argued that “degendering” would powerfully contribute to combatting

gender inequality. While influential, these arguments have mostly been theoretical, with some

noteworthy exceptions (e.g Barbee and Schrock 2019; C. Connell 2010). In this paper, I present

an empirical study of individuals who are, in some ways, living the post-gendered lives

envisioned by these scholars.

I began this project with an interest in comparing the gendered experiences of asexual

individuals, commonly understood as those who do not experience sexual attraction. An

historically under-studied topic, asexuality has seen a recent surge in scholarly interest. With

some important exceptions, however, the intersection of gender and asexuality has remained

relatively unexplored, particularly empirically. This is striking, given that asexuality appears to

be a gendered identity, with men markedly outnumbered by other genders (Bauer et al. 2018;

Bogaert 2004; 2013; Brotto et al. 2010; Greaves et al. 2017; MacNeela and Murphy 2015). A

2016 survey of 9,294 asexual-identifying individuals, for example, found that 63 percent

identified as woman/female, 10.9 percent as man/male, and 26 percent as “none of the above”

(Bauer et al. 2018).

My initial research plan was straightforward: compare the experiences of asexual men,

asexual women, and beyond-the-binary asexuals. However, I quickly found that these three
categories did not accommodate my respondents. Some respondents, for example, did not fit

neatly into a single group, often straddling a liminal zone between two categories. More

unexpectedly, I found that a number of respondents did not fit within any gender category. These

individuals were ambivalent, indifferent, and detached from gender altogether.

Those individuals—the gender detached—are the focus of this paper. From 2020-2021, I

interviewed 77 asexual individuals about their experiences and perspectives on sexuality and

gender. Of those 77, 30 spoke about feeling some level of detachment from gender, questioning

it as a useful lens for understanding who they are (and perhaps who anyone is). I draw on those

30 interviews to introduce the concept of gender detachment, which refers to individually-held

notions that gender presentation and/or identity is irrelevant, unimportant, pointless, and/or

overall not a topic of great personal concern. I discuss gender detachment and how it is both

related to and distinct from claiming a nonbinary gender identity (Oakley 2016) and from the

concepts of disidentification (Butler 2011; Muñoz 1999; Pêcheux 1975), gender vertigo (Risman

1999), undoing gender (C. Connell 2010), and degendering (Lorber 2005; 2021). Because the

overwhelming majority of respondents who communicated gender detachment were assigned

female at birth (AFAB), I discuss that gender detachment may be a strategy for survival or

resistance in a patriarchal, misogynistic society. I also discuss how my findings complicate the

(often unstated) assumption that everyone “has” a gender identity—and how this raises questions

about the ways researchers measure and ask questions about gender.

What Is Asexuality?

The prevailing definition of asexuality refers to those who do not experience sexual

attraction. This definition is said to have emerged from the Asexual Visibility and Education

Network (AVEN) and appears in much of the literature (e.g. Brotto et al. 2010; Jones, Hayter,
and Jomeen 2017; Van Houdenhove et al. 2015). Nonetheless, the meaning of asexuality varies,

and its definition remains in flux (Chasin 2011; Mitchell and Hunnicutt 2019; Scherrer 2008).

Asexuality is perhaps best understood as both an umbrella term and a spectrum referring to those

who experience low/no sexual attraction. Some asexual individuals, for example, define their

asexuality as a revulsion to sex, while others define it as a lack of interest in sex. Some asexual

(often abbreviated as “ace”) individuals report experiencing sexual desire in specific situations;

others report a complete absence of sexual desire. Some asexual individuals are sexually active,

while others are completely abstinent. Some asexual individuals report feelings of romantic (but

not sexual) attraction, while others do not. And some asexual individuals identify only as

asexual, while others use more complex identifiers, such as bisexual asexual, demisexual, gray

asexual, heteroromantic asexual, etc. (Winer et al. 2022). Scholars have offered definitions of

asexuality as referring to individuals’ sexual desires or behaviors (Aicken, Mercer, and Cassell

2013; Brotto et al. 2010; Prause and Graham 2007), but a study by Van Houdenhove and

colleagues (2014) examining the interaction between identity, attraction, and behavior among

566 asexual survey respondents concluded that “lack of sexual attraction” was the most

commonly shared definition. Asexuality differs from celibacy, virginity, and “involuntary

celibacy” both because it is a sexual identity (indeed, it is the ‘A’ in LGBTQIA+) and because it

is a label that is defined by attraction rather than by behavior.

Ungendering

Feminist scholars have long critiqued the notion of discrete, naturalized gender categories

as a driving force of gender inequality and male supremacy (Firestone 1971; Lorber 2000; 2005;

2021; Risman 1999; Wittig 1980). For this reason, Connell (2005) has called a strategy of

ungendering “unavoidable” and indispensable. Deutsch (2007) has similarly highlighted the
importance of “undoing gender” in resisting and eliminating the gender system and the

inequality it (re)produces. Lorber (2000; 2005; 2021) has argued that “degendering” would

powerfully contribute to combatting gender inequality. Spillers (1987 and Snorton (2017) have

argued that, even when its emergence is tied to the violence of American slavery, ungendering

can be a tool of emancipation for people racialized as Black. And, of course, Butler (1990)

famously emphasized the radical potential of destabilizing discrete, naturalized gender

categories. Moreover, scholars have critiqued these categories for creating a false sense of

stability and coherence that misleadingly separates “gender” from other political and cultural

intersections, such as class, race, region, sexuality, etc. (Butler 1990; Crenshaw 1989).

Despite this, (West and Zimmerman 2009) have questioned the plausibility of “undoing”

gender, claiming that this implies abandonment of accountability to sex category, which they see

as impossible. They argue that gender can be “redone” but not “undone.” Similarly, Lorber

(2021, 38) has argued that “To live without a gender in a gendered world is almost impossible”

and “As long as one’s official documents proclaim a gender, it is impossible to be a ‘non.’”

Halberstam (2017, 9) writes that “The concept of being without a gender, however, is whimsical

at best, since there are few ways to interact with other human beings without being identified

with some kind of gendered embodiment.” Given that the power of sex/gender categories is that

they structure our social world and that they seem so natural (e.g. Risman 1999), these arguments

are compelling. Indeed, the question of ungendering is complicated by the ubiquity and taken-

for-granted “naturalness” of gender, making it something that “can neither be withdrawn nor

refused” (Butler 1990, 124). Viewed this way, even acts and identities that subvert gender norms

remain within a gender paradigm, since even “refusal constitutes engagement” (Butler 1990,

124; see also Valocchi 2005).

 These arguments have been influential in academia, but they have also been

overwhelmingly theoretical. However, scholars have noted some empirical cases that suggest

ungendering is possible and already occurring. That said, even these findings do not paint a

straightforward picture of ungendering. In a study of 19 transgender individuals’ negotiation and

management of gendered interactions at work, Connell (2010) finds that some respondents were

actively working to “undo” gender (see Butler 2004; Risman 2009) by creating blended gender

performances and gender biographies. However, Connell also notes that these individuals were

often still held accountable, by others, to adhering to the current gender system. Crawley (2022)

further complicates the question of whether these enactments of gender constitute ungendering,

arguing that “doing transgender” is doing gender rather than an undoing of gender.

Other empirical work that has presented evidence of ungendering has often focused on

resisting discriminatory treatment and inequality (e.g Chan, Doran, and Marel 2010;

Claringbould and Knoppers 2008) or on gender integration (e.g. Sasson‐Levy and Amram‐Katz

2007) rather than on resisting gender categories themselves. Some may point to nonbinary

gender identities—and specifically agender identity, which refers to not having a gender—as

further empirical evidence for ungendering (Barbee and Schrock 2019). However, others have

noted that nonbinary individuals cannot simply be understood as “undoing” gender, and that

these identities involve both “doing” and subverting the gender binary (Darwin 2017; McCarthy

et al. 2020). Moreover, nonbinary identification is often framed as an affirmation or discovery of

a “true self” (Oakley 2016), leading some to argue that these identities may be individually

rebellious but not necessarily entail a call to upend gender as a social structure (Lorber 2018;

2021). This argument is far from settled, with others arguing that nonbinary identities can

powerfully disrupt gendered systems of power (e.g. Morgenroth and Ryan 2021). Nonetheless,
claiming a nonbinary gender identity still involves claiming a gender identity, complicating

arguments that nonbinary identification is best understood as “ungendering” (c.f Barbee and

Schrock 2019). It is also noteworthy that previous interview research has already found that

some asexual people do not feel strongly attached to their gender identity (Gupta 2019; Cuthbert

2019), though this finding was not examined in conversation with the literature on ungendering.

Altogether, then, empirical evidence that ungendering is possible remains limited and unclear,

suggesting that my findings of gender detachment may stand relatively alone in demonstrating a

potential path forward.

METHODS

This study is part of a larger project involving interviews with 77 individuals on the

asexuality spectrum. I draw on 30 of those interviews, which were selected because they

conveyed elements of what I call gender detachment. The overwhelming majority of this subset

of 30 interviews involved respondents who were AFAB, even though those assigned male at

birth (AMAB) constituted nearly a third of the entire sample of 77 interviews. Respondents were

recruited on Twitter, Facebook, and on asexuality-centric pages on Reddit. They were told that

this study was about asexual people’s perspectives on sexuality and gender. Recruitment

materials were shared widely by individuals within the asexual community, and I received far

more indications of interest than I had time to interview. Respondents were not compensated,

and all names have been changed to pseudonyms (some of which were chosen by respondents

themselves). Participants were eligible to participate if they were at least 18 years old, identified

as asexual or on the asexuality spectrum, lived in the United States, and spoke English;

respondents were not screened for any other criteria. All interviews were gathered from 2020-

2021.
 Informed by grounded theory techniques (Charmaz 2006), I conducted in-depth, semi-

structured interviews following a flexible interview guide, allowing questions to evolve as the

interviewer collects data (Charmaz 2006). Also following grounded theory techniques, I used a

sampling strategy aimed toward theory construction rather than toward population

representativeness (Glaser and Strauss 2017). I asked respondents about their gender identities

and presentation, their feelings about the relationship between their gender and sexual identities,

their feelings about their gender, etc. I also asked a number of questions related to respondents’

experience and views of gender. For example, I asked: whether they thought their sexuality had

influenced their experience of gender (and vice versa); how they would describe their gender

identity; and whether they considered themselves more masculine or feminine. As I discovered

themes of gender detachment in some of my early interviews, I began asking respondents about

how closely tied they felt to their gender identity. If respondents gave answers communicating

loose ties, I presented them with the language of gender detachment (and a brief explanation),

asking them if they felt that accurately described their own feelings about gender.

At first, all interviews were conducted via Zoom, lasting from one hour to two and a half

hours. After gathering about 20 interviews, a number of potential respondents had asked if they

could be interviewed via email. I decided to give respondents an asynchronous email-based

interview option and reopened recruitment with this advertised option. Following this, most

respondents chose to be interviewed via email. As new questions arose during data collection, I

sometimes emailed follow-up questions to respondents (both those who initially participated via

Zoom and email).

After each interview was transcribed, I used initial coding to describe what each segment

of the interview was about (Charmaz 2006). I then used focused coding to find similarities
between interviews. All coding was inductive, which involved constructing analytic codes and

categories as they emerged from the data, rather than from codes and categories logically

deduced from hypotheses (Glaser and Strauss 2017). After focused coding, I wrote memos

exploring similarities between interviews. This process was conducted while collecting

interviews, which I continued until reaching saturation related to the emergent categories.

FINDINGS

Overall, I find that respondents framed gender presentation and/or identity as irrelevant,

unimportant, pointless, and/or overall not a topic of great personal concern, evidence of what I

call gender detachment. I sort my findings into three main themes: complete detachment,

ambivalent detachment, and the connection between detachment and (a)sexuality. The first two

themes highlight a range in respondents’ precise feelings about gender. The final theme

emphasizes the relationships between gender and (a)sexuality that help to produce gender

detachment.

Complete Detachment

Some respondents communicated straightforward detachment from gender, in which they

did not feel connected to any gender identity. Ollia was the first respondent I spoke with who

communicated gender detachment. They noted that at one point, they had felt connected to a

gender identity based on their assigned gender at birth, but that this had “fallen away.”

My gender is like an empty lot; there may have been a building there at some point, but

it's long since fallen away, and there's no need to rebuild it. The space is better for being

left empty. (Ollia, 32)

Ollia’s responses reflect personal detachment from gender. Some respondents, however, also

critiqued the gender system more broadly, often focusing on the gender binary.
 I don’t have preferred pronouns. I don’t feel of any particular affinity to either gender. I

don’t believe in the binary. At all. (Sandy, 31)

Sandy’s statement was not simply an expression of a nonbinary identity. Like many other

respondents, Sandy explained after probing that she felt a detachment from gender altogether and

a desire to critique the pressure to “choose” a gender. Most respondents, however, did not make

overt, broad critiques of gender, instead focusing on their personal disinterest in being gendered.

My feelings about gender, for myself, are very detached and distant. I just don’t identify

really with most concepts of gender, because it honestly just confuses me. I just don’t get

it. I don’t know why I don’t get it for myself, but I just find existing with preconceived

notions on who I “should” be tiring to follow, confusing to understand, and stifling to my

true person. Gender, for me, is archaic and not worth the energy. For others, I understand

that gender can be an extremely important aspect in how they conduct themselves and

their lives. But that’s just not it for me. I definitely think I agree that there really isn’t a

specific term that can be used to describe how uninterested I am in the concept of gender

as a whole. So yes, I definitely would describe my relationship with gender as distant.

(Faye, 18)

Some responses sounded similar to a nonbinary gender identity, and specifically to an agender

identity. However, most respondents explicitly said that they found those terms personally

inaccurate or insufficient.

I'd say I'm very detached from gender. I think the analogy I used was that a lot of people

see gender as a spectrum, from pink to purple to blue to variants, and I'm a splotch of

green on the frame. I just don't see myself in that spectrum, and so while agender and
 nonbinary are handy terms, they still work within a gendered framework that I don't place

myself in. (Brandy, 28)

This apprehension toward gender as a framework was true even of respondents who, when asked

their gender identity, said that they were agender or another nonbinary identity. Rebecca, for

example, told me that she identified as agender when I asked for her gender identity. However,

when I later asked how attached she felt to that identity, she communicated gender detachment

and noted that identifying as agender was mostly out of conversational convenience.

I do not feel strongly tied to an agender identity. It just happens to be the most convenient

term to use for me especially when trying to explain things to other people. I feel pretty

detached from gender in general. (Rebecca, 28)

As Rebecca’s quote demonstrates, gender detachment is different from—and sometimes masked

by—agender and nonbinary identification. Although agender and nonbinary identities represent a

departure from the gender binary, gender detachment presents a different gender challenge,

questioning the utility and relevance of gender identities altogether.

Ambivalent Detachment

The gender detachment conveyed by respondents like those above was fairly

straightforward. Some respondents, however, communicated more ambivalent gender

detachment, saying that they felt attachment to some aspects of gender and detachment from

others.

For me personally, I think "woman" is probably a term that's not too far off from my

particular permutation of gender (such that it is). I like how she/her pronouns sound the

best, I usually prefer a femme presentation, and I don't mind being perceived as a woman.

At the same time, there are narratives tied into the concept of womanhood that
 are...repellant, maybe?...to me, … [including] woman as mother, woman as nurturer, and

woman as romantic/sexual partner. I don't vibe at all with the word womanhood,

either. To put it another way, I think that much of my resonance with women comes from

socialization and shared experiences with other people who use that label rather than

perhaps any inherent shared feeling. … Of course I support and respect people who feel

gender to be a strong thing in their life but personally I feel like it's not real and basically

a construction. At the same time, I don't feel like I'm doing much that's disruptive to

dominant constructions of gender, so a term like nonbinary or genderqueer feels

incorrect. So yes, perhaps detached is a good term. … Let me put it this way: if

somebody came up to me and insisted that I was a man, I would disagree with them. If

somebody came up to me and just insisted that I wasn’t a woman, I wouldn't care. …

Personally, I'm not sure that I intrinsically feel much in the place where gender should be.

(Amanda, 24)

This sense of shared connection with women was raised by several respondents. Combined with

a sense that gender is “repellant” in some ways, as Amanda put it, or even simply unimportant,

this created mixed attachment and detachment from gender for these respondents.

I would say that I’m mostly a cis woman, but I don’t feel super strongly about it? I saw a

Tumblr post once that said something like, “I’m a ‘she’ in the same way inanimate

objects are ‘she’ to gays and sailors” and like … yeah? I’m a she because nothing else fits

or feels right, but it’s a loose concept. … I think more than anything, my gender is

something aesthetic? I’m loosely attached to it as a concept, but I do construct it in a

certain way that most people generally interpret as at least feminine-leaning, and I’m

content with that. I like being a woman in the same way I like being queer, in that I feel a
 sense of solidarity with other people who share that experience/attribute, so it’s important

to me in that regard, but I also don’t think about my gender identity very much day to

day, so I’m not sure what that tells you about how attached I am to it. (Dana, 27)

Some respondents indicated lingering gender attachments—in the midst of broader gender

detachment—because they did not see alternative language to convey their relationship with

gender. For example, Lydia said:

I consider myself gender queer. I mostly use female pronouns (she/her) since that’s

easiest for me, but I don’t feel especially connected with being a woman other than my

appearance, which indicates to other people that I am a woman. The problem I have is

that there doesn’t seem to be a descriptor for gender that exactly describes how I feel or

see myself. Being considered a woman doesn’t cause me distress so I usually just

consider myself a queer woman since queer is kind of all encompassing but woman just

feels slightly off the mark for me. (Lydia, 31)

However, when I later told Lydia that I had heard similar things from other asexual individuals I

had interviewed and asked if she felt detached from gender (thereby offering her alternative

language), she enthusiastically said that she did.

Detached from gender at large is a great way to describe it. It's not that I experience any

kind of dysphoria like someone in the trans community might feel; I just don't feel

especially attached to femininity or masculinity. Mostly, I feel kind of neutral about

gender as a whole. … Even calling myself non-binary or agender doesn't feel right, other

than in philosophically. I don't really think about myself in terms of gender, and trying to

fit a label on myself seems kind of unnecessary. The labels that were more or less

assigned to me at birth work well enough and don't really cause me any discomfort so I
 go with it, but they don't really explain me. The closest thing I can come up with is queer

since it explains that I don't fit the norm of gender or sexuality but doesn't say anything

specific. Since I don't even know how I would describe my gender other than through a

long explanation like this, queer is the best I can come up with. (Lydia, 31)

Some respondents also communicated a relationship with gender that was complicated by their

other social identities, such as Blackness.

I’m cis, but as a mixed Black asexual autistic lesbian, my experience with womanhood is

fundamentally different from any experience that I’ve seen before. I don’t feel super

attached to my gender, but I feel even less connected to any other gender terminology

I’ve heard. I’m not a woman in a vacuum, if that makes any sense. Describing myself as a

Black girl feels right, a queer woman feels right, any of the other labels I mentioned

before feel right, but just “woman” feels off. Also so many of so-called female

experiences are VERY white women-centered, so a lot of my disconnect comes from that

too.” (Bee, 23)

As Bee’s statement shows, race could also play into individuals’ feelings of gender detachment,

since womanhood has been culturally constructed through Whiteness in the U.S.

Altogether, then, the reasons for mixed attachment/detachment from gender varied, but

most implicate inadequate identity options (or language to express non-identity) as a driving

factor.

Connecting Gender Detachment and (a)Sexuality

The final important theme deals with respondents’ statements on the relationship between

(a)sexuality and gender. Many respondents said that they felt their feelings and thoughts about

gender were connected to their feelings and thoughts about sex and/or their sexuality. This was
particularly true with those who were assigned female at birth (AFAB), who often communicated

discomfort with what they saw as the inherent sexualization of womanhood.

I feel my gender identity is tied to my sexual orientation… I think, since I grew up

thinking of myself and my identity in terms of how can I make others attracted to me, that

my gender became a part of that. Being a girl meant certain rules for sexuality. Since

letting go of that pressure and tension after realizing I do not experience sexual attraction

myself and don’t want that kind of relationship… it felt like something was lifted from

my gender… Maybe I associate the girl/woman gender identity with sexual attraction, in

a cisheteronormative, patriarchal construct, and that’s why I feel that way. (Honeybee,

18)

Honeybee was far from alone in associating being a girl/woman with sexuality and sex.

Respondents repeatedly raised this as an important factor in their discomfort with and

detachment from gender.

I've really started to question, if I was 12 years old at this moment, would I still consider

myself female? Do I just consider myself female because there wasn't really another

option when I was growing up? … [S]ometimes I equate the word feminine with being

sexy as a female, and I do not want to be seen that way. It would make me very

uncomfortable if anyone told me they found me sexy. I'm not sure how to explain why

but it is somehow tied to be asexual. (Lori, 39)

Some respondents explained that although gender is not entirely about sex and sexuality, they

felt detached from the aspects of gender that are associated with sex and sexuality. For Stacey,

and others, this led her to forsake any gender labels.

 If you were to take away the parts of gender that are related to sex and sexuality, I'd say

yeah, I'm a woman. But there's a lot more to gender that just doesn't feel relevant to me,

and in those ways I'm not. I haven't really settled on a specific gender label for myself,

and honestly don't know if I will, at least not any time soon. (Stacey, 27)

Others said that their feelings (or lack thereof) about sex caused them even to be relatively

uninterested in others’ gender.

I tend not to care much about bodies. Your umm...arrangement of flesh... means very

little as it doesn’t lure me anyway. Sex, when I feel like pursuing it, isn’t very appearance

driven. At least I don’t think it is. Maybe a certain degree of “attractive looking” is

involved overall. But it isn’t the parts. In that aspect, it is probably related to being

asexual. It makes me view parts themselves and gender from a more “I don’t care”

perspective. I also tend to break things down to how it makes me feel. I tend not to like

penetrative activities, for example. I don’t care what parts those are. So I think it just

creates a mindset where sex and gender don’t matter to me. (Judith, 50)

Overall, then, particularly for AFAB individuals, respondents communicated that their asexual

identification felt connected to their disinterest and/or distrust of gender.

DISCUSSION

My findings lead me to propose the concept of gender detachment. Gender detachment

entails situating gender presentation and/or identity as irrelevant, unimportant, pointless, and/or

overall not a topic of great personal concern. This finding presents important implications for the

study of asexuality, but also for the study of sexuality, gender, identity, and resistance.

My findings complicate the (often unstated) assumption that everyone “has” a gender

identity. By disrupting this assumption, these findings reveal gender as a compulsory system of
categorization. This builds on Rich's (1980) concept of compulsory heterosexuality, asexuality

studies’ concept of compulsory sexuality, and efforts to interrogate “compulsory gender

binarism” (Cole and Cate 2008, 285). Moreover, my findings suggest that the ways we measure

and ask questions about gender may erase the possibility of gender detachment by operating

under the assumption of compulsory gender. Indeed, that was initially the case for this study. In

each interview, I asked respondents for their gender identity. Almost all (including the gender

detached) gave a specific, discrete label. I was only able to discern later in some interviews that

this label did not feel entirely accurate to a large portion of respondents. This is because after

asking respondents for their gender identity, I asked about their feelings about gender and how

strongly tied they felt to their gender identity. It was at this point—and with further probing—

that I found that a large portion of respondents felt detached from gender.

If so many respondents felt detached from gender, why did almost all of them

unwaveringly give a gender identity when initially asked? Partially, this speaks to the difficulty

—if not impossibility—of “opting out” in a social world that is so profoundly structured by

gender (Butler 1990; Lorber 2021; Risman 1999). But it also highlights the hidden assumptions

within questions like “what is your gender identity?” Implicit to that question is the assumption

that you do indeed have a gender identity. However, it seems that the reason gender detached

respondents overwhelmingly did not reject the premise of this question is not exactly because

they felt cornered into giving an answer, but rather because they simply did not have the

language to do so. Indeed, respondents often explained that the gender identity they initially

provided functioned more as a placeholder in a universe of limited and inadequate options.

Moreover, when respondents would give a hint of gender detachment in their answers, I would

follow up by noting that other asexual individuals I had interviewed had told me they felt
detached from gender altogether. I then asked if that was how the respondent felt. Many

respondents enthusiastically agreed that “detached from gender” was an accurate reflection of

how they felt, and many leaned on that language for the remainder of the interview.

These linguistic dynamics highlight a tension of gender detachment. The lack of language

to express gender detachment makes it invisible and illegible—but this lack is perhaps produced

by the skepticism of labeling that often accompanies gender detachment. Thus, creating a term

(like “gender detachment”) makes these feelings more visible, but it also potentially undermines

personal motivations to avoid gender labelling. Moreover, as Halberstam (2017, 4) has noted,

“having a name for oneself can be as damaging as lacking one,” since naming is embedded in

modern constructions of expertise and knowledge production and can thus become a disciplinary

device. The very language of gender detachment indicates engagement with (albeit rejection and

ambivalence) with gender while simultaneously indicating resistance to gender as a disciplinary

framework. Thus, the cost of visibility and legibility involves engagement with the very concept

being resisted. This cost is perhaps unavoidable, echoing West and Zimmerman's (2009)

contention that escaping accountability to gender is impossible, meaning that gender can be

“redone” but not “undone.”

However, the detachment from gender described by my respondents is not anticipated by

West and Zimmerman. To some degree, West and Zimmerman appear to be correct: that my

respondents gave a gender identity when asked (even though they did not find that identity

accurate) does indicate an accountability to sex categorization. Yet, West and Zimmerman allege

that gender is redone but never undone because accountability can be shifted but not removed.

No such shift is evident among my respondents. Although they are certainly still held to account

under our gender system (partially through questions like “What is your gender identity?”), they
appear to be genuinely uninterested in creating a new gender/sex category or adjusting the

boundaries of an existing category. Perhaps, though incompletely, my respondents truly are

undoing gender rather than redoing it.

That said, my respondents are not undoing gender by creating a void in which one can

escape gender altogether. This does not, however, place the gender detached outside of the scope

of theorists who have anticipated some kind of ungendering. Indeed, the very messiness,

confusion, and unclarity produced by gender detachment (and the potential debates over what

gender detachment means for gender more broadly) fits quite well with touchstone feminist

theorists of ungendering. Risman (1999) expected the “gender vertigo” produced by the process

of ungendering to be “dizzying.” Butler (1990) argued that refusal and resistance to gender

necessarily involve engagement with it, also noting that perhaps the most effective strategy in

destabilizing gender lies in denaturalizing sex categorization as permanently problematic. In

other words, gender detachment may still operate within a gender paradigm, but this is a

necessity for any ungendering project rather than a sign of underbaked resistance.

Gender detachment is reminiscent of the concept of disidentification (Butler 2011;

Muñoz 1999; Pêcheux 1975), or “a strategy that works on and against dominant ideology”

(Muñoz 1999, 11) that involves situating oneself both within and against the discourses through

which we are compelled to identify. Muñoz in particular highlights the radical potential and

underpinnings of disidentification, arguing that it recycles and rethinks encoded meanings to

represent and empower “a disempowered politics or positionality that has been rendered

unthinkable by the dominant culture” (Muñoz 1999, 31). Disidentification, Muñoz writes, is

“always laboring to enact permanent structural change” (1999, 11-12). However, it is not clear if

the gender detachment observed in my data is best described “strategic,” nor do users emphasize
empowerment or structural change. Instead, it seems that these individuals are merely

articulating their ambivalence and indifference toward gender and gender identification more

broadly. Much as the existence of trans people creates a category crisis (Meadow 2010), the

mere existence of individuals who publicly claim detachment from gender categorization seems

likely to create a crisis of its own. The implications of gender detachment may be radical, but the

intentions often do not appear to be.

It appears that making gender detachment more visible may be necessary for it to exist as

a model of radical resistance. Heightened visibility would increase pressure in broader society to

accommodate the possibility of ungendered individuals. This highlights an apparently inherent

tension with mobilizing gender detachment as a mode of resistance: gender detachment must be

visible to destabilize gender and sex categorization, yet increasing its visibility runs counter to an

interest in deemphasizing gender as a lens to understand the self. This raises the question: what

does (or would) “visibility” look like for gender detachment? While some sort of gender

neutrality or gender abstinence may be the goal, the paradox (c.f. Lorber 2021) is that this may

only be (eventually) possible by first making systems of gender categorization more visible.

Gender Detachment vs. Nonbinary Identity

Gender detachment should not be conflated with claiming a nonbinary identity (including

agender). Respondents sometimes mentioned identifying with a nonbinary identity, but most did

not. Relatedly, respondents did not generally present gender detachment as an affirmation or

discovery of a “true self,” thus contrasting with prevailing narratives of nonbinary identification

(e.g. Oakley 2016). That said, while gender detachment and claiming a nonbinary gender identity

are not synonymous, they are also not mutually exclusive: one might feel detached from gender

and still claim any gender identity, including nonbinary gender identities. Still, this raises an
important question: can one truly “detach” from gender? Inevitably, even individuals who

personally eschew gender find themselves to be gendered by others and to face gendered

pressures in a society that is structured by gender (R. W. Connell 1987; 2005; Ridgeway 2011).

This raises a further question: what does gender detachment offer people in such a society?

Is Gender Detachment Specific to Asexual Individuals?

It also remains unclear if gender detachment either enables or is enabled by asexual

identification or if similar attitudes would be prevalent among individuals of other sexualities.

Previous research has also hinted that some asexual people feel do not feel strongly attached to

their gender identity (Gupta 2019; Cuthbert 2019), suggesting my findings are not an anomaly.

Perhaps some people are simply less “gender-y” than others (Sedgwick 1995, 16), and asexual

people are more likely to fall into that group. It seems possible that because sexuality is typically

defined by not only the sex/gender(s) of those to whom you are attracted but also your own

sex/gender, asexual individuals (whose sexual identity is based on lack of attraction whatsoever,

rather than being defined by attraction to certain sexes/genders) may be feel less compelled to

perform sex/gender in a way that is legible to others. Such an explanation would resonate with

Cuthbert's (2019) findings that some asexual individuals understood sexuality and gender to be

inseparable and felt alienated from gender, with some finding recognition in agender

identification, though others (Yang 2021) have found some asexual individual uncouple gender

and sexuality. My findings may also further contextualize Chasin's (2011) observation that 27

(12.6%) of 214 participants refused to identify as “male” or “female” (the only gender options

given) in Brotto et al.’s (2010) highly cited study of asexuality. Rather than only indicating

“substantial gender diversity within the asexual population,” as Chasin (2011, 716) speculates,

this refusal may indicate some respondents’ hesitance to be gendered whatsoever.

 It is worth considering whether asexuality profoundly disrupts the “heterosexual matrix”

(Butler 1990), leading asexual individuals to unravel the connection between gender and desire

that produces and reifies the gender binary. Perhaps in her original formulation, Butler

overemphasized the power of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich 1980) and undertheorized the

power of compulsory sexuality (the idea that all humans do and should experience sexual

attraction and desire) (Gupta 2015; Przybylo 2019) in the construction and maintenance of

gender. Indeed, some respondents specifically argued that identifying as or performing any

gender is pointless for individuals who are uninterested in sex, situating detachment from gender

as a detachment from sexuality and being seen as a sexual object. To some degree, this argument

is dubious; after all, agender individuals can be sexually attracted and attractive to (e.g. Galupo,

Henise, and Mercer 2016) and individuals may identify as agender/genderless but still be

perceived and treated by others as male or female.

The likeliest explanation for the apparent connection between asexuality and gender

detachment is that sexuality and gender are co-assembled (see also Cuthbert 2019), with each as

the foundational base for the other. Put differently, to be “sexual-ed” is already to be gendered,

and to be gendered is already to be “sexual-ed” (see Valocchi 2005). Because asexuality falls

outside of widely accepted notion that everyone experiences sexual attraction (Gupta 2015;

Przybylo 2019), this destabilizes not only sexuality but gender as well. Although asexuality may

make the possibility of gender detachment easier to recognize or imagine, however, it seems

plausible that gender detachment could be found in settings unrelated to asexuality. Even if

gender detachment did originate among asexual individuals (itself a contestable assertion), it is

quite possible it could travel to non-asexual spaces. Future research should allow for the
possibility of gender detachment to examine whether these seeds of ungendering exist in non-

asexual spaces as well.

It is also worth noting that respondents who were assigned female at birth (AFAB) were

much likelier to convey elements of gender detachment. My findings suggest that gender

detachment may be common among asexual individuals, but that it is much more specifically

common to asexual individuals who were AFAB. This suggests a gendered relationship to

gender detachment. If true, this could be explained by differential relationships to the gender

structure between those who are AMAB and those who are AFAB. Because this structure

legitimizes the dominance of those who are AMAB over those who are AFAB at a group level,

AFAB individuals may simply be less invested in and/or have a more critical relationship with

that structure. Perhaps for those who are gendered as women, gender detachment can be a

strategy for survival or resistance in a patriarchal, misogynistic society.

CONCLUSION

This study builds upon feminist theorists’ work on ungendering (e.g. Firestone 1971;

Lorber 2000; 2005; 2021; Risman 1999; Wittig 1980). However, this study departs from the bulk

of previous work in providing empirical support for this concept. From my data, I introduce the

concept of gender detachment, which refers to respondents’ sense that that gender presentation

and/or identity is irrelevant, unimportant, pointless, and/or overall not a topic of great personal

concern.

Gender detachment appears to be an example of the type of “ungendering” that various

theorists have anticipated for decades (Butler 1990; 2004; R. W. Connell 2005; Deutsch 2007;

Lorber 2000; 2005; 2021; Risman 1999; 2009). Others have questioned whether the “undoing”

of gender is even possible, or if gender can only be “redone” but not “undone” (West and
Zimmerman 2009). Previous empirical work on ungendering has largely not addressed this

critique, as it has focused on resisting discriminatory treatment and inequality (e.g. Chan, Doran,

and Marel 2010; Claringbould and Knoppers 2008) or on gender integration (e.g. Sasson‐Levy

and Amram‐Katz 2007) rather than on resisting gender categories themselves. The limited work

that has documented individuals who were actively working to “undo” gender (C. Connell 2010)

has noted that these individuals both “undo” and “redo” gender. I do not find strong evidence

that my respondents are “redoing” gender, thus making this empirical study stand relatively

alone in this longstanding debate.

Nonetheless, gender detachment operates within and emerges from a gender paradigm. In

that sense, West and Zimmerman's (2009) allegation that escaping accountability to gender is

impossible is inarguable. Yet, it appears that resistance necessitates engagement (Butler 1990).

This echoes Crawley’s (2022) contention that even gender arrangements that challenge

normative sex/gender/sexuality regimes still entail “doing gender.” This does not mean that

phenomenon like gender detachment merely involve “redoing” gender (or even that “redoing”

gender and “undoing” gender are necessarily distinct) nor that they are ineffectual forms of

resistance. Perhaps resisting and “doing” gender are fundamentally inseparable. In that view,

gender detachment exists—or could exist—as a form of disidentification (Butler 2011; Muñoz

1999; Pêcheux 1975) that works both within and against the discourses and ideologies through

which we are compelled to identify. As such, gender detachment has the potential to destabilize

and denaturalize gender—while perhaps also “redoing” it.

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