I guess that will be the challenge for Neutrois, the battle for acceptance.
Neutrois are in some ways humans who wish to remove the biology of gender from themselves and the battle is being accepted for detaching themselves from being human but still crave being loved as a person.
"I guess that will be the challenge for Neutrois, the battle for acceptance."
A person with a body who was for whatever reason born into a body they didn't choose to identify with. And it's not that we don't love ourselves, we do. Neutrois can be considered Agender, Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, and we do love ourselves. We design our faces and our bodies a certain way, choose our clothing, and make ourselves feel attractive just like any other person in the morning. We look at the world from a binary perspective, where things can look too feminine or too masculine and it's a challenge everyday to fit into these roles and constructs whether sociological or biological it's a challenge to see ourselves in this time period.
Maybe for a handful of us it's not important whether or not we are attractive, because we aren't interested in passing. Passing can mean different things, passing a test, passing food, passing as a good doctor, passing as an successful entertainer, passing as an artist, passing as a understanding lover, passing as a hot gay man, passing as a sexy lesbian, passing as a loving husband, or passing as a nurturing mother. Passing or not, what all Neutrois have in common is that we are more interested in being understood than being adored or admired. And the act of understanding simply requires communication not accessorizing. Making people earn their understanding of you through, questions and discussions not sexual intercourse and courtship.
"What all Neutrois have in common is that we are more interested in being understood than being adored or admired."
You see, most people don't know what cis means. Being Cisgender means that you do identify as the sex you were assigned at birth, and being Transgender means that you don't identify as the sex you were assigned at birth. Based on these basic definitions, you can see that one can be defined as a cis gay men, cis gay women, cis straight men, cis straight women, and vice versa with transgender. Neutrois literally translates in french as 'third gender.' In a world that still defines beauty based on historical and conventional constructs of beauty: I think its safe to say todays generation of women and men are not the only victims of pressure to uphold or maintain a certain physical appearance. I know I can't speak for all neutrois and gender non-conforming people, but we are people. We can't exactly explain why this is happening now, or exactly why we are who we are, or why some of us medically transition, because our life is just as much as a process as yours is and in an ideal world we wouldn't have to call ourselves Neutrois. In fact, in an ideal world we wouldn't have to have any labels to justify our actions. I call myself neutrois also because this country still treats being transgender like a mental illness. To get the medicine or surgery I need in order to balance myself out there is an approval process and medical protocols I need to go through and therefore I constantly need to justify why I am the way that I am.
I like the word Neutrois because it makes things easier for people to understand when talking about Non-Binary Transitioning as I am MTN. Male to Neutrois. Micah, who started Neutrois.com a resource for non-binary people, talks a lot about home. For them, transitioning is about getting to a place where you don't think about your gender everyday, you don't need to check yourself at the stop light, you don't need to check yourself in the store reflection, you don't need to check whether or not you're too male, or too female. Getting to a place where you feel at home in your body. I think the challenge stems from a fear of something new.
You see human civilization has only been around for about 6000 years on planet that is 4.5 billion years old. The word Neutrois was not coined until 1995 which is only about 20 years ago and the Gender Non Conforming Identity was not acknowledged by WPATH the World Professional Association for Transgender Health until 2011. It is 2016 today. I can admit that Neutrois is a new idea. But I can't admit I understand why it entirely makes sense for me that I need to transition, take hormones, remove my sex organs, or why now and not before. For me this is less about being attractive, and more about being balanced. It's easy for me to grow my hair out, work out, eat less, wear make up or wear a hat to make myself more appealing to people, to be more sexual attractive. As the years go by, It's becoming more apparent that being sexually attractive is not as important to me when love is about the connection between two minds. Furthermore, connection shouldn't be about making yourself appealing but rather maintaining the discovery between two minds.
"For me this is less about being attractive, and more about being balanced."
Maybe after all of this I'll realize it's not even about being accepted among people or loving yourself but simply surviving. Surviving without gender, without a body, without validation, without acceptance, without understanding, maybe even without love. Survival.
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This post is part of HuffPost's Journey Beyond the Binary blog series, an editorial effort to bring diverse trans and gender non-conforming voices to the HuffPost Blog during and after Pride month. As the LGBTQIA community celebrates great strides forward this June, it's important to acknowledge the struggles still pertinent to trans and gender variant members of the community. Please email any pitches to beyondbinary@huffingtonpost.com