Gender detachment
Gender detachment is a term coined by sociologist Canton Winer, based on Winer's interviews with asexual people.[1] Gender-detached individuals do not feel that gender is a useful, meaningful, or relevant lens for understanding themselves. In other terms, they can be said to lack a gender identity.
Gender-detached people may express a degree of apathy around gender or feel that gender is something externally imposed on them. They may dislike being asked to claim a specific gender identity or set of pronouns, because it feels too much like an assertion of identity.
Winer observes that gender detachment poses a problem for models of gender which assume that everyone has a gender identity. Winer calls the belief that everyone has or should have a gender identity "compulsory gender".[1]
Relationship to nonbinary identity
Complete vs ambivalent detachment
Quotes
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, a white 23 year old from California, quoted by Winer[1]
