After both of these questions I also asked respondents if they had any other comments. I decided to share all of them here since the line between 'relevant' and 'irrelevant' is fine, and because I didn't want to seemingly censor anyway who bordered on criticising me or whom I disagreed with. Also some of the irrelevant comments were still very funny. I've also bolded some of the comments that I found most interesting. Consider them the tl;dr if you want.

 

Here are the comments for the question 'Do you believe that your aromantic identity influences your gender identity?':

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• i don't agree with my culture's definition of womanhood and am not comfortable being associated with it; however if genders were defined more loosely i would have fewer issues

• I admit that it is difficult to know whether my gender experience would be different if I experienced romantic and/or sexual attraction because I can't imagine what it would feel like. On the one hand, being able to identify strongly with terms like wlw, nblm, and etc. might influence me to pick a more specific box than the vague 'genderqueer' that I currently use to describe myself. I also feel like others might use such labels to determine which gender group they want to identify with. On the other hand, though, when I think about my personal experiences with non-binary gender, I don't view my aromanticism as having specifically influenced it.

• If anything, the opposite would be more accurate for me. My aromanticism affects the way I perceive my gender in relation to other people

• About the only influence is that the aroace community introduced me to a lot of nonbinary people.

• N/A

• That's probably because I'm supposed to be a woman though? Because of sexism and heteronormativity, and how womanhood is in fact linked to (or defined with) men in our society, having no attraction towards them is going to be confusing.

• I think my aroace identity both influenced and obscured my identity as agender. In early high school I switched to wearing baggy t-shirts and jeans because I "didn't want to feel sexualized", which may have been true but was also a convenient excuse so that I did not have to seriously consider my gender at the time. For a while, I was basically like I don't think I experience gender but also I can't find a description of gender so how can I be sure I don't feel it? And I do get the impression that for many people, the attractions they experience tie into how they feel gender(such as "being a man" being tied to dating and stuff), so I think being aroace definitely made it even harder for me to define what gender should feel like. It's interesting having an orientation primarily defined by what I'm not, rather than by what I am; additionally, it's a lot more challenging to discover. With aro & ace, there were at least somewhat clear definitions of what those attractions felt like so I could relatively easily conclude that I don't feel it. But gender? I've yet to find a good definition about how gender feels, possibly because it's very different for everyone, but this resulted in it taking a lot longer for me to discover my orientation as agender. I like the recently coined arogender and while I use it more as a descriptor, I think if I'd seen it 2-3 years ago I would have identified with it, thus facilitating my understanding of my nonbinary identity.

• YAY ARO SURVEYS

• I identify as agender

• My aromantic identity allowed me to feel more comfortable exploring my gender identity.

• While I don’t think that my aromantic identity caused or influenced my identification as gender nonbinary, I did identify as aromantic first and likely would never have started identifying as nb without being aro due to lack or education or involvement in the queer community. (to clarify, being aro didn’t influence my identity, but did help me stumble upon the correct labels for it)

• My gender issues partially have to deal with me wanting to be seen as a person and not a gender

• a lot of these questions are worded very awkwardly

• I think that my gender identity and aromanticism have similar causes, but one doesn't affect the other as far as I know.

• I prefer presenting as mostly androgynous, and I've noticed a few other aros and aces mentioning this - being uncomfortable with puberty chasing out their androgyny, wearing clothes that hide the torso, etc.

• Ever since i started identifying as aro i started exploring my masculine side more

• I feel that my gender identity is more closely linked to me being asexual rather than being aromantic.

• I think gender and sexuality are mostly not linked, but i feel my dysphoria may have left me feeling uncomfortable with a relationship as i can't be comfortable letting someone else get to close to my body. If that makes sense.

• youre great! <3

• I'm genderfluid and I find that my gender often shifts to match those whom I am attracted to in a certain way (since I view my aromanticism as strange-attraction rather than non-attraction)

• Even though I do experience some attraction I still feel that defining a gender for myself is pointless. Nothing has ever felt right and I don't label my attraction anyway

• I find that both my aromanticism and gender are influenced by my autism, which to me is inextricable from either.

• I feel romantic attraction to my current partner but prefer to identify solely as aromantic rather than demi or grayro; I also identify as transmasculine. I’m not sure how my aromanticism and gender influence each other, but they’re basically both important parts of my identity ecosystem, as it were

• To me my sexuality has always been a journey in and of itself. Separate from my gender experience and journey.

• I'm hella AroAce and Agender. Also thank you for making this, as I'm figuring myself out with my Aromantic identity as to whether I'm Around or Gray-pan/bi or I don't even know any more.

• for the above question, it's probably the other way around; gender identity affects romantic identity.

• I refer to myself as a girl, because I’ve been raised as a girl, and I choose to present myself as such because it is easier, but if I knew it would be safe and easier to leave my gender behind, I think I would do so

• I feel like my disinterest in romance is based at least partly in general alienation from other people due to neurodivergence and trauma. This is also a large part of why I consider myself genderless - I struggle to feel a connection or 'belonging' to a group. I often feel out of place even among people who, objectively speaking, are pretty similar to me. In that sense, while I don't think being aromantic(?) influences my gender, you could say that my romantic preference possibly stems from the same place as my gender identity - feeling distant from other people generally.

• Some of the questions are confusing and I don't know that I answered them right. TLDR I don't think any of my attractions influence my gender. I'm grayroace androgynous intersex, if that helps. I WILL say that I feel like I have a gender ROLE, and that part of my gender role is to be masc-attracted grayroace. But as for my attractions making me feel more or less masculine or feminine or neither or both, no.

• gamzee was written very poorly, and he deserves a redemption arc, while hussie deserves the guillotine. in this essay i w

• It's mostly a clothing thing but I'm starting to wonder.

• I think you should add intersex as an option for the first question.

• Im asexual as well as aromantic and I wonder sometimes if there is a biological basis that influences my orientations and my very neutral gender identity.

• Being aro doesn't make you any less of a woman or man. It's totally possible to be cis and comfortable with that and aro at the same time. Don't let society's definition of what makes you "women enough" or "man enough" make you doubt your gender or orientation if you feel cis.

• I feel like my ADHD PI has the biggest impact on my gender (and arospecness too)

• In my younger years, my weak sense of gender and gender confusion caused me to preform hyper-femininity for years. As i became a teenager my disconnect with my gender became more noticable and I started dressing more androgynous/masculine. Now I find myself having both masculine and feminine presentations depending each day.

• Im sure my aromanticism affects my gender! Idk how but i bet it does. My gender is just too confusing to say

• Perhaps these questions would apply more if I did not identify as pansexual, but I do. My experience has been less connected to gender not only because of how I identify, but also how gender impacts who I am attracted to. It may be a relevant question to ask of participants during your research: something like "If you experience sexual attraction, to what gender(s) are you attracted?" and then another question for romantic attraction.

• I came out as aromantic before I knew I was genderqueer, if that's relevant.

• started exploring gender in my teens, only found 'aromantic' about three years ago (am 36 now). still having trouble deciding whether agender, or cis man benefiting from privilege

• No, thanks!

• I don't see much of a causal relationship between my aromantic and agender identities. Being aromantic feels like more of an identity to me, whereas being agender is more of a belief akin to my being atheist.

• Maybe more the other way around.