I suppose it all started in school, really. The teacher would tell the class to divide into boys and girls, and away they’d go, fleeing to the walls, and I’d be left there, in the middle, wondering. At first, the children were merely a little puzzled, and, after the teacher had led me by the hand in exasperation for the third or fourth time, they began to jeer. The were learning. I don’t know why we divided up for games. Maybe something to do with physical superiority, or something. Maybe the girls were bigger, maturing earlier. There’s certainly that weird point, at about 12 or 13, where all the girls get this rush of hormones to the legs, and go whooosh, and the boys go ‘oh shit,’ and hope the girls have forgotten about the frogspawn incidents, and the hair-pulling. It’s this marvellous point, just before periods and breasts and spots kick in, where the girls just kick ass.

Anyway, even at that point, where girls and boys were becoming so different, I couldn’t decide. Physiology apart, I couldn’t find that join in which to insert my fingers and pry myself open, or the defining part, the mark that I could use for all to see – I am male! I am female! Just didn’t happen. So then I tried for a subtler approach; was it a balancing thing? Did I have more in common with one group? More antipathy to the other? Nope – I could talk about clothes and football, use scorn and punches, run down the corridor like a mad bastard, then feel the dignity of my position, and walk slowly, like a human being. And that was all I could see, then, that separated the groups.

Year by year it became more apparent that everyone else was moving outwards, separating into two different flows of traffic, as it were, and here was I, walking resolutely down the middle; tightrope-walking on the dotted line. Because by the time I was 16 or 17, I’d decided to be resolute. Bollocks to the lot of them. Learning to swear had helped. It was never a case, like with other people who are Other, that I had a long period of hiding and acting my part to fit in, then gradually emerging (or dramatically leaping) out of the shadows, ready to take on the world with my new-moulded identity, with my special badge. It wasn’t really like that, mostly because I’m dead stubborn; I’d refused to co-operate or conform right from the age of four. Also because it was too much a part of what I was, rather than an image to aspire to, right from the beginning. Maybe if people had been stricter with me, if I’d been bothered more by the other children earlier, I’d have hidden and acted.

It’s weird when I have to bring it up, though. Talking to people for the first time, or when I’m getting to know someone. Um, I’d rather you didn’t use conventional pronouns when you’re referring to me please – I’m not him or her. Sorry. A discussion almost invariably follows. I don’t think of myself as male or female. No, I’m not a transsexual. I believe gender is more important than genitals. If they’re not put off, they tend to become friends for life. The last time Jenny introduced someone to me, she said: "This is P. P insists we call P P because h– P doesn’t want to be bound by the gender-constricting rules of the English language."

The only other person I’ve ever met who’s willing to be out and arse-kicking about the whole thing was on this weird ‘chat’ program on the internet. Unfortunately, Jabarh is also a compulsively private person, who’d prefer people only to know the on-line persona. So much for ‘out’; that’s not very useful. Jabarh claims that the ‘chat’ programs are designed so that you can be whatever you want to be. The question of looks, physical ability, gender, race and sexuality diminish in the force of sheer, unadulterated personality. You are only what you communicate intellectually, and what you choose to reveal about your physical reality is up to you. This doesn’t stop people from getting extremely upset when Jabarh won’t reveal the ‘rl’ (real life) gender. This intrigues me, and irritates Jabarh, but I guess people want an image to go with the pure personality. They want communication of as much information as possible, and since just about everyone on these programs are of pubertal or post-pubertal ages, chances are that they think about sex about 93% of the time. They want to know what their chances of getting off with this person (even hypothetically) are, or whether they can just be buddies.

And that’s what all interaction is about, isn’t it? I mean, let’s be cynical here. The chance to get your end away and proliferate your genes. Does this encounter a) increase the chance, b) decrease it? Simplistic evolutionary psychobabble, sure, but it makes a great deal of sense. A male straight friend of mine recently got to know his girlfriend’s female lover, a lesbian. (The girlfriend is still freaked out about how well they get on, but it’s probably only natural that if they’re the sort of people who get on well with her, they’re likely to get on well with each other. Either that, or she just has a lot of polite friends.) He was intrigued by the lack of body language she displays towards him. "Almost as if she were a bloke." It was on the tip of my PC-belaboured tongue to come out with the pre-formed statement (cross-referenced to the notion that all straight men are homophobes and need to be educated) that no, lesbians aren’t petite men with breasts, or women who want to be men, ya fool, when I saw what he meant. He meant that the interaction with other men that he usually experiences is all wrapped up with the understanding, at all times, that they do not want to hit the sack together. And the vibes he was getting off her were identical. Personal epiphanies are always nice to witness.

Why, however, has my choice (or otherwise) of psychological gender got to be the most important or interesting thing about me? Wouldn’t you prefer to know about my extensive vocabulary, my pretensions at poetry, my attempts to hold the world record for computer Solitaire? Okay, maybe not. Although I’m not as obsessive as Jabarh, I begin to see their point. People just look at me and assume. It’s something that’s annoying anyway, right? By something as simple as my accent, let alone skin colour, gender, physical ability, etc, people bestow upon me a whole lot of other attributes. I suppose, in my case, it doesn’t help that I look very stereotypically like others of my genetic (or hormonal or whatever) gender. I can’t help it. I like my hair this length and my height is a dead give-away. Fortunately, I can wear tight tee-shirts and baggy blue jeans most of the time, with a series of disreputable jackets of various ages and lengths.

Anyway, I’ve talked for far too long. That’s probably my major problem – someone asks me one simple question and I ramble on for ages. It’s your turn now.