Was having this conversation with some new friends earlier and was curious. When did you guys figure out your sexuality/identity or whatever? Was there a person that helped you or a particular moment or event?
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Gods I am extremely dumb. I (cis fem) had crushes on girls for over a decade before I realised I had crushes on them.
Age 13 - “No I just like looking at her and think she’s really pretty”.
Age 16 - “No I just like her aesthetic. It’s gorgeous”.
Age 20 - “Ok I might kiss a girl a little bit, but I wouldn’t do anything else with her. I like boys anyway.”
Age 23 - “I just like looking at women naked. They’re so pretty and glamorous, who wouldn’t want to look at them? It doesn’t mean I’m gay or anything.”
(Spoiler alert: It totally meant that.)
Eventually figured out (with the help of my partner) I’m bi with a preference towards feminine traits, not necessarily women but anything seen as classically femme - long hair, long eyelashes, makeup, soft body, painted nails, a soft smile. Also kindness, gentleness, etc. There’s probably plenty more things I can’t think of. (Apparently my attraction is kinda misogynistic).
When I was 19 I started dating a boy with some of those traits and I thought I was winning at life. Then that boy turned out to be a girl and she got the rest of those traits and now I am winning at life. And walking down the street with her and holding her hand and being able to show her off and think “this is my girlfriend” makes me extremely happy - for the both of us. More than it ever did before.
Apparently my attraction is kinda misogynistic
Attraction can’t be misogynistic just like it can’t be racist or hetero or homophobic. It’s not a failing or a success to feel sexually attracted to someone (or to not feel this towards anyone at all). Attraction is a feeling. Feeling, like all emotions, are always valid. There is nothing inherently right or wrong about the presence or absence of an emotion or feeling.
It is completely valid to be attracted to whatever you are attracted to and to not be attracted to whatever doesn’t fall in that bucket.
A lot of these narratives often focus on a pivotal point during life where people realize something they had been suppressing or the first time they realized their feelings towards others (or themselves) didn’t fit the most most prevalent narrative. My narrative is a little bit different. I don’t think I’ve ever really questioned how I feel about things - I just feel. The only question around feelings I tend to have is what to do with those feelings.
My whole life I’ve struggled a lot with loosely defined social concepts. Etiquette is a good example of a loosely defined social concept. What polite behavior is varies based on who you’re talking to, where you are, what you’re doing, what income bracket you’re in, and a billion other factors. It always made me wonder, why do we simplify to this single word? Why say that’s polite or impolite, when we could say something more accurate like “that kind of behavior causes people to be upset” or “you’re not being very considerate when you say that” or “we have a set of rules here and you’re breaking them and we do not tolerate that” or whatever is appropriate to the offense.
Because of this, while I do pay attention to these words and how other people use them (we live in a society 😔), I never developed strong narratives around them. Being born a certain way never made me feel like I had to do certain things or feel a certain way. I’ve always been attracted to people in a vaguely amorphous way based on a lot of different factors and in different ways. Some people are more attractive to me mentally than physically, but a strong physical connection can improve the mental and vice versa. I like being emotionally intimate with people, but I don’t feel like emotional intimacy is something that can only be sought after in a romantic context (just stop for a second and ask yourself what romance is, if you’ve never questioned it).
This is just a long preamble to say, to me it’s not about figuring it out. There wasn’t one moment. There’s been a bunch of moments, however, when I found someone’s narrative that matched mine and it gave me a new word I could use to describe myself. As I collected more and more narratives in the world from people that resembled me in different ways, these labels have shifted over time. As I spent time exploring the depths of these feelings, I figured out more behind why I wanted to act in certain ways or have others perceive me through a particular lens.
In terms of sexuality, the first label which I realized fit me was bisexuality. Over the years I changed this to pansexual because I liked the focus of people over their gender. Gender is unsurprisingly one of these amorphous social constructs that I do not understand. It took me a while to realize that some of my discomfort was around how I wanted others to perceive me and how I needed to change some of my presentation in order to get that treatment. At first I was just a cross-dresser, tapping into a deep-seated desire when the need pushed itself to the surface strongly enough. Eventually I realized that I was bottling up certain feelings when I presented to the world in a manner which didn’t really align well with how I felt. When I started expressing more subtly or slightly in that direction in the day-to-day, it felt less like my gender exploding out of a container which was being suppressed, and more like a happy medium. I redefined my gender from fluidity to non-binary and eventually to agender as I realized that the way I think about gender is not so much my feelings, but managing how others feel about and respond to me.
Speaking of amorphous social constructs, coming to the realization that I was also aromantic took an extremely long time. I strongly desire physical, emotional, sexual, intellectual, and basically all forms of intimacy and both pursue and suggest many of them with my partners. I’ve had partners who felt that we had an extremely romantic relationship. But I never understood how people framed how they talked about other people - why certain people were matches and others weren’t, and how they would know this right away. This isn’t how I view sexuality either - some people are physically very attractive because they take care of their body and have the right genetics and most of these people I’d very much like to have sex with because they are pleasing, but it wasn’t until I realized that there is just some innate feeling that people get, which isn’t necessarily based on the characteristics of the person but is just… like there… as a feeling… sometimes? That’s wild to me. I don’t understand this. I probably don’t understand this because I don’t also have this feeling - my feelings are more directed. I feel like I want to be intellectually intimate with someone who is smart or shares certain intellectual thoughts - the feeling happens after the connection or recognition of traits. Aromantic took me a long time to adopt as a label for the same reason (and it would not surprise me if I adopt gray-ace or some other aspec identity eventually), in that common narratives around a feeling just did not resonate with me, despite doing a lot of ‘romantic’ behavior because I value intimacy.
I really resonate with the first portion of your comment. That is to say, my journey to bisexuality was basically the same: I never had a “eureka” moment, more of a “oh, I finally managed to loosen the shackles of the homophobia I was raised with thanks to exposure, and now there seem to be feelings that I should figure out.” I guess if I had to pick one specific moment as a pivot point, it was when I told a guy that offered me his number that I was already in a happy relationship rather than I wasn’t gay. Even before that point though, I already had stuff rattling around in my subconscious (working at a gas station across the street from a gay bar will lead to a lot of subconscious questioning of prior assumptions).
Nowadays, I’m perfectly secure saying that I’m some flavor of bisexual. I hesitate to try pinning it down more since it’s such an amorphous thing for me (kind of like your relationship with gender), and because of the previously-mentioned relationship (19 years at this point and going strong), I don’t really feel any need or desire to do any “hands-on” exploration. I would say that’s the benefit of not having a single “this is it” moment for when I “realized my true self” though: Having a flexible view on my romantic/sexual/gender identity means I can just live being the person I am. It can make things difficult if people insist on labels for things when I don’t quite know how to label myself, but I just use whatever is closest for me and it works out alright.
I think I figured out I was bi when I was around 12? I don’t remember exactly what spurred it, but the first female fictional character I remember thinking was hot was Franziska von Karma. God. She’s the ideal woman.
And tbh I’m just now starting to wonder if I may have more going on than just “cis chick” gender-wise. I’m pretty sure I’m a woman, but I might also be something else? Uhhhh if anyone has resources for figuring out if you may be multigender, or just wants to talk to me about it, that would be appreciated lol
the first female fictional character I remember thinking was hot was Franziska von Karma.
Wow, that is a throwback. I now want to replay through every Phoenix Wright game.
Uhhhh if anyone has resources for figuring out if you may be multigender
The gender dysphoria bible was a pretty enlightening read when I was beginning my gender crisis. Don’t let the word bible influence you into taking it as gospel, no document is perfect, but it does a pretty thorough job of explaining the different feelings characteristic of trans and non-binary people.
Wow, that link is something I wish I had when I was starting out 6 or so years ago. Reading through it with my partner right now, it does a great job of succinctly but comprehensively consolidating so many things that we had to pick up in bits and pieces over time.
Agreed, but also curse that darn site for starting to make me question things a lot (in a good way though hehe)
Just finished reading through it together, what an excellent resource. I especially liked and appreciated the explanations of gender euphoria and how it relates to gender dysphoria, one of the most thoughtful and clear articulations I’ve seen.
Why do you need to be multi gender when you could just be idk yourself
Being multigender is valid. Let’s not go around criticizing someone’s identity. Be better than that.
It all started with a hentai game and ended up in therapy. Went from hetero to lesbian to trans hetero.
