As part of #30DaysOfPride, I am completing the challenge described here http://adventuresofanerd.tumblr.com/post/145264686396/30-days-of-pride. Answers will be tagged #30DaysOfPrideChallenge, should you need to blacklist them.
Day 2 - How old were you when you first discovered you were LGBTQ?
So, there are multiple answers here. I knew from very very early that I wasn’t a boy--I would argue starting around 3-4 years old. I struggle to conceptualize “maleness/masculinity” and “femaleness/femininity,” and for the longest time I completely failed to understand the difference between men and women except in the untrue penis/vagina sense, and even that didn’t feel ‘right’ to me. It wasn’t until I was about 26 or so that I first encountered the term “nonbinary,” however, and I didn’t learn about “neutrois” or “demi-” until I would say around 28. Those at least were the big “aha!” moments, but like I said, I knew what I wasn’t from very young.
As for the sexuality piece, I felt like I didn’t have a sexuality for the longest time. I literally didn’t masturbate until I was 17. I had sexual feelings, but none I understood at the time, and had no desire to act on them, especially with other people. At 17, I came out as bisexual, because I realized that I had romantic attraction to women and men, but I still didn’t really have sexual attractions on which I wanted to act. I just didn’t have the terminology for “grey-ace” or “biromantic.” “Bisexual” later became “gay” around 18, as I started pursuing sexual and romantic relationships with men exclusively, and still presented myself as one at the time.
As mentioned, my sexual attraction in general very much comes and goes, and I definitely consider myself on the Ace spectrum--hence the ‘grey’ appended to polisexual. I don’t think I conceptualized this out loud until just a few months ago (29 at the time), when I mentioned it at dinner with @allanhamill1979 and some friends. I’m not sure why I felt so comfortable at that moment saying it, when Allan and I had never really discussed it in that sense, but I felt like in that moment we both immediately recognized it for what it was. Similarly, it wasn’t until even just a few days ago that I really recognized myself as not just “gay.” I knew the term wasn’t really right, since I’m not a dude, and had made a comment about that the same night as the previously-mentioned dinner. I had mentioned before finding myself attracted to some women and to a variety of nonbinary people in addition to being attracted to men, and a few days ago, we were discussing that (among other things), and was the first time I really talked about not being exclusively “gay” as an identity, and looking for another term. Hence polisexual.
So yeah. Depending on your answer: 4, 17, 18, 26, 28, 29, 30.