YES
Pansexual (pan-sex-u-al)
Adjective: not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity
Noun: a pansexual person
I am pansexual. I am a pansexual person.
When I first told my mom this, she made some dismissive joke bout being attracted to Peter Pan or skillets. Now, I have no problems with jokes about sexuality. I only have problems when people who shouldn’t make jokes about sexuality do so.
My sexuality is not your humor to use—it’s mine. So, when I told my mom this, and she made these jokes, I was upset. Understandably so. And I hid my comments about my sexuality, taking the hits when my mom elected to call me a “lesbian” when I’m not. Sometimes I would call her out on it, but usually I would let it go.
It’s a fight that’s not worth it.
Now, this isn’t to say that I don’t love her, or don’t accept myself. To be hoenst, I don’t really know what it is I’m trying to say.
I guess it’s this:
I am pansexual. I am a pansexual person.
I love men, women, and everything in between. I don’t care what parts you have, or whether you identify with them. If I’m attracted to you, it has nothing to do with that.
If I’m attracted to you, you’re probably a skillet, or a saucepan (I love me a good saucepan).
No, seriously, I love saucepans.
Anyways, what I mean is, my identity is not defined by what others think or say. It took me a long time to understand that. Comments about being a lesbian made me wonder if I actually was. My mind drifted to whether or not I truly wanted to identify with this word, over a more common one like “bisexual”. And, while I sometimes choose to say I’m bi to those who won’t understand the term pan, I’m not.
My identity is not defined by you, or my mom, or my sister or my friends. It is defined by one person: Me.
So when people as me if I’m attracted to men or women, I simply say,
Yes.
