How I Identify

There are a lot of words one can use to describe one's sexuality identity: gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual (which Firefox doesn't recognize as a word), queer, questioning, and others. (There are also words that tend to get lumped into this category that do not define sexuality but rather personal identity: transgender, transsexual, and intersex being examples.) There are also various misconceptions and prejudices associated with identities: that you can't change identities, that some are better than others, and the like. In this post, I'm going to go through how I have identified and why at different points in my life. Through this, I hope to show that identity can fluctuate, and that no one identity is superior to another.

Firstly, I have always been a cisgender woman, meaning that I am female with a feminine gender identity. I am privileged enough to be comfortable and happy in the body that I was born in, a privilege that trans* people do not get to enjoy. However, their identity is no less valid, and being an ally involves being respectful, using preferred pronouns, and fighting transphobia where you see it.

Now, to move on to my sexual identities:

0-14 years old: Straight. I identified as straight for more than half of my life because heterosexuality is set up as the default in Western culture. I didn't think much about it as a child, although, looking back, I totally did have a crush on the yellow Power Ranger and Xena. In preschool and middle school, I had "boyfriends" that I took very seriously; we even kissed on the cheek. As a middle school student, I had rather inconsequential crushes on boys that faded quickly. It was high school where things really kicked into gear.

14-17 years old: Lesbian. With the event of my first real girl-crush and real girlfriend, I quickly swerved to the entire other side of the spectrum. At this point, I understood sexuality in a linear way, like a number line, with "gay/lesbian" on one side, "bisexual" in the middle, and "straight" at the other. For various reasons, including bad experiences with men (which, while they didn't determine who I fell in love with, certainly determined my willingness to consider men as viable partners), the prejudice against bisexuality (bi girls are sluts; bi girls are just experimenting; bi girls are just lesbians who won't admit it to themselves), and my own conception of sexuality as something decisive, I was not willing to allow myself to validate the feelings I knew I had had towards boys. I figured, if I had to pick a side, I wanted to be on the girl-loving one. Therefore, I identified as a lesbian.

17-20 years old: Bisexual. Around my senior year of high school, those feelings towards boys that I'd had in middle school started to resurface again, this time for an uber-masculinized guy who made me feel pretty. It was difficult for me to recognize and validate the fact that I could also have feelings for men. In a way, I had to come out to myself in the opposite direction. However, I still had very binary-based ideas about sexuality, and during this time I was prone to saying things like, "I like my women to look like women and my men to look like men." (This was later disproven.) During this time I also received critique from the LGBT community and my partner, as well as the general world, because those prejudices against bisexuality still stood. The idea that bisexuals, women especially, are just "doing it for the attention," or "on their way to lesbians" is detrimental to the accepting atmosphere that the LGBT community should foster.

20-Now: Queer. I officially switched over to queer when my current partner came out as transgendered. The binary system inherent in bisexual no longer applied; my girlfriend was born male. For a while now, I've seen sexuality not as a linear spectrum but maybe a 3D one, or perhaps a better image is a web. You've got intersections of sex and gender, not to mention that most of my sexuality is fueled by personality. Queer is also a political stance that anyone can take, regardless of sexual identity, that supports the breakdown of misogyny, gender norms, homophobia, and transphobia, and generally just means that you're supportive of the freedom of sexual expression. Which is cool.

So yes, I currently identify as queer. My sexual preference is for people who make me happy and turn me on, regardless of gender or sex expression, which is freeing and very fun. For me, the different words that I have chosen to identify myself with represent a journey of self-discovery and acceptance. For other people, it might be different. Certainly there is nothing wrong with identifying as "straight," "lesbian," or "bisexual." The point is that identities can change, and we should support the journey of a person to find the word that fits them best.

-- Jazz