Under 30 - Coming Up and Coming Out

odd_boi_out · 12-28-2013, 06:38 PM

I started identifying as a lesbian when I was 14. I knew I was "different" way before then, but didn't have the words to articulate how I was feeling. I attributed my lack of interest in boys to the fact that I had a twin brother - boys were not "mysterious" to me in the same way they were to my friends. In middle school I started thinking of myself as asexual. I didn't know at the time that was an actual identity term people used for themselves, but I did know the word from biology class (asexual reproduction), and figured that since I wasn't interested in boys, I must not be a sexual person at all. I assumed that all girls felt the way I did about other girls. Being gay was not even a possibility that entered my head.

Summer before high school started, I went to Girl Scout camp and listened to a lot of music by the Indigo Girls. I got home from camp, horribly campsick, and went out to the record store to find an Indigo Girls CD to remind me of camp. Their CDs often included a list of organizations they supported, and I started searching online for those organizations; one thing led to the next and I found myself stumbling into queer community online and realizing there were other people like me.

Simultaneously, I started high school and developed an enormous crush on a girl who sang with me in choir. I hated myself for it and wished it would go away. It took me a year of agony and denial to finally admit to myself that this wasn't a phase, that I actually was gay. And due to the conservative and religious environment I grew up and went to school in, I didn't start coming out to anyone until I was 17.

Around that time, though, I also started to question my gender identity. I didn't have the words for what it meant to be transgender until I was almost 18, but had long felt extreme discomfort with my body and could never really picture myself growing up to be a woman. I came out as trans at 19, yet struggled with that for a while, because I never fully identified as male, either. Now at almost 25 I happily inhabit a rather uncomfortable but familiar space between butch lesbian and FTM.

12-28-2013, 06:38 PM	#39
odd_boi_out Junior Member How Do You Identify?: transmasculine, butch Preferred Pronoun?: they Relationship Status: Single Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Bay Area CA Posts: 25 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 4 Thanked 74 Times in 17 Posts Rep Power: 1055194	I started identifying as a lesbian when I was 14. I knew I was "different" way before then, but didn't have the words to articulate how I was feeling. I attributed my lack of interest in boys to the fact that I had a twin brother - boys were not "mysterious" to me in the same way they were to my friends. In middle school I started thinking of myself as asexual. I didn't know at the time that was an actual identity term people used for themselves, but I did know the word from biology class (asexual reproduction), and figured that since I wasn't interested in boys, I must not be a sexual person at all. I assumed that all girls felt the way I did about other girls. Being gay was not even a possibility that entered my head. Summer before high school started, I went to Girl Scout camp and listened to a lot of music by the Indigo Girls. I got home from camp, horribly campsick, and went out to the record store to find an Indigo Girls CD to remind me of camp. Their CDs often included a list of organizations they supported, and I started searching online for those organizations; one thing led to the next and I found myself stumbling into queer community online and realizing there were other people like me. Simultaneously, I started high school and developed an enormous crush on a girl who sang with me in choir. I hated myself for it and wished it would go away. It took me a year of agony and denial to finally admit to myself that this wasn't a phase, that I actually was gay. And due to the conservative and religious environment I grew up and went to school in, I didn't start coming out to anyone until I was 17. Around that time, though, I also started to question my gender identity. I didn't have the words for what it meant to be transgender until I was almost 18, but had long felt extreme discomfort with my body and could never really picture myself growing up to be a woman. I came out as trans at 19, yet struggled with that for a while, because I never fully identified as male, either. Now at almost 25 I happily inhabit a rather uncomfortable but familiar space between butch lesbian and FTM.