I first thought about sexuality in third grade; I had just moved to a new school and someone had used the word “gay” to describe something they disliked. I knew what gay meant, thanks to my parents and their lack of a filter (love you mom!), so I didn’t understand why they were using it that way. I figured they just didn’t know what it really meant. Thinking back on it now ,they actually may not have, but I was too afraid to correct them and ruin my chance of friendship so soon in the school year, so little ol’ me decided to keep my little ol’ mouth shut.
From then on, I noticed everyone always asked me if I liked a boy at school, and me being my hopeless romantic self always said no, even though there wasn’t a second that went by that I wasn’t crushing on the random boy who let me borrow a pencil, or that boy over there who’s looked in my general direction twice within a week, or any boy that has paid me any kind of positive or negative attention. I never thought of liking a girl because the girls around me never thought about it and my sole objective in elementary school was to blend in so well you’d question if I was even there. It wasn’t until 7th grade that my perspective on sexuality really opened up. I met all these cool new people: lesbians, gays, pansexual, bisexual, and transgender! I was in such awe because I had never heard of anything like this before, you can like more than one gender? Fantastic! Sometime within 7th grade, I labeled myself bisexual, considering I had my first crush on a girl (who’s actually the transgender person I referred to earlier! At that time they identified as she) and my past “crushes” on boys.
Then Tumblr happened. I learned all kinds of new sexual orientations and genders, and decided to label myself pansexual, it seemed to fit me better at the time. All these labels I was trying to give my sexuality, none of them seemed to fit. It just didn’t seem right. No matter how open I was, their wasn’t a label to go with it. This could be due to the fact that it’s always so hard for me to decide whether or not I genuinely like someone in the first place, but nothing ever really clicked, at least not until 11th grade.
Last year, I decided to stop labeling my sexuality. People continuously asked what my sexuality was, and I could never give them a proper answer. With this, it’s just easier. Whenever someone asks “why not?”, I just ask “why should I?” My sexuality isn’t something that can be defined so easily, so why try? I like who I like, and it is what it is.
I hope this article may have been some help to someone else struggling to label their sexuality. If the shoe fits, then wear it, but if it doesn’t, think about whether or not you want to waste your money buying it in another size.
