#I’m scared of allos /hj

[leafatlaw]

may have made a mistake …

[smallestclowninthecircus]

Queer rant time (long text post ahead)

As we all know a large part of what young queer folk go thru is defending themselves from ppl saying their gender/sexuality is just a phase. Sometimes its from obnoxious parents/ adults, and sometimes its other ppl in the community saying "you're not actually bi/pan, you're really just gay and not ready to come out yet" which is obviously bad.

But.

We spend all this time saying its not a phase that we forget that its okay if it is. Experimentation is great, and an incredibly important part of figuring out who you are and sometimes that means sticking a label on yourself and seeing if it fits. If it does that's great! you discovered something about yourself, but if it doesn't, that's okay too. People are hesitant and scared to experiment with labels because they don't want to perpetuate the stereotype that its "just a phase". That makes questioning so difficult and scary because you're trying to figure it out but you feel pressure to do it all by yourself because you don't want to "Come Out" just to realize that you weren't quite there yet. (This also has to do with how negative the concept of "coming out" is, and the internets obsession with labels.) part of what I've had to embrace recently is that I'm likely not going to know exactly what my sexuality is for a while, and that's okay. But we need to let people experiment even if it means they're actually straight. (all this applies for gender and pronouns as well)

Side tangent: I hate the way labels for sexuality work so much and i know nothing exists in a vacuum but cant we just ditch it and start over. labels for sexuality require you know not only the gender you're attracted to but your own gender as well?? shoutout to lesbianism for starting to break that mold? same with asexuality and aromanticism. very poggers keep up the good work. Also this might just be the pan(?) aro in me talking but i Do Not Understand how allo attraction labels work, what do you mean you're just attracted to men? What even are men? What if you looked at someone and thought they were a man but they werent? would the attraction go away? how do nonbinary ppl factor in to this? is it just men+? are afab pre-transition nonbinary people counted in that? Again, shoutout to the lesbians who seem to have gotten this all sorted for the most part (even if theres still arguing abt it) and i think there are words that dont have to do with the gender of the person feeling the attraction but i dont think they factor in nonbinary people at all so. fuck us i guess /hj