#first pride month where i'm actually letting myself explore my gender so that's !!!!! excite

[takinghisbow]

it's almost officially pride month which is also my birth month, meaning it really is the queerest month of the year

[margot-bargot]

Listen, fam. I'm coming out.

Look, I've been working on the best way to do this for a while. I had a whole long thing typed up & I kept re-writing it for months. But I think I'm just gonna get to the point. I'm coming out. I identify as pansexual. What is pansexuality, you ask? Well, it basically means that I feel attraction to anyone, regardless of their gender. Cis men & women, trans men & women, agender folks, demigender folks, etc. If you've never heard of pansexuality before, lemme hit you with that Wikipedia link real quick to help you out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexuality . Pansexuality is pretty adjacent to bisexuality & often gets confused for it. However, the two are slightly different in that bisexuality is attraction to two or more genders & pansexuality is attraction to anyone of any gender. A couple things to note real quick before we continue: 1. Pansexuality doesn't mean that you're attracted to EVERYONE you see. It simply means that your capacity to feel attraction isn't primarily based on gender. 2. If you make any jokes about having sex with pans, you're officially a cornball. I'm just giving you a heads up, is all. Sorry but I don't make the rules. So the thing you might be wondering is how I figured this out. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how I could go 29 years without knowing this about myself. But every time I think back, there is one element of my past that explains why it took so long. Growing up in a predominantly conservative christian home, the idea of being gay or anything close to it was a non-starter. It was a sin & a heavily condemned one, at that. As a result, any time a "gay thought" would pop up in my head, I tried to get it out of there as quick as possible. It became an instant reflex to keep that kind of thought out of my head. But I still would feel guilt for the thought, as well as guilt from "lusting" for women. My teens were a confusion time where I was discouraged from even considering an attraction for another gender while also being told I was TOO attracted to the "right" gender. Not a great situation, emotionally. Unfortunately, I suspect it's not an uncommon occurrence for kids growing up in strict christian homes. That said, I felt more comfortable exploring attraction & affection towards cisgendered women (even if it led to "sin" or whatever ugh) mainly because it was instilled in me by conservative christian culture that being gay was worse in the eyes of both God & the church congregation than sleeping with a woman before marriage. If you did that, the church congregation would murmur about you for a bit & engage in some form of slut-shaming hidden under the guise of "asking god for forgiveness." If you were gay? That was a disease. A sinful disease. You'd be quarantined, or ostracized, from that community unless they had the "grace" to help you get therapy to pray the gay away. So, being a massively horny but perpetually nervous teen, I chose to guiltily explore attraction to cis women & push everything else out. In college, my views on both religion & sexuality became more liberal. I no longer thought of being gay as a sin disease (although Sin Disease is a good name for a metal band, now that I think about it). This trend continued after college & beyond, to the point of total acceptance & support for the LGBTQIA community. Folks were gay (including several friends of mine) & that's cool. But I never thought about it for myself. I never allowed myself to really consider the possibility that I could be attracted to anyone else because I always struck the thought down when it popped up in my head. Even though I was no longer religious, I still carried that reflex I learned as a child years ago. The reflex that conservative Christianity taught & encouraged within me. I guess what I'm saying is that religious suppression is a powerful thing. And that only started to unravel for me late last year. I can't point to one thing that started the unraveling process because it really was a culmination of a bunch of different things (such as talking with some cool queer folks about their experiences & finally allowing myself to let in/process non-heteronormative thoughts). It was in late January where I first admitted out loud to one of my roommates that I was beginning to think that I wasn't actually straight. It was really hard for me to find the words for how I felt. None of the established labels (gay, bi, etc) felt 100 percent accurate for me. She actually helped point me toward the idea of pansexuality, which seemed closer to how I felt (I would later talk to some cool queer folks who helped verify some information about pansexuality, where it fit in the rainbow, etc). And a weird thing happened that night. I felt a weight lift off of me. It happened almost instantly. It was like a weight that I never knew was there. And I started crying. Was this what I was carrying with me for 29 years? Was that reflex to kick the idea of anything queer out of my head keeping this weight on me? Even now, with the large amounts of stress/worry that I feel on a day-to-day basis, I think about all of this & it feels like a bright spot in an otherwise dark world for me. Like, the world is going to shit, but I finally figured out this important truth about myself. Anyway, that's a lot of words up there. And I'm not done! I still need to tell you why I'm saying all of this! But I know this has been a long read, so feel free to run to the bathroom if you need to. It occurred to me that I might not be the only one in this situation. If conservative christian culture was able to burrow that repressive reflex that deep into me (so deep that it lasted years after I left the church), it had to do the same to other folks. Maybe there's someone reading this that hasn't even allowed themselves to consider their sexual identity. Maybe someone's reading that's just starting to ask some questions about their identity. If so, I want to tell you that it's okay to question & explore that side of yourself, even if you don't really have a name for it yet. I certainly didn't know what to call myself at first, other than "not straight". You're 100% not alone in this. I'm out here with you, grasping at bits of truth, filling in the gaps, & trying to find answers but feeling so much more free in the journey than I ever did in the comfort of what I knew. If you are in that situation, there are a lot of good resources to help you fill in the gaps & answer some of those lingering questions. If you have a friend in the LGBTQIA community, don't be afraid to ask them about their own experience. Talking with folks who had an experience coming to grips with their own queerness helped me quite a bit, even when our experiences were different. It's just nice to know you're not some unsolvable mystery & that this this thing (whatever you end up calling it) is a very positive thing. If you live in a big enough city, you probably have an equality center that provides resources, access to affordable counseling, support groups, & social events (where you can meet other folks within the community). If your city doesn't have something like that, there are online resources that can help as well. Here's a link for the GLBT National Help Center, in case you're in that situation: http://glbtnationalhelpcenter.org . Hopefully that ends up being helpful to anyone who needs it. It's 2018 & while there have been massive strides in LGBTQIA rights/visibility, there are still many ways in which members of the community are harmed & discriminated against (spearheaded largely by our current administration). We're not in a time where everyone everywhere can feel 100% safe openly exploring their sexual and/or gender identity. I'm a huge dummy in many respects, but if some of the information in this post helps someone feel less alone or points them in the right direction, then it'll be worth it. I realize that there are folks I know who hold more conservative views. They'll probably read all of this (or like, just the first two paragraphs lol) & decide I'm heading straight to hell. If they're being generous, they'll say that they're "praying for me" & pity me as another lost soul. Which, whatever. I'll be fine. If anything, I feel more free than I ever did repressing such a big part of myself. Plus, these are people who voted for Trump (& if they didn't, they are still largely okay with the gay-hating coward Mike Pence). So we're not gonna see eye-to-eye on this no matter what. 🤷‍♂️ Also they can fuck off. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ I guess that's all I have to say. If you stuck around & read all of this, I appreciate you indulging me as I tried to fumble around explaining myself. It's been about 5 months since I first came out to my roommate & I'm happy to finally share the good news with y'all. I'm going to my first ever Pride parade soon. It'll be my first time around a large gathering of queer folk. I normally don't really like being out in large groups (nor do I love highly corporate-sponsored events, which this surely will be). That being said, I'm really excited! I seriously can't wait for this. Probably because it feels like finally being united with a group you never knew you were a part of. It's an event specifically celebrating the idea that it's cool & good to be queer, to be part of this rainbow. For the first time in a long time, it feels like I'm moving in the right direction.