Rainbow – …on the B.L.

I’m gay. This is the term I’m comfortable with. Queer works too. Labels make me uncomfortable, but I’m also a writer, so words make me comfortable. I want to express who I am with words, but also I hate being defined because the moment labels enter there’s connotation, expectation, stereotypes, and all that jazz.

The labels for my sexual identity have shifted drastically over the years. The first label I ever tried on was gay. It’s also the most recent one I’ve been wearing. I never told anyone when I wrote “I think I’m gay” in my diary at twelve before burning it because privacy didn’t exist in my childhood home. In recent years, I’ve used pansexual because it feels inclusive of my past. I have only ever been in relationships with men. I’m not mad about it because those men have made me who I am today. For the good and the bad. Some of them literally saved my life. I am trauma bound to all men and yet one specific man for so many reasons. In my adulthood, I have had amazing taste in men. They are going to go on and be fantastic partners to hopefully equally incredible women. I’m not that woman. If I could be, I would. But I’m not. Those relationships didn’t work for a lot of reasons. Very valid reasons. Some incredibly painful reasons. Even if those relationships were perfect—not that there is such a thing—I would have left eventually.

There’s one man I truly imagined a future with. But it was one of those very hazy, hypothetical, willing it to happen imaginings. We talked about all of the possible futures we could have. Engagement, wedding, marriage, children, retirement. Amazing human. Just the best. It would have been an amazing adventure of a life. But even in the absolute height of being in love with him, something deep inside told me it wasn’t quite right. I always brushed it away because being in love doesn’t usually go hand in hand with rationality. I never gave voice to the internal unease. I never told him or anyone my feelings; I’m incredibly private to begin with, but if I said it out loud or even thought it, then it would be real. He and I would never end up together. At one point the idea of not being with him was soul crushing. The bond we shared because of trauma and just a decade of history has made it so hard to let go of that hazy imagining no matter how much I needed to for myself and him. There was a bigger reason I always knew it wouldn’t work. Even very recently, I didn’t want to confront it. I was trying to force false realities into truths, make my life fit his, and create hypothetical worlds where my gayness could exist in tandem with a straight life. I tried and tried and could never make myself see the house, the kids, the full life with him. So I said I didn’t want those things. Convinced myself I didn’t in the hopes that he wouldn’t want me. Because it was easier to completely cancel that future with him and everyone than admit the reality. I was pushing away my reality, my dreams, and ultimately my identity because I loved him so deeply, knowing it wouldn’t work in the furthest corners of my soul. In a way, I don’t. I don’t want those things…. with a man. But with a wife. It doesn’t feel like a terrifying trap.

Loud and proud member of the Alphabet Mafia.

This is not a reflection on him. He will be an amazing father and husband, but not with me. It is also not a reflection on how I feel about being gay. I am so proud to be gay. It is not an identity I have hid from, but it is an identity that has hid behind love, trauma, abuse, and survival. Now I exist in a safe and settled home where I can be all of the things that I am all at once.

I am so gay.

Writing has always been equal parts cathartic and painful. Finally writing these things down. Owning the fact that I don’t want a heterosexual future. I don’t want to marry a man. I don’t want to have children with a man. I don’t want to raise a family and grow old with a man. It is all so relieving to admit. Before it was: I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to have children. I don’t want to grow old with anyone. I have no fucking clue what the future has to hold. I may never have any of these things. But I know if I get married, have children, and grow old in a romantic relationship it will be with a woman. I may not actively pursue these things right now or ever, but oh my god, it feels like something I may actually want one day. As I type, I can actually feel my heart loosen its grip on the things it held on to so fiercely out of love, loyalty, and self-preservation.

Honestly, this is probably my favorite hand gesture. No shame.

One day, I will probably be comfortable with the label: lesbian. It’s accurate. Or at least the closest thing to accurate. (I would try dick again with Taron Egerton. He is a phenom and a gift to the world, but even him… I just don’t see it working out long term. Sorry Taron. I know there’s a real chance there. *eye roll*) I’ve been saying “No new dick.” for over a year. The truth is… no dick. I don’t want dick. I want a woman. Wearing lesbian on my sleeve feels like an erasure of the awesome men in my life, past, and ultimately the love I once had. Intellectually, this does not make any sense at all. I’m aware. There are lots of lesbians who once loved men, were in relationships with men, had children with men, so on and so forth. What makes sense and makes me comfortable do not always have to be in alignment. Acknowledging the dissonance right now works for me.

Identity is always shifting; although, I’m never shifting straight. That’s just a big nope. Ten years ago, I was telling people I was attracted to women. Five years ago, I was telling people I wasn’t straight while in a straight passing relationship. Three years ago, I was proudly pan. They’ve all tasted strange in my mouth and in my heart. A year and a half ago, I tried on queer, which I very much like. It’s been in the last year that I started using gay, which is short and sweet. I like it. I like the way it catches people off guard. I like the way it makes me feel. I like that it’s a synonym for happy. It may always be my preferred identifier; it may not. I know one day I will take on lesbian. Maybe next month. Maybe after I have 2.5 children and a white picket fence with a woman I have yet to meet. Maybe before I die completely alone. The future is all up in the air at this point in time.

BUT AT LEAST I WON’T DIE STRAIGHT.

Does this outfit make me look gay? Good.

Hey, y’all. I’m queer. Pansexual to be specific. This isn’t my coming out. I’m fully out of the closet. If I’m being honest, I never had an I’m-not-straight talk with anyone. It’s just been something that has existed as a solid fact in my life for a decade now. My non-heterosexual identity has been talked about for awhile, but as I get older, I’m feeling the need to live more loudly in my queer identity. This story is a whole lot longer than a single blog post, and, honestly, I may turn it into a collection of essays at some point. Let’s be honest, I’m unpacking so many things about my sexuality that I have kept firmly in a box unto itself, which is very unfair to my identity and journey as a human.

I never felt the need to come out for a whole lot of reasons. Too many to count. The two biggest being my family and my college.

I grew up in a weird house. Conservative in as many ways as it was liberal. So much progress mired in an ideology founded in my parent’s small, Midwestern childhoods’ of the 60s and 70s. My parents were and are accepting, but they did not grasp the nuance, language, or broad rainbow spectrum. They were products of their generation, and it showed[s] in their language, phrasing, expression, and beliefs. Equally, I am a product of my own generation, education, family, and ultimately genetics.

Cornell College, my alma mater, is incredibly liberal. The epitomization of: college is for self-exploration. My friends embodied “Do the thing. Do all the things. Try them now before life crushes us with debt and responsibility.” Damn, I love those humans. There were labels, but if you were on a journey and didn’t label anything, well that was okay too. Label it or don’t, just be a good person.

I remember writing, “I think I’m gay.” at twelve. I quite literally burned that piece of paper. For so many reasons I couldn’t name back then. Shame (which was not instilled in me by my parents or church, just, you know, society and the patriarchy). Isolation. Mostly uncertainty. I knew I wasn’t gay in the binary that I was aware of. Bisexuality wasn’t even presented to me as an actual sexuality… I’m not even going to get into that here. The isolation came from knowing I wasn’t straight, but knowing I wasn’t gay either. In a progressive town that had… all but no gay people (that I knew of, especially at the time), I would have been very much alone in an identity I still had no name for. For the kids reading this, this is pre-high speed internet, and I would have had to know the term to look it up in a dictionary—it’s a large book containing all the words and their definitions. I remember hearing people say, “Oh, she’s gay.” But “she” had moved out of town years before. Had I known what I was and been out in high school, it would have changed nothing because there were only boys to date anyways.

For so many reasons, the unknown of what I was didn’t affect my adolescence in any way. Truly, there is zero trauma stemming from my pansexual existence; loads and loads of trauma from other things in my life, though!

I don’t have that trauma because of a seminal moment in my adolescence.

But first, back story. I was an incredibly late bloomer. I didn’t get my first period until I was sixteen. I was not interested in sex until I met the love of my life at almost twenty. (I did get raped repeatedly by my high school “boyfriend” from 17 to 19. Oh hey there, trauma. Sup?) My sexuality wasn’t a crisis because it didn’t really exist for twenty years. I did not go through the boy/girl/sex crazy phase. Ever. I might be entering it now at thirty. Like I said, late bloomer. I became a sexual human at 19.5 when I fell in love and entered my first serious relationship with a human, who happened to be male. I fell in love with the human because he was and is incredible.

More back story. As a kid, I was pretty intensely into ballet. I was also a cheerleader, had a huge affinity for dresses, played the flute, was working on being a classical pianist, had straight As for most of middle school and high school (getting raped affected that a bit), obsessed with wearing heels. In so many ways, all arrows pointed to girly-girl, on the surface. (I still present super femme.) Dig deeper into my psyche and for those who knew/know me, the gender expression and sexuality waters get a lot murkier, but I won’t get into that right now.

On to the seminal moment.

At fifteen, I was walking through the kitchen, having just gotten home from cheerleading practice. My mother was in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce. One hand controlling the wooden spoon. One hand holding the pan. One foot grounded and the other on a stool, a bit Captain Morgan-ish now that I think about it. As I walk past, she says, “RaeAnna, I have a question for you.” My mother is never this formal. The Type A personality in me froze. What had I done wrong??? “Okay?” Without missing a beat or looking at me, still very much focused on her task, “Are you a lesbian?” Not the question I was expecting at all. It was so far off my radar, I really never ever thought I would hear that question. I had always known that if I was gay that it would be no big deal. My parents would be able to accept that without a problem (probably one of the few things about the authentic me that have been easily accepted). I hadn’t really thought about it since writing “I think I’m gay” three years prior. Like I said, not a sexual human at that point in time. “Um… Not that I know of.” Again, without missing a beat, “Okay. Just asking. If that ever changes, let me know.” One of the most nonchalant conversations I have ever had with the woman. She has given me a lifetime’s worth of writing material, but this is one of the moments I look back on and respect the hell out of her for.

If you don’t know me, if you don’t follow me, if you’re just meeting me for the first time, I present as ultra feminine, conservative, Christian, Suzy Homemaker, Type A, straight woman. I can be femme, but I also have some serious masc energy. I am absolutely not conservative; I get why people think that, but yikes no. I live my life pretty conservatively because that’s my comfort zone. Haha, trauma. But I am not conservative in any way at all. I am quite the flaming liberal, progressive, intersectional feminist. I’m not Christian; I’m atheist, but I was raised Methodist. I am definitely a Suzy Homemaker. Call me grandma; I love cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, taking care of people, and keeping a clean house. I hate cleaning, but I AM Type A with a touch of OCD. Hey there, I’m neurotic, fun neurotic, still neurotic, though. I am NOT straight. I have only been in relationships with men. For a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with preferring men to women.

There was never an announcement of my queerness. No discussion. No party. I never officially came out. I never felt the need. It started with an “I’m attracted to women.” progressed to “I would definitely date women.” before turning into “I would have sex with women.” and eventually became “I’m attracted to people. I could spend my life with any gender.” It was slowly and steadily established as a fact about me. It’s been the last six years that I started using the term pansexual to describe myself. It’s been in the last year that I’ve started claiming queer. It’s a journey, and I’m on it.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Tag: Rainbow

Labels Make Me Uncomfortable… But I’m So Gay

Hey! I’m Queer. Happy Pride!