How My LGBTQ Identity Has Continued To Change

As a teen on the internet, I saw people coming out left and right. I just kind of realized that I liked girls and it wasn’t such a big deal to me. My identity went through so many changes. It is really easy to get caught up in these hairsplitting micro-identities and I definitely fell into that. I realized that trying to neatly dissect every little part of me was unhealthy after a while.

I identified as bisexual for a while, then a lesbian, and now I’m back to bisexual. I realized that I can be bisexual and still have a preference, in my case, for women.

I came out to my mom when I was 19-year-old, kind of by accident. She’s very accepting and progressive, but sometimes she’ll say things that are just not ok. On this day, I believe she used a homophobic slur and I got really upset.

We fought about it and I ended up blurting out that I was bisexual. I regretted it, but she’s totally cool about it and doesn’t care at all. She used to make comments sometimes about how I would eventually have to “choose” between men and women.

She thought bisexuality was just a temporary thing. It was weird because she had a 70-year-old coworker who was bisexual and had been all his life. After I pointed that out to her, she stopped saying things like that.

My sister has always known she’s bisexual too. I don’t really have any straight friends either. When I found out they were all LGBTQ+ too, I felt comfortable just casually dropping it into our conversation.

Looking back, there were definitely signs that I should have picked up on when I was younger. I used to watch “That 70s Show” and just stare at Mila Kunis because she was so beautiful.

I remember telling myself that it wasn’t gay; I was just appreciating her beauty.

No one has ever treated me differently because I keep my sexuality very private. I’m super uncomfortable with people knowing. Unless I’m 110% sure that they’ll be okay with it.

There are some people that I just can’t see myself telling ever. I remember when I was younger, my mom commented that she saw a lesbian couple and my uncle got mad.

He told my mom that she couldn’t use that word in front of me. I couldn’t imagine coming out to someone like that.