i don’t know, maybe some of you know the expirience or at least something similar. i was thinking about asking this on the more general trans comm, but … idk.
i used to play the male part for most of my life. i soon discovered, i liked boys a lot. (also i did like girls, but that faded somehow. i have new theories abt that…). it took long to accept that, even longer to embrace it. but when i went to uni in another town, i did not want to hold anything back anymore: i was gayyyyy.
i think now, that i repressed a lot of my bisexuality in that move. i wanted to be that deviant boykisser. what did i like abt homosexual relations?
- hotties be hotties ofc.
- it was radical defiance of norms! (edgy, i know. but that’s what it felt like. the drama is different)
- i wasn’t expected to use my genitalia for penetration. (that i understand now)
- i was allowed, to be softer, more feminine in presence of gay men. (that too, i only see now)
i know and accept, that i am trans for 1,5 years now. i’m on hrt for 6 month and it was the right choice. over the last months i joked about being unsure how i felt being straight now. it’s not a joke. it’s ramping up in the last weeks. there is this first thing, that it’s basically not true, that i am exclusively into men. but i come to understand that of all men it’s the gay ones (the fruity ones to be precise) that i love, as friends and as partners.
i am afraid rn that i am closing that door. that gay space i called home for 15 years (or so) may still welcome me, but it won’t be my space anymore. it’s bad statistcs, but gay men treat me differently. (which means i look more and more fem? yay.) it is less flirty (in the “yeah we’re all gay” way, not the sexual way). i can’t really describe a thing yet that i only noticed when it stopped.
i am sad. i can not see me dating heterosexual men. i know bi men exist, and even some heteros are a little softer. but this is not so much about dating. i am not interested in that rn. it’s more about the label and an image of oneself. i feel naked without that gayness.
i feel there is a specific gay expirience, when you have to ask yourself for the first time if it might be okay to show some affection (just a little) toward your crush/friend. to show weakness, to break out of your role. i feel this was an expirience that connected me with my partners in the past.
ok i am loosing my point. TL;DR: i am increasingly sad, that i am not gay anymore.
xoxo kluczyczka
(also, do i call myself ex-gay now, to annoy the biggots?)
Well to be fair your still part of the LGBTQ+, if you need any insight we sometimes call out significant other (whom is nonbinary) our wife / our lesbian wife.
“Gay” is realistically just another word for happy so if your happy your still gay in that end :3
Also no one should be out here separating friend groups off of gender or sexuality so be you, no one is going to punish you for that.
TLDR you haven’t lost status or connections to any group of people, just have fun with life!
thanks, you are right, i did not lose status. i may still identify as gay (after all, that’s what the bigots call me anyways, or worse.)
i had some days to think and feel further. it is completely a thing within me. being gay was a big part of my identity for like 15+ years. it was the only thing i liked about me in my male phase. it was, what may have saved my life (that and later therapy!). and now i have to (read: i want to) let go. it’s scary, and sad. i am losing a friend.
so yeah it is a mourning phase. i will get through it. step by step.
No matter what we’ll all still be here for you 🫂
Are you familiar with the concept of cultural Judaism? Jewish is unique in describing a religion, an ethnicity, and a cultural group. Someone can be raised in Jewish faith and culture, walk away from the religious aspect, but still retain much of the culture. Someone like Einstein was culturally Jewish. He was open about and identified with his heritage, but he was an atheist in terms of belief.
I would say you’re culturally gay. You had your most formative years in the gay community. You may no longer meet the definition of ‘gay’ as an orientation, but you’re still culturally gay. If you spend long enough time in a community, you can retain cultural attachments to that community even if you no longer meet the defining central feature uniting that community.
i do. it will always make sense to point out that gay upbringing. but in a way i lost my faith. and i mourn that loss. tbc i am not going to label myself as gay soon, or reclaim the label in any way, bc it would feel incredibly dysphoric. it feels like a breakup with a part of my identity. …
you certainly arent alone in this feeling, my trans partner and i (nonbinary) like to joke that we are so gay that we circled back to being straight. lol our relationship may look more and more hetero ( once we pass better) but we will always be queer :)
:) that sounds lovely. be as queerly straight as you can! (that’s my life goal now!)
glad i could share our perspective :)
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I’ve got a friend who has a similar issue, and I can empathize.
It’s not so much about the label as the shared culture that you have with that type, built around that specific experience of transgressive vulnerability.
It sounds like you’ve crossed the line of femininity. It kinda sucks (and I lost a partner to it myself), but part of gay culture is defined by a masculine exclusivity that won’t recognize you as one of their own anymore.
It is bad statistics, though, because there’s a lot of intersection between the gay and wider queer cultures. You can still find that feeling again in the wider queer community, it’s just going to be different now.
Frankly, I can’t see myself dating cishet men either. They and the exclusive gays just won’t be interested. XD
transgressive vulnerability
word. 👏🎉✨
thanks for sharing. it feels good rn that others had similar feelings about that. that means i am not just being weird. :)
I’m weirdly open about sharing personal stuff with strangers, apparently, but if you are any kind of weird then it’s a kind that feels more familiar than any sort of non-weird person I’ve ever met. _
You can be straight and queer at the same time.
i guess i will be. also, i will be good at it! :)
If it helps to think about it this way at all, historically it’s all been one big fluid community. Trans women, gay men, bi men, lots of varieties of nonbinary, and even just cross dressers, all fit together under one beautiful tent of people society refused to look too closely at. Before the labels got solidified, any of those labels and plenty others could mean just about whatever the individual felt like it should mean, and there was no point in trying to explain any of it to a dictionary maker or even your average cishet person. To some extent in the real world it’s still like this, especially with older generations, but for a lot of us labels have taken on a far more rigid and organizational meaning than they ever had before. I think there’s some really valuable insight in remembering that the countless generations before us did share in many of those niche and unique experiences of being queer and embracing it, no matter the details of who we are. The point being that if you don’t want to lose a label you feel community and identify with, no one has authority to tell you you can’t use them both just because they feel contradictory. You’re part of a beautiful cultural tradition that did and still does use them both at once.
i need to think about this for longer. infact, i need to think about it all in the next months. but thanks for your input. :)
Ugh, I hate labels. My experience with my family is that you slap a label on it and suddenly everything stops. ADHD, autism, my chronic illness, angry, greedy, gay, lesbian, extroverted, introverted… it’s like everything else about a person falls away, all nuance and personality disappears, once they can describe you in a word.
The idea of summing an entire life up in one word and then anything done that they think contradicts that word gets tittered at behind thin veils… it’s so infuriating. I still get hung up on people in the community using labels because there’s a part of me that just explodes.
Given some transmascs keep using the lesbian label, i don’t see why transfems can’t use the gay label.
And even if you choose to reject the label, at least you got to proudly wield it before. I wish I could at least have had that.
yeah i am aware of the discourse surrounding transmascs and lesbians. and it’s honestly, the situation i am in. i guess i did post in here, rather than “trans” bc i wanted to stay a little nostalgic with people who had this amab homosexual expirience specifically?
I wish I could at least have had that.
hmmm, do you want to elaborate? i don’t know. just if you wanna share your story.
Not really much to say. Ace as far as I know. So, doesn’t matter what my gender is. But I’ve always thought positively of gay people (my moms are lesbians). In high school, I thought it was cool when people seemed to wondered if I was gay. Also, transfem online spaces are so full of lesbians celebrating it (which I love; I’m not complaining about that) that I sorta feel like I’m missing out.
Oh hey I’m in a somewhat similar-ish boat.
I’m also most comfortable in and around transfem spaces, despite my journey to get here not lining up with the typical expectations. Ace too these days, but that’s probably a trauma thing, lmao.
The celebration of gender and sexuality is so wholesome in these speces though, and I relate so much more to it than in any other queer or cis spaces.
ah thanks. i didn’t think of such a scenario. but also i can’t come up with anything fun or deep.
idk i am just clueless. let’s just see what happens next. ;)
In my opinion this is one reason why labeling one’s sexuality is counterproductive. Humans are changing beings and we always limit ourselves by the labels we put ourselves under.
There are certainly positives to labels, especially in that it helps people understand you better quickly, but i think the trade off is still valid… is it truly beneficial for one’s particular sexuality and the cultural connotations of living under that sexuality to be a core part of one’s identity? as queer people, we do share experiences from the systemic injustices that affect us, but it is under those labels, such as queer and lgbtqia+, we should identify with, rather than categorizing our complex selves into simple boxes that limit ourselves from exploring our own sexualities
Gender too. As someone who doesn’t fit neatly into any of the boxes or current lables I’ve given up trying to explain myself to people. Nb queer is good enough I’ve decided.
‘Culturally gay’ mentioned above, really is the perfect descriptor.
i am unsure what to answer. obviously you are right. we need openness. but also every concept we use is a stepping stone in finding out what we meant to say. saying “i am gay” was my first articulation of resistance, and i carried a long time with me. it even informed my desire, in that i realise no, i am not into men, but into gay(-passing) men. in this whole dance with my self, i find myself on another dance floor now. and that shock this transgression is queerness for me. allowing oneself to drift away, from a label, and suddenly be in a totally new situation. (just like when i first found out, i liked some guys unusually much.) To notice the drift, we need to know our position. …
ah well i got carried away. ;)
I’m not who you replied to but I’m also searching. This is a very wise and kind comment. Thank you for sharing it
You can call yourself gay if you like it. I certainly won’t argue with you. The bigots will call you gay anyway, even though, strictly by definition, you aren’t.
yeah, that’s what i come back to every few days. it doesn’t matter if the gays distance themselves from me - patriarchy will soon enough shove us in the same box again! … but still something (very small) changed. :/
Ha! Straiiiight!
When you get too gay you loop back into being straight, it’s called Y2Queer.
Edit: Integay overflow
🥺
Consider dating trans men. T4T is a thing, and a lot of trans people find comfort in each others’ company precisely because that particular conversation is at the same time less relevant and more relevant. That internal negotiation has already been had, and making specific requests of that partner is much easier because they understand why it hurts.
yeah that sounds great. :) unforch, i’m not into dating rn. i let myself be surprised, by what’s coming up.
I relate.
You might enjoy this short stand up bit by Carson Olshanksy. Theories of Non Binary Heterosexuality
I did! i feel like i had this same train of thought once. but with less charme. :)
