For those who don’t know, Bisexual refers to my attraction to people of my gender idenity and other gender identities. This means I develop crushes on women, men, and nonbinary people. Being gendefluid means my gender idenity is not fixed. This is often expressed through how I present but that isn’t always the case.
I had a habit of internalizing the labels that I heard people refer to me and sometimes it negatively affected my self confidence and mental health.
Eventually, I realized that I could pick the labels that I wanted to pertain to me and slowly started to define myself rather than let others do it.
You can’t be bi if you’ve only dated ever dated girls
You’re not bi, you’re dating a guy
I’m so glad you’re not like your one friend
But biologically you’re a chick and that all that matters
who thinks she’s a boy
I never formally came out to family or friends, not because they’re unaccepting but because of my personal experinces with how people have and still react to my sexuality and gender identity. My upbringing resulted in me not being very confrontational so I don’t really defend myslef when people try to invalidate me.
What’s worse than being invalidated? Invalidating myself.
Sometimes I worry that I don’t identify with being a woman because of the stereotypes and expetations I was taught as a kid which aren’t necessarily true
I’m still figuring it all out and it often makes it hard to articulate what my gender identity is
But then I also feel as though I don’t belong in trans spaces because I don’t have any plans to have surgery and am still comfortable with being referred to with she/her pronouns
But that’s what gender therapy is for and boy do I wish I had known what that is when I was in middle school
I do know that seeing people like me in media and in the public eye makes me feel seen and heard.
It’s also been helpful to read queer and feminist theory because people have been thinking about these sort of things since forever.
My relationship with she/her pronouns may shift but I know that I’m always happy when people refer to me with they/them pronouns.
And I’ve always found it helpful to see how other people use langauge to describe similar
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For now, I’m happy where I’m at in terms of my idenity. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who love me no matter what language I use to decribe myself and hope that I be any help to anyone who is in a similar situation.
I’m going to make my voice heard in the art I make and put it into the world for other people like me. I want them to know that they can be happy and that they don’t have to have it all figured out. Don’t let anyone gatekeep your identity. I pomise that you know more about you than they do.
@cartooncryptid
@thecartooncryptids