The Asexuality And Aromantic Spectrum And My Experiences

My Sexuality Story

Quick Disclaimer: I wrote most of this book before coming out as non-binary! I may use my birthname and female pronouns, but those do not currently honor me. Hi! My name is Lane, and I use they/them pronouns. Hope you enjoy!

Hi everyone!!

So the picture above is me, my face, because I wanted to get a lil personal today, so I decided to put a face to a name.

Today I'm going to go through my journey of self discovery and sexuality. I've talked about this a few times, but I just wanted to delve really in depth to how I came/am coming to terms with myself and who I am. I'll focus mainly on my sexuality, as it is quite a long story, but if you are interested in my gender identity journey, please let me know!

So, hello! My name is Katie, I'm 17 years old, and I'm from Oregon, in the US. Right now I use she/her or they/them pronouns, and my gender is kind of an enigma overall lol. Right now, I don't necessarily have a label on my sexuality, but I know I'm very not straight, so when people ask, I say queer. For me, my attraction is largely towards women and women-aligned genders, but I'm not in total opposition to the potential of being attracted to another gender. It took me a long while to come to this conclusion though.

In the beginning, I was probably around 13, and I had just stumbled across the word asexual for the first time. I saw it and the definition and I immediately was intrigued. I kept doing tons of research, and this was the first moment where I considered the fact that I might not be straight. I didn't necessarily have a "lightbulb" moment, more of like an, "oh cool, so that's what this is."

That year, during 8th grade, I got my first boyfriend. He was quite nice and romantic, an overall great guy, but I just could not feel comfortable in a relationship with him, and for the longest time I didn't know why. After we broke up, I realized it: I wasn't attracted to him. Not in the way they always talk about. But you know who I was attracted to, wanted to be around ALL THE TIME, for no specific reason. My best friend at the time, aka the first girl crush I ever had. When I figured that out, I was honestly a little surprised, but I thought about it and realized that dating girls sounded really, really, REALLY good. She moved away though, got into a very happy relationship with her boyfriend, and we're good friends now.

By now, I still thought I was ace, but now I was identifying as biromantic. So, when I went into my freshman year and got another girl crush that resulted in my first girlfriend, I was ecstatic. Without getting too far into it, we ended up being incredibly toxic for each other, and broke up after a bit over a year of dating. However, during this time, the asexuality line got blurred. I found myself feeling sexual attraction to her, but only after dating for quite some time, so I started telling people I was demisexual.

Next came the moment that I knew I wasn't acespec whatsoever. A few months after that relationship, I started dating another girl, and I was head over heels for her. She was the first person I genuinely felt sexual attraction for almost right off the bat, and I knew the asexuality spectrum was not the place for me anymore. Additionally, I knew that I would much rather be dating women. Since her, I have only dated and had crushes on people of feminine genders, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

However, I'm not shutting the door entirely. I do feel as though I could feel attraction for other genders, but I know that my attraction for women is so strong, that if I don't feel like explaining this story to every single person I meet, I just say I'm gay or lesbian.

Finally, I want to say this: my journey is not done by any means. I have so much of my life left to live and so many people to meet, how could I possibly think I'm done learning about my sexuality and attraction? I love learning about myself and other people, and I'm excited for what the future holds for me.

If you have any questions regarding anything, please leave them in the comments and I will address it. Thank you all so much for reading this far, I hope you have a wonderful life
~Katie <3