Thoughts of a Doubting Christian ✓

My Story, Part Three

AUTHOR'S NOTE, MAY 2019: A few things have changed since I last wrote this, most notably that I've become more comfortable with the label "bisexual," so I use it more often than "pansexual," and I'm also comfortable using the umbrella label of "queer." What hasn't changed is that I still experience attraction to men, women, and whatever other gender identities there are. The labels are way less important to me now. I just want to love who I love without having to constantly explain myself. Maybe someday!

For many people in the LGBTQ+ community, they knew that they weren't straight from a very young age. They liked the same sex or didn't give a hoot about gender, and that was that. But in my case, it wasn't that simple.

The thing is, I was boy crazy from day one. I don't think I've ever gone more than a month without some kind of romantic interest or crush. This might be a surprise to some, because I've had a lot of people tell me that I seemed completely disinterested in romantic relationships for years. (Curses! Maybe that's why I was single for so long!) But it is what it is. I can still list off most of my crushes by school year from preschool onward, and since they were all guys, I never once questioned my sexuality.

Until high school.

For most of high school, I had a massive crush on this guy; let's call him George. He was very popular and well-known, and almost everyone fell for him at least once. But George wasn't the stereotypical popular kid; he wasn't athletic, a womanizer, or interested in going to parties. He was intelligent and talented, in the top of his class, and an all-around cool dude. He was the first person I ever fell in love with.

The problem was that he had an off-and-on crush on one of his close friends; we'll call her Beth. She was completely disinterested in him romantically, but to make matters worse, she and I looked alike, hung out with some of the same people, were in similar clubs, and were good at the same things. The only difference is that she was prettier, more popular, and more talented than I was. Beth was the "better" one in every way. I was always so jealous of her, especially because the first guy I'd ever fallen in love with had a crush on her and not me.

But then things took a turn I wasn't expecting: the line between wanting to be her and wanting to be with her began to blur. It happened so gradually that I hardly noticed it at first. My first recollection of this was when I noticed that I was eyeing her figure as she ran in front of me during gym class. I figured I was only looking at her because I knew that George was, and I was jealous. However, my wandering eyes started to become a regular occurrence. I kept writing it off because George was there, so I figured I was only noticing her figure because I was conscious that he was.

Notice a recurring theme? That's because I was always making up some excuse for my feelings for Beth. Did I just spend half an hour stalking her Instagram and pouring over her hot selfies? No, I was just trying to figure out why everyone is so enamored with her. Did I just spend half of class staring at her when she wasn't looking? Nah, I was just admiring her makeup, because hot damn, it looks good today. Why do I care so much about what she thinks about me? Hey, I just want approval from one of the popular girls, that's all.

Yup, I was very deep in denial.

However, each girl crush I had was a little stronger than the last, making it more and more difficult to convince myself that I was straight. Then, my senior year of high school, I had a girl crush that I couldn't write off. I felt the exact same way towards her that I did towards all of my guy crushes. My heart beat faster and my palms got sweaty when she entered the room, and I found myself making excuses to talk to her. But when I did talk to her, I felt like a babbling idiot, and I couldn't string together a coherent sentence to save my life. I remember one evening, we were having a conversation, and I suddenly thought, you know what, if she asked me out to coffee right here, I would say yes. It was the weirdest realization ever (especially since I still identified as straight!)

Eventually, I had to admit to myself that my feelings were not a normal straight thing. For a while, I wondered if I could be bisexual, but for some reason, it just didn't resonate with me. I also tried bi-curious, which didn't fit, and "mostly heterosexual" or "a two on the Kinsey scale," which also didn't fit. Up until last semester, I had been trying "heterosexual panromantic" on for size, which felt the closest of all the labels, but it still didn't feel quite right.

Then, only a few months ago, I woke up and my very first thought was, "I'm pansexual." I don't know why it was on my mind as soon as I gained consciousness, but it clicked. Unlike the other labels, which left me feeling confused, frustrated, and ill-at-ease, I felt a sense of calm wash over me, because pansexual fit in a way that nothing else did. I realized that my eventual partner's gender identity doesn't matter to me. What truly matters is who the person is.

And boy, does that realization make sense to me in retrospect! Looking back on it, I've had crushes on girls since middle school, but I didn't know what to label them. I wanted to be their friends really badly, liked them a lot, felt my heart speed up whenever I was around them, and was transfixed by their beauty. It didn't click until much later that they were crushes, just as valid as my crushes on guys.

Huge thanks to my family, my best friend, and my friends at university for being so accepting of me when I came out. Honestly, they were so unfazed by the news that it was anti-climatic. I was expecting everyone to be super shocked, especially since I'd always been so outwardly boy crazy, but nobody batted an eye.

Now that I've accepted myself for who I am, sexuality included, my self-esteem is slowly mending and I've come out of my protective shell. I'm way more girly now than I ever was before, which I find very ironic. I was always a tomboy, but now I wear dresses regularly and squeal over nail polish and cute clothes with my friends. It's unconventional, sure, but I've never been one to follow convention.

I'll admit, it's very strange to see how differently people treat me now that I'm out. I pass easily as a straight girl, so I get to witness firsthand how quickly people's attitudes change when they figure out I'm not. People who were friendly and accepting at first are suddenly hostile and opposed to what they consider my "lifestyle." If I dare to wear rainbow colors, I get nasty looks from passerby. When I used to hold hands with my ex-boyfriend (who is trans) in public, we were stared at because people were trying to figure out if we were a lesbian couple or not. It doesn't help that I continue to get nasty or completely ignorant comments about "homosexuals" and their "lifestyles" on Christian and an Ally. Sometimes it can get so overwhelming that I have to step away from Wattpad and take a breather. Talk to some friends, read a book, search up some fanfiction. Anything to dampen the growing realization that half of the world's population went from being neutral towards me to disliking me overnight.

And when it's my own religion and its followers that are causing me the most pain and trouble, that really makes me reconsider why I call myself a Christian in the first place.