Does your sexuality define you?

I'm not even sure about my sexuality, but whatever it is, there are many things more defining of me than sexuality, for example the culture of my country, my city, my interests, my beliefs, my work, the way I speak, the way I treat people, my values or my hobbies.

But this is me, of course other people may have other hierarchy of things that define them.

 

I feel like it definitely is different for everyone.

For me, personally, it's not something that I usually spend a lot of energy thinking about. Maybe it depends on the kind of impact a person's gayness has had (or the kind of impact they envision it will have) on their life? All I really know for certain is that there are so many things that have had a bigger impact on my own life than the realization that I'm into girls. If someone were to ask me to write a paper about who I am as a person, my sexuality likely wouldn't be one of the first things I'd mention. Of course, love is pretty important and takes up a big chunk of who we are, but who (as far as gender/sex) I fall in love with doesn't really matter to me so much as the actual falling in love part.

 

Sexuality for most I would assume wouldn't define a person. However, being transgender would probably lean heavily towards defining a person. Who you are vs. who you're attracted to are two different things.
Ultimately though, its up to the individual. My general lgbt status is definitely a defining part of who I am.

 

I don't disagree with your reasoning as a general argument that can probably apply in some measure to most queer folks. However, in my personal instance, it's difficult to say that it has according to the parameters you have defined.

No question I'm different from most people; however, I am also apparently different from ALL people and my queerness is only a tiny and secondary aspect of that. I really feel far more segregated for my moral and ethical values, which no one else seems to share or empathize with. I'd maybe be able to claim belonging in the LGBTQ community, as a pansexual bigender person. However, "mapping" out my sexuality & gender identity into greater specifics proves elusive and sometimes persuades myself (and others here!) that I may not really belong after all. (Besides, being truthful about certain of my sexual preferences would surely get me exiled from all but "fringe" LGBTQ communities.) Now, as with anyone else, my sexuality would unquestionably define the type of person that I am attracted to/would get together with. As a pan, it leaves open to me genders a straight me would have never considered. However, since a real manifestation of this hypothetical person does not exist, this element of the equation factors out for me.

According to another, completely different set of parameters than those you have set down--the fact of discovering and being confused and tormented by my sexuality and gender identity at an early age, and the ensuing years of struggle, causing me to become a more mature, philosophical, tolerant, empathic (and also neurotic, frightened and fragile) person--then it might be truthfully said that my sexuality/gender identity has defined me. I know for an utter certainty I wouldn't resemble the person I am today were it not for my queerness. (As for whether that is a good or bad thing is probably off-topic for this thread.)

 

It's not a huge part of who I am in that I'm not a hugely sexual person to begin with and I'm not looking for a relationship. There are other things about me that are more definitive and have more of an everyday impact. My class status, what I do for a living, and what I do to keep myself sane, and the way I think about the world, and what I've read, have much more to do with it.

 

My sexuality is definitely a part of me, but it is not all of me.

 

I think it is a very large part of who I am and it heavily colors the other aspects. I can sit back and sort of do the thought experiment: what if I had been born rich, what if I had been Catholic instead of Mormon, what if... And obviously I could never really know for any of them--the butterfly effect and all--but I feel like I could at least speculate about the ways I would be different and the ways I would be the same. When I try to do that with being straight--I can't even imagine it--except that I have this nagging, persistent suspicion that I wouldn't have been a good person. So many of the things that have led me to the best parts of myself I can trace back to being gay--I don't even like to think about who I might have been without them.

 

I understand exactly what you're saying, Querying.

And I also understand what people worry about when they say they don't want to be identified by their queerness. I think it comes from a desire to be normal, to feel like they belong. They see queerness as negation, and they don't like to find belonging on the outside; they see that as dysfunctional.

I like being on the outside. I think that being queer gives me an understanding of vulnerability that others may not have, and I think that gives me a better capacity for empathy than a person who feels no vulnerability based on group membership would have.

I also like being queer because it's just more open for me. I like bending gender and breaking it (even if I don't like being born male). I like my capacity for sexual attraction to many people, not just one gender.

Of course I think there are more dimensions to my life than who I want to sleep with; but, I would never have been a feminist in the first place if I weren't queer. That made me an instant convert.

 

It kind of defines me, but I think my beliefs and taste in music sets me apart more than queerness.

My sexuality has also made me a more private and isolated person. If I would have been straight I probably would have talked about my crushes way more.

I probably would have been way more aware of my crushes as well. I didn't think my feelings for girls "counted" until I was about fourteen. I might have also been more aware of my feelings in general as well.

I think I probably would have had several boyfriends if I wasn't queer. I probably might not even be a virgin.

I don't think my sexuality has influenced my gender presentation, taste in music or hobbies.

 

No.

 

To an extent, yes it defines me. I like guys and stuff, for me, it doesn't go much further than that fact.

Now things have happened to me because of it and a number of other things about me that helped shaped me into what I am today. I feel like it's only a characteristic, a character trait one may say. It alone doesn't define me, but to deny it would be to deny myself.

 

For me I don't like thinking being transgender is what defines me. There's a lot more to me than just being trans. I'm an artist, a tennis player, a martial artist, etc...and I just so happen to be transgender, that's it.

 

There are certainly other parts of me that are big parts of my life, etc, but yeah I think my sexuality affects quite a bit of my life.

Besides the obvious stuff like who I'm attracted to, it's affected my life in a lot of different ways... Some of my more brave/defining moments took place at Pride, which I wouldn't have been at... I'm a bit of a fandom nut and tend to ship lesbian pairings almost exclusively and I've met more then a few close friends that way.... I think there are a lot of seemingly-unrelated parts of my life which are in some way touched by my sexuality.

 

I don't think it's negligible but I wouldn't say it defines me. It definitely isn't what I think of as my primary characteristic. Of course it's a part of who I am but it's not something I think about too much, or integrate into lots of things I'm doing as much as, for example, my liking for music or something like that.

 

No and yes, if that makes sense. I mean it doesn't make me any less me but i'm part of a minority, which makes me think differently then i might if i was not.

 

No, I don't think so. My sexuality is part of who I am (an important part), but it certainly doesn't define who I am - I haven't allowed it to. We don't choose our orientation, but I think we can/do choose how much we soak it up and let it define our lives.

I think many people really worry about this before coming out and I think a good many people we tell worry about it too. How will it change my life? What sort of person will he/she become? I think it's better to reassure people that it needn't be a life defining thing.

Just my take on it.

 

I'm of the 'just so happen' mindset too. I don't feel as if my sexuality defines me, I feel that it's more of a happen stance, just like my skin color, my gender, my height. For me, what shapes me a person are my thoughts and the actions that proceed them, rather than a characteristic I didn't make myself have. You know what I mean? Like, with my race for instance, if I had made myself black, then it would have to mean something to me otherwise I wouldn't have done it, but I didn't make myself this way. I just happen to be born with a certain amount of melanin in my skin, so I don't feel as if it's a precursor to who I am. In of itself, my skin tone is more of a "what" I feel. And I look at my sexuality the same way. I think that I'm a writer, I'm a worry wart, I'm a language nerd, I'm a fangirl before I'm black, gay, and a woman. Those three things I see as a physical happenstance, while the other things I have a direct hand in making a part of who I am inside. I don't know, I feel like I just rambled into 'what the hell are you on about' land. :lol: But yeah, no is my not long winded answer.

 

If it didn't define who I am I wouldn't hide it