How long did it take you to accept your sexual/gender identity?

13 years. :3

 

I believe only a couple of months (maybe 5 months? I don't know) to realize I was a lesbian and at the time I was okay with it. Now, I think I'm still having trouble with fully accepting myself which is a surprise 'cause I thought I did a long time ago and now I'm doubting my sexual orientation even though it's pretty clear to me.

 

I knew that I was different from most of the boys in my classes around age 6 or 7, but had no clue what it was yet. At age 8 or 9, I started having crushes on male figures in pop culture and such, but I also learned what the word "gay" actually meant, and hearing it used in such a negative manner, I suppressed these crushes, and got very involved with religion and other things such as that. I still leaned very liberal, and was pro-choice and pro-LGBT even whenever I was a born-again Southern Baptist, but I never really started talking about my beliefs until I was older.

Fast forward to when I'm 11 or 12, and I really start to have more and more attractions towards guys, and I suppress these urges yet again, but I also start to speak out in support of same sex marriage to my peers and some adults. Part of the negative reaction I got was from my old church, and I left the church altogether around this time.

When I was 13, I basically came to terms with myself being gay, but I still thought I could maybe try to hide that fact by dating girls. It wasn't until the outbreak of gay teenager suicides in Fall 2010 (Most notably Asher Brown and Billy Lucas who were very close in age to me) when I was 14 that I really decided that it was time to begin accepting myself. This was the first time in my life where I loved myself for me. So I guess you can say it took me around 8 years or so to fully accept myself?

It then took me an additional three years to come out to everyone, and honestly, those years of my life made me the person I am today, who is caring, loving, and can wanting to help other people accept themselves as well. It also made me much stronger than I was mentally.

 

I questioned my sexual orientation for a few years, and it took me until last spring to finally accept it, and several more months to come out to my mother.

Still working on the gender part through.

 

I knew I was gay at 11 and went through bouts of denial before accepting it at 13 and started coming out at 14.

 

By the age of 13 or so I started to have some inkling, but it didn't REALLY kick in until almost a decade later. From there it took about 2 years through a bout of depression and experimentation to figure out for certain I was gay. It took me about 6 months to really start coming out to friends and family members.

Give it time, and pay attention to how you're feeling when you're with each gender. Who do you find attractive? What do you prefer in a partner? etc.

 

I guess my whole life, but these last few months have really pit things in prospective. I knew I was bi years ago, but being a girl inside was a lot of repressed feelings.

 

5 to 10 minutes

 

Yeah, usually within minutes after I realized it. It's figuring out what to do with the realization that's the hard part.

 

I knew when I was maybe seven years old... I didn't accept it until I was fourteen. Literally at that point I had spent half my life denying who I was.

My location isn't the best for not being a straight white cis male Christian, so I was scared people would hurt me, or my family would disown me. Tried to force myself to "be straight" all that time... ick!
In the end, my dad rejected me but it didn't turn out as bad as I initially thought, so far at least.

 

took me years :/ I have started accepting myself now, as I am ..

 

Still haven't accepted my orientation, so that's a trillion years and counting...it's just caused me nothing but misery and it would be nice if it could just go away.

As far as gender goes, I've accepted that for the most part; it can just wind up being a mess when dysphoria occasionally sinks in. :-l

 

To accept and acknowledge my sexuality, a year or so, it didn't take too long to say, "Alright, I'm gay"...

As for the self-love part... That process will probably be completed after the third coming of Christ.

 

When I started truly questioning it, it took about two months or so to really identify who I was. I instantly, accepted it, because I was so relieved to figure myself out

 

26 years from when I was born.
I am 27 at the moment.

First I stopped dening to myself I wasn't straight then I also did the same with my gender identity.

Still need to fully come out and have not told any one in my family.

I am going to start seeing a therapist, try to get on hormones then tell my family.

I am often afraid my depression will get too bad and I might snap under the pressure.

 

Yeh, I pretty much accepted it straight away as I don't really care what others think about me and so it made no sense to not accept it.

Happy days

 

I think I started to figure it out when i was 14-16 but it never clicked until last new years eve, when I accepted I wasn't straight. I'm still working out the details though

 

It didn't take me long at all. I knew what was going on not long after I first experienced it. I even wanted others to know at a young age. My extreme introversion meant that most didn't find out until long after I had accepted it, though.

 

Like, 6 years? Once I first realized that I was gay (Around 13) after crying out my eyes, I originally decided that I didn't want to be that and that I was just going to be straight anyway and keep my feelings inside forever. That stuck for awhile, however I became sexually active at 17 and then finally came out at 19.