Hi friends So, I recently was posting on here, a huge struggle in not feeling happy or satisfied with my sexual/romantic orientation, feeling like I was perhaps a lesbian, and then not sure if maybe trauma was involved, and started seeing a new therapist. I'm in the initial stages of this amazing self discovery, but, it turns out that much of the problem that was making me so unhappy is not necessarily my sexual/romantic orientation (which remains, as of my last decision, to be 'queer'). I have discovered that while I am not trans*, that I was suffering largely in part because I was stifling my true gender expression. When I mean stifling, I mean yes my clothes, my hair, but also my mannerisms, my behavior, my walk, my talk, and also, my preferences in 'intimate' relationships (which is not of 'receiver/bottom' which is a huge part of why my sex life was so agonizing when I was trying to do the stereotypical straight sex thing, I had never considered it!). I can say that I am OK being in a woman's body and won't be identifying as trans* nor seeking reassignment; being as that I can express myself as however I want to while in this body. But definitely a reduction will be on the table. It came up in therapy that I was using duct tape on my chest once I hit puberty which kind of brought this up. So I still will use she/her. But I am going back to the boy nickname that I used all through childhood (people stopped using/refused to use my 'boy' nick name once I grew up. I am going back to it whether they like it or not.) Once we talked about the possibility it was like a light went off and I felt like, I am home. This is me. And I never felt like that before. I never felt overwhelmingly happy. There is a thing that describes me! So, I wanted to tell you all. I feel bad in that I went through questioning if i was bisexual or lesbian to find out that the problem wasn't my sexual/romantic orientation and actually genderqueer. I felt horribly that I might be doing a disservice to either/both bisexual/lesbian identities and didn't want to disrespect or wrongly use either label/identity. But it really helped, because I started allowing myself to just let go of trying be stereotypically feminine, and get back to being comfortable, which led me to realizing I was a tomboy, and am still a tomboy, and will forever be a tomboy, and that was AHA!!!! Thank you all for being here for me while questioning (&&&) you have all meant so much to me, every encouraging comment helped me so much, and thanks for dealing with me trying to figure everything out (*hug*) While it's still confusing, now I feel that feeling you all told me that I would eventually feel when I figured myself out. Even though I still have a lot to figure out, now I have a sense of who I am and I am so thankful to have finally gotten to a place that I asked all the hard questions to finally get the right answer. Thank you all so much! And also: I am trying to figure this out. If I said something incorrectly, please correct me politely, as no offense was meant and I wrote this as carefully as I could to express how I feel, while learning what genderqueer is all about. I am truly very sorry if I screwed anything up and please let me know if I did so I'm not putting my foot in my mouth. I wouldn't want to do that to anybody of any expression.
Thank you! I was kind of afraid that I had been 'trying on' too many identities and was a little afraid of your responses. Thank you for being supportive I wanna burn my dresses, dump my heels, let out a roar and do a banana dance! (!)(!)(!)
I understand that worry and concern. I cycled through a bunch of that over the last several months myself. My therapist says that's a very frequent occurrence, which makes a ton of sense to me. Dance it out! (!)(!)
Congratulations!!! Coming to an understanding in our own minds is the most important step of all. That is the acceptance that really matters. I think you really used an expression that is the absolute perfect way to say it: you felt like you had come home. That's the feeling, that's the best indication that we're at the place where we were meant to be all along.
