Epiphanies after coming out/realising you're LGBT?

The fact that I had presented as female on pretty much 98% of the websites I had ever been on in my life got new prospective for me when I realized I was trans.

 

Oh lol, metalrice. That's awesome

Hmm, I found it very amusing when I realised that the reason I hadn't ever really enjoyed romantic situations with men wasn't because all men are inherently not romantic (hey it seemed plausible at the time ) but because *gasp* men didn't do anything for me romantically

 

Just that I like gay people in general but also for being gay. Also, I like being gay but know that true freedom and joy awaits when I can come all the way out.

 

I had tons of epiphanies about so many different parts of my life once I finally really came out as gay to myself.
One part that threw me for a long time, was that I could be a lesbian (as opposed to being bi) and still find guys really hot..I just had to find clarity in my desires that I stuffed for years, and that was that that no matter how hot a man was, I still didn't desire him sexually. Realizing all of these little things and deciding that it is finally OK for me was such a freeing thing...and each epiphanie was just that much more frring.

 

Wow, I have this too. And I also thought that I was picky, but I was always on the lookout for someone, but after we hooked up it just started to be boring. So I started looking for another guy because hey, probably I haven't found the right one. And this started to get more and more exhausting and I couldn"t understand how come other people don't seem to see it that way. So I concluded I was just to depressed and had a too negative mindset to be able to enjoy a relationship like others could.

Yeah, this! I'm starting to realize this now too and wow, it makes so much sense.

 

I had presented myself as male on the internet since I was seven or some shit but thought I was playing them all as fools until I realized last year that I was really playing myself the entire time

 

Well I'm not really "out" but just realizing that I may be...not straight ... put into perspective the "girl crushes" I have had my entire life...God, I remember writing a note to this really hot high school senior when I was a sophomore about how great I thought she was. Yet it took me 20 more years to realize that I like women? x/

 

I have to admit that I never found men attractive. When I was married to one it was to make others happy as being a lesbian meant you were going to hell. I could not even enjoy sex with one unless I closed my eyes and pretended he was a woman wearing something. The minute they undressed my internal reaction was ick!!!

I was always attracted to women even as a child. But when i became a teenager I found out it was wrong to like women and that you were some how evil and going to hell if you were one. So I used the excuse that I was really bisexual for a long time.

Finally I reached a point where I had no choice any more but to come out. Unfortunately i got punished for it and so did my kids as my ex husband used my sexual orientation to take away my kids from me for a couple of years.

This was back in the 1980's. I did eventually get them back but not un-scarred by him and his wife. They had been abused by them. I have been a open lesbian ever since and I refuse to go back into the closet even though I am getting old and more vulnerable again to discrimination due to age and orientation.

The problem i end up having is not hating men in general because of what they did.

 

It sounds like your journey has been very hard and painful. I wish you nothing but peace and happiness in the future. (*hug*)

 

Another epiphany that I had in coming out, is realizing that I was comfortable being a woman. I had so much gender confusion before I 'realized' I was gay. I've mentioned repeatedly that I find some men hot, I just have no sexual desire for them...but what the feeling was that I had for someone like Brad Pitt, was not, of he's hot, I want to do him, it was oh, he's hot, I want to be him so that I could have sex with women.. For over ten years before I realized I was gay, I was aware I wanted to be these hot men, but gender reassignment didn't click as the answer. I knew that since earliest childhood, I was extremely masculine, and had a hard time relating with femininity, so I thought that this somehow all fit together, but I could never find anyone with these same experiences/feelings. The epiphany was that I didn't want to be a man for any other reason then to have sex with women. I wasn't masculine because I should be a man, I just happened to be a very masculine female who was sexually attracted to women. It blew my mind once it clicked. All of the pieces finally came together.

 

Cakepiecookie, you've summed it up. My entire world view has changed! How I conduct myself in public has completely changed! I used to think it was a confidence problem. No such thing now. The world and my place in it finally makes SENSE. I've gone through the up and down emotions over this, but really it just feels too good to even have regrets about lost time or to spend too much time ruminating over why I never figured it out and came out sooner. It's so much easier to be fully present in the world this way. I actually am interested in noticing and interacting with women in a way I never was with guys.
And like Sue Baloo said, the part that I could appreciate a good looking man without wanting to sleep with him threw me too and was in fact one of the major reasons I'd never considered myself a lesbian. Now I understand that appreciation and sexual attraction are two different things. Also, now having the freedom to consciously enjoy women, I'm noticing the men less and less...
It's definitely freeing.

 

My world view changed as well.

What I always feared occured.

Put on street with no job, little money, poor hiring economy...

I met junkies, drug dealers, illegal immigrants and ex-cons. Everybody society teaches you to fear. I learned for the most part they are simply people struggling to survive.

Even lived with a guy who liked teens (he kept it legal but just legal). You could see the wounds that made him the way he was and they were not self inflicted.

What I learned...

Society is a merciless illusion that destroys people and then punishes them for being destroyed.

It was the hardest time of my life and the most educational.

All those people society labeled "bad" kept me alive when family turned its back.

Epiphany.

You can survive inspite of societal oppression.

 

I have been on my own since I was 14, Skiff, so I have seen the same things, but starting at such a young age I'm sure made me more adaptable, and the street life more of an adventure, even though saying it was fun, would not be accurate. To be put in this spot, for the first time, so much later in life, must have made a profound impression. I admire you for not letting it defeat you.

---------- Post added 14th Aug 2015 at 07:38 AM ----------

This made me laugh so hard, because it is so true for me as well. I swear that my new mantra is, don't stare at the boobies', now that I finally let myself look. LOL.

 

I've always had a sort of man-blindness. I could be introduced to him one second and then not be able to pick him out in a crowd the next. Just figured I was terrible with faces.

 

I call them "Helen Keller at the pump" moments (go watch the last 15 minutes of The Miracle Worker if that means nothing to you!). There have been a lot of them, mostly stuff that should have been ridiculously obvious at the time, but wasn't because my complete assumption was that I was a straight guy with a low libido and would only be interested in that one special girl. Whenever my partner and I are scrubbing through Netflix for something to watch, if we hit movies in particular that were released after puberty but before the straight marriage, it seems like I've seen all the ones that had an exceptionally cute male lead of a pretty standard type. I had a much larger catalog in my head than I was willing to believe, and knew exactly which ones had a good glimpse of someone's junk or a nice ass. I observe my teenage daughters' reactions to cute guys and I'm terribly amused by the revelation that I was feeling then EXACTLY what they're feeling now!

OK, amused...but just a wee bit horrified too. These are MY DAUGHTERS after all!

 

I had to come back and quote this to let you know that I am still laughing at your phrase "Helen Keller at the pump" moments, over an hour after I read it, and busy doing things around my house.

 

I'm still me, still manly, still attractive to many/most. But gay.

 

Probably the biggest epiphany came when I was 16 and fell desperately for my straight male friend. Even tho I wasn't out then, I was just struck by how I felt so deeply for him, that I would have done anything to make him happy, the way I just loved being around him, and the fact that to this day I don't think I've felt something that strong and just "natural" since. Its horrible cuz I have been in nothing but hetero relationships all my life and as I look back at cards that I've given for birthdays and letters, I could write all the most romantic things but now I'm starting to realize how forced so much of it was.