Congrats on exploring your identity, Katelyn. I support you 100% of the way, no matter what.
The only caveat that I have is to try to feel out things and never feel like you can't back away from a decision you make along the way. Part of what made it hard for me to come to terms with being gay was the notion of "well, how gay are we talking?" and a fear of misrepresenting myself to others that I might have to eventually back down on. I wasn't sure if I would be pop flyin' with gay sex, or how I wanted to act about my sexuality or how open I wanted to be, or how much I wanted to define myself based on my sexuality. Would it still be okay to make certain jokes with friends, or would it be weird? Hell, what if I was bi!?
In your case, don't worry about following the examples of other people who have gone through this. There are so many paths to take and so many different experiences, you should look for the one that fits you, rather than thinking "as a trans* individual I need to..." don't be scared to try things, but also don't be scared that once you tried them you can't undo something that's uncomfortable. You might find you don't want to wear women's clothing or make up once you try it, and that's perfectly fine. Be comfortable with your definition of you.
TurboPunz wrote:
I'm going to give you the same advice I give most people on sexuality: Don't worry about it and the answer will come.
That's probably the last thing you want to do, and I'm sure you feel as though you can't NOT worry about it, but trust me when i say that focusing on trying to box yourself into a label just to get your feelings over with is the worst thing you can do.
I never ever considered that I might be straight, that was never in the cards at all, but trying to give myself a label (gay, bi, pan, etc) caused me much, much unnecessary stress and worry that only went away when I stopped trying to care about finding a label.
Eventually you will know exactly what you are and THEN you can focus on trying to find something to describe it.
For the record, I now use queer. It's succinct, has no chance of sending a message of heterosexuality, and is nondescript enough that I don't have to explain the details of who I am attracted to unless I feel as though the person I'm explaining to deserves to know. It fits me like a glove and I didn't find it until about a year after I stopped worrying and simply focused on how cute boys are.
Also, I fully support this. For me personally, going through and discovering who I was also involved questions of my gender identity. Ultimately I found terminology to be really limiting and cookie cutter, and some words had scary connotations or were otherwise too specific to warrant usage for myself. I personally don't ascribe to the gender binary, but I also... in some ways don't personally care where I am. Just knowing I'm not bound to the binary is freeing enough for me. I still go by male pronouns and consider myself gay, and I'm fine with people saying I'm cis, but in my mind I'm the one who knows who I am, and that's what makes me pop flyin' with myself. No labels attached.
I hope everything goes smoothly for you Katelyn, and I'm proud of you.
Also I had to stop myself like 10 times from saying "dude", "man", etc. even though I treat them as gender neutral, aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Let me know if you're cool with that kind of stuff or not because I'd rather ask first than be all BROSEPH around you.
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