I spoke about my privilege in being able to speak openly about my mental health while my family stands by my side, and that same privilege applies to my sexuality. It was only when I came to university that I even had an interest in dating and relationships, but it’s only in the last 1-2 years that I’ve been figuring out how I want to label my sexuality. Part of the reason that I’ve had a hard time figuring that out I think is because I grew up with the simple idea that anyone can love whoever they love. I never had to think “Am I going to have to come out to my parents, my brother, my friends?”
Sexuality isn’t an event – something to be planned and performed.
Sexuality is who you’re attracted to, who you love, and the label you choose to define that. I can’t give specifics of when I decided upon the label of Queer because it was a fluid progression of hearing other people’s views of their sexuality and different events in my life that led me to this word. I have never had strong feelings of attraction to anyone, I don’t have an interest in dating just for the sake of dating, and I’ve never felt things towards a specific gender. As the label of Queer seemed to gain popularity in recent years, allowing me to get some insight on what it means to some, it filled that void of which box to tick when surveys want info about their demographic. Am I any closer to figuring out dating and relationships, not at all, but since adding Queer to my list of labels it’s given me an answer to the question about my sexuality.
Now labels are not necesary in life, but I personally like to have labels for things as it gives me something concrete to grab onto, or to fight against. My need to label and identify things crosses different areas of my life, whether it’s my sexuality or my mental illnesses or my physical injuries – it helps my mind organize everything.
So I’m not coming out, I’m just letting people know so they know what to ask when inquiring about my love life, or lack there of, and to give context on where I’m coming from when I share my point of view on events. I realized this would probably be a helpful note to share after talking about utilizing a course at the 519 (LGBTQ+ community centre) to my mom and she asked “don’t you have to identify as one of them to go there?” I know we’ve talked informally about my sexuality previously, but I only just recently claimed the label of Queer, so I’m just trying to catch my family and friends up.
I don’t think anyone in my life really cares and I know this doesn’t change anything, but at least you all know one more fact about me now!