Ask a Queer Chick: Q for Questioning
Lately I’ve been feeling really confused about my sexuality. I always assumed I was straight and that I would grow up and marry a guy. But about six months ago I started to think maybe I was gay myself. I'm 16 and I’ve never actually had a real crush on a girl my age (or a boy) but I often think about girls as being attractive and sexy.
Now, when I picture my future I always imagine having a wife, but I still feel conflicted about who I am. I feel very scared that I’ll tell my parents (who would 100% be supportive) and then I’ll realise I’m not gay at all. It also feels like I don’t deserve to have that identity and like I don’t fit in with the LGBT community, although a few of my friend are gay.
I feel really scared and really alone because I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone about this without coming out. I just want to know who I am and say it with certainty and confidence.
Oh, sweetheart, don't we all?
I think my generation of queer folks has done yours a disservice with our insistence on sexual and gender identities as stable, inherent facts. We had good reasons. Faced with a homophobic, transphobic, hostile, dangerous society, it was a matter of self-preservation to say, "This is who I am and you can't change it." Saying we were “born this way” was a kind of standing our ground, refusing to be bullied out of our own self-knowledge, but it was also, in some cases, an oversimplification. The voice of your deepest self can’t be silenced by prayer or stigma or conversion therapy, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean it always sings the same song all your life.
These days, I get a lot of emails from people around your age, wondering if they somehow missed the decoder ring that would turn that inner voice into words they could understand. If I were gay, they often ask, wouldn’t I already know? Wouldn’t I be sure?
For some people that knowledge feels innate, even inescapable. But for many of us, and I say “us” because I’m including myself, the space between our desires and the words we have to explain them is vast and fraught. We don’t necessarily find our identities like buried treasure within us; we select a label from an imperfect list of options. It's a best-guess, an approximation. It can be very useful when it comes to finding your community and organizing together; as I said last week, if you want people to meet you somewhere, it helps to have the same map. But the labels you choose--or eschew--aren't you. You are something more immense and complicated and confounding than can fit into words.
We tend to skim over the second Q in LGBTQQIA+. Questioning gets mentioned, when it's mentioned at all, as a sort of evanescent initiation period: something you pass through like a door and never revisit again.
But questioning is important, and powerful. What great discovery has ever taken place without it? Questioning is vulnerable and curious, humble and brave. It can only happen if you allow yourself to acknowledge what you don't know. Questioning does not have to result in an answer to be worthwhile. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we recognized and honored questioning as the unsettling queer act it is, rather than just a stepping stone on the way to your "real" self? What if the you that asks the question is just as real as the you that answers?
The way we talk about “coming out” is also burdened with certain assumptions: that sexual and gender identities are simple facts, which we are always either concealing or revealing; that you must be certain of something before you can say it. It can of course be risky to share a shifting or indefinite truth, especially with people who won’t affirm you. To the queer- and trans-antagonistic, nuance looks like an opportunity to undermine, to “save” queer folks from ourselves. In such cases, the ability to proclaim and insist on a label can be a crucial self-defense.
But if you feel confident that your parents will support you, I don’t see why you couldn’t tell them what’s going on while you’re working through it. You might not have a label you feel comfortable with, but you know a great deal about yourself already. List the things you're certain of: "I think girls are beautiful. There's no one specific I want to date right now, but when I think about the future I imagine myself married to a woman." That is actually an impressive level of self-awareness at your--or any--age, and it’s plenty to qualify you as a member of the LGBTQ community.
Don’t let anyone tell you you don’t belong. You are valid, not because of where you’ll one day end up, but right now, in all your questions, in all your seeking, in all your desire to learn more. That’s who you are. Be proud.
I am a 19 year old girl. I identify as bisexual, but recently I'm imagining being with girls more than guys, even though I'm in a monogamous relationship with this really kind, loving guy. He's just amazing.
But I'm scared to have sex with him, even though we've been dating for a good eight months. I don't know if this is because I'm a virgin and still not ready, or if I'm actually opposed to the idea of having penetrative sex at all.
I genuinely don't know what to do. It's not that he's pressured me, he hasn't. I just don't want to lead him on if I actually turn out to be homosexual, but biromantic or something like that. I would still want him in my life regardless of whether it was as a friend or partner, I just hate the idea of breaking his heart.
Let’s start with the bad news: Statistically speaking, either you will break your boyfriend’s heart, or he will break yours. The relationship you’re in at 19 years old is unlikely to survive the storms of early adulthood. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy it right now--quite the opposite. It means you shouldn’t base your choices now on the hopes of avoiding pain later. Having sex with someone, and later going your separate ways, isn’t leading him on; it’s a normal part of relationships.
That said, if you're hesitating to have sex, by all means refrain! Sex should be something you want, or it shouldn't happen at all. There's no age or length of relationship at which it becomes mandatory, and if you're not sure you're ready, don't push yourself. There's a difference between feeling apprehensive about something you want and the deeper suspicion that something isn't right for you.
Ask yourself some questions, and give yourself time to come up with answers. A few suggestions: What do you want? With whom do you want it? Are you attracted to your boyfriend? Would you rather have him as a friend than a partner? Is there anyone you do want to have sex with? Do you want to experiment with non-penetrative sex acts? Are you more afraid of being alone or of hurting someone you care about?
The answers to these questions might lead you to a clearer sense of what you want to do, or they might lead to more questions. Go where the questions take you. Follow them into the places you can't yet see.