It may be a little confusing or difficult when you’re questioning your gender identity or your sexual orientation. But, in most cases, these feelings are heightened by people’s attitudes. It’s important for you to try and make sense of feelings that you’ve had.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve only experienced them for a short time or they’ve been with you ever since you could remember. You’ve got to feel confident about yourself and whether you’re gays, straight, trans, or bisexual doesn’t matter.
What is “Sexuality”?
When you first hear the word “sexuality”, the first thought that would come to mind is that it’s about sex. But, it isn’t. Sexuality has a lot more to do with attraction, desire, emotions, and feelings. It’s how you choose to express these things.
Sexuality is also about whether we have an attraction to people of a different or same gender, or whether we’re attracted to multiple genders.
So, am I LGBTQ?
Identifying as lesbian, gay, transgender, or bisexual is a normal thing. It is as normal as being straight and it’s just as wonderful. As you try to figure out who or what to identify with, there are many questions that could be going through your mind.
Let’s take a look at the different scenarios.
- You could be a girl noticing that you have an attraction to a girl, or your female teacher.
- You’re a guy that notices more how gorgeous male celebrities or the other males in your life rather than females like your friends.
- You’re a girl, or a guy that feels attracted to both males and females
- You’ve always known that you’re different and when someone brings up the word “gay”, you feel like it fits.
- You are sure that you are gay but you feel alone and are looking for a community of people like you.
it’s important for you to understand your feelings. But, remember that you shouldn’t feel at pressure or make any hasty decisions to define who you are.
Try to understand and figure out your feelings and who you feel attracted to. Coming out can turn out to be a confusing process when you aren’t ready. Being nervous about telling other people that you’re different is normal but, you have to be sure about what you want to tell them.
Before you come out, let’s talk about some common terms that will help you figure out if you’re LGBTQ.
Your sexual orientation: this refers to who you feel attracted to. It could be people of a different sex, the same sex, and sometimes, both.
Sexual identity: do you feel like you’re part of the bisexual, lesbian, or gay community? You could also feel more comfortable identifying as heterosexual.
Bisexual: a bisexual person is attracted to people of a different gender as well as their own.
Gay: when you’re gay, you are sexually and emotionally attracted to people of the same gender as you. this term is mostly used for males that are attracted to other males. Sometimes, it’s also used to refer to lesbians.
Lesbian: a lesbian is a female that’s sexually and emotionally attracted to women or girls.
Straight/Heterosexual: this refers to people who are sexually and emotionally attracted to people of a different gender from theirs. They could be a male attracted to a female or vice versa.
Transgender: being transgender is much different from being bisexual, gay, or lesbian. Being a bisexual, lesbian, or gay has more to do with the person you’re attracted to. Being transgender has much more to do with how you feel about the sex you were assigned at birth (male or female). Your gender identity isn’t the same the sex you were given. For instance, you could have been assigned a female sex at birth, but you feel more like a man. Non-binary people are also transgender.
