“At 24 I should have decided weather or not I’m gay, straight or bi but I’ve only recently started to question it aloud. So when do you have to decide your sexuality, and do you have any tips for making the process easier?”

-Question submitted by Anonymous

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Dannielle Says: 

GURL* PLZ. I’m 27 and I feel lost most of the time. Not in the same ways, I don’t want to be dating boys. But HONESTLY, if my mom was like ‘are you sure you’ll never marry a man’ I would give her a blank stare bc my ass is not psychic (neither is my brain). 

So, as far as deciding who you are and when… Don’t worry about it. If slappin a label on it makes you feel better, by all means GO FOR IT. But like, no one is completely certain about anything so you’re doing great. As far as making the process easier the only thing I really suggest - realize it’s a process. You won’t figure anything out over night. EVER. We’re all constantly figuring ourselves out, which is AWESOME. We’re all growing and changing and experiencing life CONSTANTLY. 

If you’re starting to feel overwhelmed and uncertain remember that you are not alone. For every panic moment you have, there are 16 thousand people your exact same age having that exact same panic moment. You’re doing all the right things, you’re slowly trying to figure out who you are and you’re trying to understand your feelings. That’s all we can do. Life is cray you guys, our feelings make absolutely no sense until one day they make perfect sense and who knows when that’s supposed to happen.

*feel free to replace with appropriate pronoun, but spell it wrong to get the right effect.

Kristin Says:

You do not. Have to decide. Your sexuality.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DECIDE. You do not have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt who you will be for the next five decades of life. You do not have to stay in one tiny confined box that you create for yourself out of the labels you gather from the world around you.

Some of us take comfort in having a way to name ourselves - a way to belong to a group of other people “like us,” or being able to understand ourselves better through the experiences of others. That is amazing and wonderful, and for that reason “labels” are sometimes able to embody something very, very positive. That is not always the case, though, so we must always be careful.

If you are seeking to belong to a community, well, know that you already belong to mine - and to Dannielle’s - and to ours here at Everyone Is Gay. This is not a community of lesbians or gay people or trans people… ours is a community of people who are committed to being kind to each other, who are committed to allow difference and similarity to overlap in completely unexpected ways, and who accept all of those around us whether they are in the beginning, middle, or end of their journey to understand themselves.

No matter how sure any of us are - we are all on a journey. You don’t need to know anything except for the fact that you are working toward happiness. Kiss who you want to kiss. Cuddle who you want to cuddle. Tell the world you are THIS THING if THAT THING makes sense to you, and don’t be afraid if down the line you are A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT THING. That is life. We’ve got you.

Filed under advice labels gay straight lesbian sexuality trans everyone is gay panic life

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“If I doubt, does that invalidate what I identify as?”

-Question submitted by Anonymous

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Dannielle Says: 

No. And Yes. And No. And Yes. And No. 

Your doubt, uncertainty, and confusion is totally normal. 

We’re all taught to believe certain things when we’re young. Then as we grow up, we start to learn a little more, realize there are more options to what we originally were taught and continue to grow and learn. Everyday we are growing and learning more about ourselves and the world around us. Whether it be about sexuality, politics, living in manhattan, college, cats, the Internet or anything else this is what happens… 

We learn that THIS is a thing. We form an opinion on THIS based on little to no knowledge. We learn a little more about THIS and start to realize our own belief on THIS. Once we’ve found our belief on THIS, we can officially fit ourselves into whatever category of people have the same belief on THIS as we do. After we know exactly what we feel/believe about THIS and know exactly how we identify, someone or something comes along and messes it all up. We learn a little more, we feel a little differently, our opinions shift a tiny bit, our beliefs are all outta whack and we have to start all over until we can re-fit into whatever category we can NOW identify with…. 

Stop thinking so much. You will, today and forever, continue to learn and grow and change and validate and invalidate yourself, your beliefs and your identity for the rest of your life. And that is totally okay.

Kristin Says: 

Here is what I think, in two parts:

1) Identity categories can be important and helpful in rallying people around important issues and in experiencing and learning about shared histories.  What I mean to say is, it is important to be able to say, hey…for the past few centuries people who are not ‘heterosexual’ have been marginalized, discriminated against, and deserve equality.  This works for many other identities, such as race, class, religion and ability. Identities allow us to have an ease of talking about certain issues…but they are also very, very troublesome.  This leads me to point number two:

2) Identity categories, most times, don’t actually fit with human beings. What does the word ‘lesbian’ really mean?  Women who sleep with women? Women who are romantic with other women? What is the definition of woman in those sentences, both on the loving and the receiving ends?? Is someone still a lesbian if they have partnered with women for their entire life until falling in love with a man? If my girlfriend transitions and is now a man, am I still a lesbian? If I want to make out with Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights, now what?!?!?!

You can identify as whatever you want, Anonymous, but let me tell you this…you are no less yourself than you were the day before, despite being full of doubt, despite the fact that things are shifting, and despite the fact that you (like all of us) are confused.  In my very humble opinion, identities were not meant for human beings in the first place.

Be aware, be yourself, be conscious, be confused, be happy, be strong, be unsure, be sad, be diligent, be patient, be kind…just let yourself be, and always allow that self to shift and change.

Filed under doubt identity lgbtq gay lesbian trans confusion advice

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This is Sabian, who is one of the first six people that we featured on our new YouTube channel, “Everyone Is Gay: Your Stories.”

You can read Sabian’s coming out article that was published in his high school newspaper over at our new sister Tumblr, I Am the Unknown.

Having the opportunity to come and meet so many of you is an incredible experience, and we are so, so excited to continue to grow this project and highlight your personal stories as yet another way of bringing us all that much closer together in our efforts.

Filed under growing up i am the unknown lgbtq sabian student stories trans your stories advice

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“I know that it’s wrong to doubt the validity of someone’s trans status, but I have this thing going on with another friend of mine. We’re both trans, and we have our different ways of going about it (how we dress, act, etc.) But whenever I’m around him, I can’t talk about anything trans related because I can’t look at him like a man. He became trans overnight, and I took months and years. He’s always weirded out by the fact I’m gay, and he has a girlfriend. We both seem to doubt each other. “

-Question submitted by Anonymous

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Dannielle Says:

OH. MAN. At first, when I read this, I thought about the people I knew once who said shit like “she’s not EVEN GAY, i can TELL” and it’s always kind of gotten under my skin, because the fact of the matter is, everyone goes through life/experiences/figuringshitout differently. 

HOWEVER BEFORE I GET TO THAT, your friend saying it’s weird that you’re gay is just straight-up RUDE. If I were you, I’d start there. I’d start the conversation by asking TOAST (your friend) why he thinks it’s weird you’re gay, when TOAST is like ‘whatever bc it is, bc if you’re a boy, then you should like girls’ then you can make this face:

-______- 

Some people get into this mindset that because they’re “DIFFERENT” they have the right to be close-minded… and that’s NOT WHASSUP. You have the right to love whoever the fuck you want, and no one can tell you anything different! You can love whoever you wanna love, however you want to love them, under whichever conditions you so choose to love them… TOAST is being mad unfair….ALSOOOOO you’re being a little unfair too, if you have a feeling and you can’t shake it, talk to TOAST and try to understand where he is coming from. Maybe you’re totally right, maybe he doesn’t feel the same things you feel at all, but ALSO, maybe you’re totally wrong, maybe he’s felt this way his entire life and just has a different way of going about things…

Think about it this way, I am NOT ANY MORE OF A LESBIAN THAN KRISTIN just bc my hair is short and I wear high-top sneakers….it’s kind of the same, if I sat here and tried to tell you guys Kristin probably wasn’t really gay bc she wears dresses, I would be fired.

Kristin Says:

I had the pink slip ready for her ass, y’all.  I realllllly did.

Anyway, Anonymous, here is the thing: just because you and TOAST are both trans doesn’t mean that you have to identify with each other, or undersand each other.  That is like saying that I have to understand why Shane left Carmen at the altar. #Lword #whywouldanyoneeverydothat

Your identity as trans and TOAST’s identity as trans can be two completely different experiences.  Sure, perhaps they will overlap in a couple of places, maybe y’all can both get pissed about people staring in public bathrooms, or maybe you both don’t like peas, but there are no rules here that say trans has to be one thing.

Talk to TOAST.  Be like, ‘Toast, I wrote to Everyone Is Gay, and they made me realize that you can be trans your way and I can be trans my way and neither one of us has to second-guess the other, because…that shit just plain does not make any sense.”  Then he’ll be like, ‘Yo, dude, why you callin’ me Toast, though?’

…Stop doubting, open your mind to more than one possibility, try to step away from rigid categories, be yourself and let others be themselves.

Filed under validity trans transgender doubt toast feelings open mind advice

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