Questioning?

Labels:

I think there is a big pressure on us as LGBT+ to find a label as quickly as possible and come out. This has a lot to do with how heteronormative the world we live in tends to be but I think a lot of young questioning kids get so focused on just finding a label that they aren't really thinking about their actual feelings. For me, I really just wanted to be able to find and easy answer to why I couldn't connect with people over crushes and things like that. But in doing so I caused myself a lot of grief and wasted away so much time just over-analyzing every interaction I had with other people. It's become a joke between me and another lesbian friend I have that every lesbian goes through a phase in their life where they assume they are asexual (thanks to comphet). But I do think that there is some truth to that. A lot of younger lesbians struggle with comphet and internalized homophobia and jump to the only label that can explain their lack of "normal" attraction to men without having to confront their attraction to other women. I think that if we were really allowed to just exist without a label until we were old enough to really start understanding our own feelings, it would save a lot of people the trouble of constantly having to hunt down a label that feels right to them. There is this idea that once you find a label for yourself it's permanent but I think we should be telling younger LGBT+ people that its ok to change their minds and take their time exploring their sexuality. If you aren't sure, that's ok. You don't need to label your sexuality until you feel comfortable doing so and sometimes you never do! A lot of people just don't label themselves as anything and that's completely valid! 

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Get yourself LGBT+ friends:

I think the one point that I can't stress enough it that if you think you are struggling with comphet or internalized homophobia, you need to talk to other LGBT+ people. Having a support group who understands and has been through the same situation you are going through is vital in keeping internalized homophobia from eating away at you. Not only is there comfort in knowing others understand what you are going through but they can help walk you through why certain thoughts are just internalized homophobia speaking. There are days where I can not even think about my attraction to women without feeling so guilty I start smacking my head to make my brain stop (a bit dramatic I know). When this happens I talk to my other LGBT+ friends about how I'm feeling and they reassure me that I'm not a gross monster for thinking about holding hands with a girl I have feelings for. 

(Want someone to talk to? Here is my discord: sofi#0256)

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Feeding the fire:

What do you do when someone you care about deeply feeding into your internalized homophobia? There have been so many moments in my life when I have had to hear my family or friends say something deeply upsetting, and knowing that they won't think twice about it. But I will. I won't stop thinking about it. There is already a fear with being gay that maybe you are just faking it. Maybe you're faking it to be cool or quirky or maybe you just had one bad experience and now you convinced yourself you're something you're not. And when you hear someone you love tell you that maybe that thought is true, and this whole time you might have been pretending, it is devastating. I can not live my life without constantly having those words echoing in my mind. I know that I'm not faking it. If I was performing my sexuality, then who the hell am I performing it for? But the words still linger. Every time I go to draw something with lesbians in it. Every time I go to talk about a girl I like. There is also a prevalent idea in our society that people "make being gay their only personality trait". Personally, I have only heard people tell me this when I even remotely mention anything that has to do with being a lesbian. I was once told that I draw too many lesbians and that I should "diversify" and draw more heterosexual couples. To which I responded with "LOL. NO.". But I still think about it to this day. Am I annoying people around me when I talk about being gay? Will people think less of me if I bring it up? How do you keep other people from feeding into the internalized homophobia you have been working so hard to dismantle. And if I'm being honest, I don't know. I don't think we can do anything about the things other people say. There has to be a collective effort to unlearn these homophobic ideas and be more aware of just how much damage repeating these ideas can be. We have to make the effort to educate ourselves about the people around us. The only thing we have control over is who we surround ourselves with.