How old were you when you began questioning/considering you weren’t “normal”? I’m in my 30s and almost all at once feel like I’m not sure what I am in most demensions and struggling to figure out what I feel about anything. I’ve been married, happily for a while, which adds a little to the confusion.
Normal was probably around 8, queer questioning only started in my late 20s, and I only figured out I was trans a decade on again. Still haven’t fully figured out my sexuality, but labels are tools rather than boxes.
I felt an attraction to older men around 7 or 8, not in a sexual way but just a general attraction. At 13 had a “girlfriend” online because that was the normal thing to do. One of my other online friends was a lesbian and she explained her attraction toward women. That was my lightbulb moment that I was gay and had a specific attraction toward older men.
Of course that had a slew of problems being a teenager attracted to older men 55+. Overtime I went from bi, to gay, to hating myself, to finally accepting myself and lifting my depression at around 22. I always thought there biggest hurdle was social acceptance, it turns out, it’s self acceptance and being comfortable with who you are.
You should consider seeing a LGBTQ friendly therapist to help unpack how you’re feeling. A therapist is there to help you learn tools to self analyze.
I’ve always known I wasn’t “normal” but I was a child in the 90s so trans women were punchlines and I had no idea trans men were even a thing, and there was no path forward as a trans kid back then. I heard about intersex conditions in elementary school and I’d hoped puberty would go differently for me (because, even if I hadn’t fully pieced it together, I knew on some level I didn’t feel like my AGAB), it didn’t. I fought with my parents to let me cut my hair short in middle school and lost (and in hindsight I regret not grabbing a pair of scissors and doing it myself). In high school I realized I was bi and quietly started exploring proto-non-binary identities like androgyne. I briefly identified as a butch lesbian from 19-23, then at 23 realized I’m a bisexual trans man. That was over a decade ago now and while I’m still figuring out some of the specifics (I might be gray ace and trans masc non-binary) I’m mostly set on the big picture stuff and transitioning was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life - testosterone completely cured the suicidal ideation I’d struggled with since the wrong puberty. My only regret is not being able to figure things out and transition earlier.
That said, trans people who haven’t always known are still valid.
I was in high school when I started to realize that I was bisexual. I started questioning around Grade 11 and 12, and then came to terms with it in my first year of university. However, it didn’t really change anything for me. I was in a long term relationship at the time, and after that one ended I very quickly ended up in another relationship which I’ve been in ever since. Both of them were “hetero” relationships.
Knowing that I’m bisexual hasn’t changed my feelings for my partner. All it has done for me is help me accept that what I’m feeling is normal, and that it’s perfectly okay to be attracted to both males and females.
The fact that you’re happily married shows you still love your spouse. Questioning your sexuality doesn’t have to change anything about your marriage. If anything, I would talk to your spouse about it and go “hey, I’ve been thinking about this a bit, and I’d like your support while I try and work through these feelings.” You can question and work through it without having to “experiment” or look for anything outside your current relationship.
And remember, being in a “hetero” relationship does not invalidate your sexuality. You don’t even have to label your sexuality if you don’t want to.
Yeah I’m definitely not looking to experiment. I feel pretty confident in my sexual preferences, but for whatever reason just started question, expression, I guess? I’m not quite sure. We’ve been married ~10 years and loving it, but somewhat suddenly, questions came up and I’m not quite sure how I feel about anything.
Do you mean expression in terms of gender? Or just more generally how you present yourself to the world?
I’m not totally sure… Maybe both? I felt somewhat uncomfortable with certain aspects of my body, on and off, as I assumed all do for a long while.
I had assumed that gender expression was about how you revealed yourself to the world, but this is all so very new to me. Newer than I would have expected.
I’m not sure if this will help you or not, but gender expression can be whatever you want it to be. How you express yourself in private can be different than how you express yourself in public, or how you express yourself to family can be different than how you express yourself to friends.
Maybe you don’t identify with any gender. Maybe you identify with your current gender but there are still some things that don’t feel right. Or maybe you identify with something else altogether. Any of these is perfectly okay.
I’d also like to point out that being uncomfortable with certain aspects of your body can be normal, but it depends on the context. For example, feeling uncomfortable because of where your body carries its weight is very different from feeling uncomfortable because it feels like part of your body doesn’t represent you accurately.
I think in this situation you’d do well to do a bit of googling. Read various sources about coming out, stories about how people realized and came to terms with their identities, and just information about questioning in general.
In my opinion, everyone should question their gender and self-identity at some point in their lives. For most people, that probably just means going “Am I comfortable being a boy/girl?” and answering it with “yes” and then going on with their lives, but for some people it might lead to deeper exploration.
Thank you so much for your help. I will definitely try to keep this in mind in all this figuring. I have a hard time expressing things in words but this has been more than helpful!
I had my first homoerotic experiences at 18, realized I was bi and trans at 24, came out as bi at 32, as gay at 40, and trans at 42. In retrospect, I would have been much better off coming out (fully) earlier. Unfortunately, I was born into a conservative, patriarchical family and it took a long time to shed all of that awful self-loathing baggage.
I was very young. Single digits. I always wanted to kiss all the girls and all the boys, from before when I knew that anybody thought there was anything wrong with it.
I kinda knew I didn’t vibe with my AGAB at a pretty young age, maybe 12 or earlier? Idk i just kinda remember vague disassociation towards my agab. One of the first concrete trans thoughts i had was while watching an anime where full body cyborgs exist and I remember thinking/wishing for that to be real so I could swap into a woman’s body. The same show also made me aware that being attracted to the same/both genders was a thing that could exist.
At the time I didn’t really have the knowledge to really grasp the ideas that were forming so I didn’t accept/understand I was bisexual until I was maybe 20. And I didn’t really come to understand this general disdain for my physical and social gender and sex were a symptom of being trans until about mid 2019, or when I was about 24. The weird thing was that I knew and understood trans women specifically because i’d befriended a few over online MMOs (and asked the mandatory prying questions that apathetic teenagers tend to ask. thank you so much for your patience Kira/Demi.) but didn’t associate the status with my own situation.
Figuring ourselves out is a hell of a path and nobody’s is identical to anothers, so don’t feel too overwhelmed with your current situation or the possibility of being a late bloomer, things fall into place eventually.
I can relate to some of that. I do have some memories of being uncomfortable about my body and wondering if I was supposed to have been the other and somehow everyone got it wrong when I was born, though whatever age I was, I don’t think trans was anywhere near mainstream and had no idea it existed.
Also, I think it was some egg_irl memes that started the questions. I stumbled onto it and they were kind of funny, until “Wait. Are these too funny?” This being sometime after also realizing I had adhd after finding their memes too funny and relatable.
Maybe I will end up accepting myself the way I was, or not, but yeah it is a hell of a thing. It’s like I was vibing trying to survive life and someone suddenly pulled the fucking floor out from under me.
I was around 14 when I started thinking something was up, at the time I thought I was bi but it was only around when I was 20 that I found out I was trans and a lesbian
