Oh geez .... I hope this thread lasts lol
when I was younger and growing up, I literally had no clue LGBT or any of that existed. my parents are helicopter parents so it's really hard for anything to come into my life or for me to know about stuff without their approval, and for the longest time both of my parents were homophobic/transphobic/phobic of LGBT in general. in fact.... almost everyone where I live are this way (I live in the middle of the country, i.e. nowhere so it's to be expected since 99% of the people here are rednecks)
but, when I was like 13, I met this kid named Stephen, but he identified with the name Jack, so I was like "WOAH you can identify with whatever name you want??? great, I can get rid of my name and have a cooler one" so I took on a new name for a short while, and then at Stephan's birthday he basically acted like he had a crush on me?? I didn't really think much of it other than he wanted to be my friend, but at that time I asked my parents and .... boom, I learned about LGBT. they finally explained it and I was like...... oh my ****ing god he's hitting on me. a gay guy is ****ing hitting on me.... and ever since then I questioned my sexuality, since my whole childhood, I was only interested in the cute girls when I'd go to the park and play with friend (like when I was 6 or 7 years old?) and if a gay kid (I was 13 or 14 at that time, Stephan was about the same age) had a crush on me, does that make me gay?? so around that time I gave up the notion of having a girlfriend since I recently before then had drama and was in like 3 relationships at once (it's complicated lol) so..... like literally my whole life was turned upside down because it's like completely new to me and I didn't view myself as gay (of course it might be from being raised in a non-LGBT house with a non-LGBT family). my parents do have underlying reasons why they're phobic, and I understand that, but they're not even accepting of.... anything in the spectrum. like, just recently, I was thinking about how when I was in my relationships with girls, I never really felt anything and I just sorta went along.. and I never really felt or understood love or affection, I asked my parents if I might be ace.
I was almost grounded for thinking about possibly being 'dew-worm-sexual' not kidding, so I spent an hour explain what being an ace meant (because of course my parents know almost nothing about LGBT, but having friends who are part of it, I try to keep up with it otl) and in the end they said all aces are bi..... uh, hello, I said I might be a straight ace? so in the end I basically just had to keep my mouth shut and say 'ok I'm straight nvm' and ever since then I wonder if I'm actually possibly a straight ace or maybe if I'm straight? and ever since the Stephan incident I wondered if I was gay... then bi... and now ace. so for me, LGBT is basically associated with bad things which is why sometimes I'll say I'm homophobic/transphobic. in reality I have nothing against LGBT and I lowkey support it (when my parents aren't around lmao) but I'm more or less homophobic against myself because, I guess I just don't want to be gay/bi/trans? I mean I know I'm not now but I was and it still lingers with me so
and then the special snowflake tumblr LGBT people who identify as 'star/starself' also left a bad taste in my mouth; in the end I kinda support it, but because of questioning my identity and because of how I was raised, I also sorta hate it. I'm just conflicted.
