LGBTQIAP+ Milestones: Book 1

That time I realised how queer I was

By Chuck-the-hero

~

I've always known I'm not straight. I have always been very masculine and turned my noes to dresses and make up, dolls and shopping. For two years, 6 to 8 years old, I made everyone call me Tim and refer to me as male pronouns. I went to an all-girls college which despite what you might think, I really enjoyed. Because even then I didn't think masculism was restricted to boys and I knew I would find other like-minded ladies there. Which I did. I had the best group of friends any anti-gender-classing kid could have. They all loved sport and building forts and being rough and my male friends loved theatre and the arts and talking about feelings and ideas. I loved that. I loved the fact my friends proved every stereotype wrong.

I was also blissfully unaware of sexism because of this. Even though I went to an all-girls school it seemed there was this shared idea that the phycological difference between boys and girls was the equivalent of the phycological difference between Sarah and Anna-Marie. We are all the same fucking amount of different.

Carrying on, I didn't experience sexism until I started my design degree. I'm not the closest kid in town and I don't want to be but for some reason these two hip skateboarding surfer dudes took a liking to me. They were called Johnny and Jack. They used go on and on how I wasn't like the other girls. Sometimes they would even refer to me as male from my masculine behavior and interest in being rough and playing tough. It didn't bother me much then as I was so surprised that the actual cool kids wanted to hang out with me and if that meant being a little rougher and little tougher then why the hell not? But I got sick of the hyper masculism. So once in a while I expressed my feminine side. They really didn't like that. As soon as I wore fitting clothes or drew something they considered girly they would turn their nose and tease and tell me "oh no you're not like them Chuck don't do that," like it was a fucking disappointment to be feminine at all. They teased me constantly, they used the word woman as a put down, they would purposefully play to rough and then mock me when I wanted out.

I have pretty big issue with people touching me without my permission. I will not hug anyone unless I trust them enough and I especially hate that stupid cheek kissing thing. They used to think this was funny and force hold or hug me. People do this a lot. You say you don't like touching and they think it's fucking joke. So when I would get serious about it they would mock me and tell me "don't act like one of those girls, you're not like them."

Despite it all I could deal with this. They convinced me they were teasing each other just as much. It was a kind of 'no one's safe' zone, but then one of them, Jack, started falling for me.

Every time he would come around to my flat he wouldn't leave. He kept sleeping in my bed. I didn't realise what this meant to him because I had always had male friends sleep in my bed. My high school friends would never even think of going near me. However, jack got closer and closer until one night he put his arm around my waist. I was confused. I thought they were trying to make me 'one of the boys.' and then this?

I tried to convince myself it was a good thing. He's nice to me most the time I told myself. It was mostly Johnny who did the bullying anyway. I tried to convince myself I did like him but still I never returned the affection. I was terrified of sex then. My first and only time I'd had it before my current partner, Finn, was horrible and questionable over whether it was consensual. It definitely made me never want to do it again. However because I was scared of getting teased by him or Johnny and I didn't want to explain my strange first time I didn't tell him. I would just move further away from him on the bed or hide.

Then one night Johnny came over. I can't remember what we was talking about but somehow he ended up confessing he was falling for me too. And I definitely did not like him that way. I told him I didn't feel the same way. He tried to kiss me but I pushed him away. This made him really upset and he left.