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How do you know if your Lesbian?

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Chahiro, Mar 25, 2019.

  1. Chahiro

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    I am a 14 year old girl and I’m not sure if I’m a lesbian. I looked around the internet for advice and something that kept coming up was that you shouldn’t worry about sexuality and just be with whoever you want to be with bla bla bla.... but it kept eating away at me and I need to know for sure. I know I’m young and am not planing on coming out but I still feel like I need some sort of definite answer. I think it could be a phase because a short time before this started, my dad was in a bad relationship and it made me not want to be with anyone ever. I know it’s stupid and I don’t believe in that kind of stuff but I was hoping that something had turned me gay and if I did I could turn myself back.
    The first time I questioned my sexuality was when I was about 11 or 12 but soon after I got a boyfriend and seemed genuine so I excepted that I was straight and didn’t think about it for a long time after that. Also when I was younger I went out with quite a few boys compared to my friends and was the first to kiss a boy. At the time it seemed like I was the least likely to be gay but looking back on it, there was no real attraction, it was just innocent kid stuff.
    When I was 13 I started feeling attracted to girls in my classes and some close friends so I thought I wasn’t straight but hoping I was bi because I could still be with a guy and be normal with kids and stuff.
    Once I was buying tickets and I found the woman behind the counter really attractive. I couldn’t take my eyes off her and I had this weird intense feeling that hadn’t happened before. Those kind of experiences kept happening more and more but only ever with girls which really bothered me.
    I went through a phase of not looking at any of the pretty girls in my school and mostly just walking round looking at the floor. Any time I looked at a girls body I would immediately feel disgusted with myself. Whenever girls talk about what boys they like I always listen to what they find attractive about them but i can never relate.The thing that makes me feel guilty is that there are still people that can’t be open about their sexuality and I’m privileged enough to know that if I were ever to come out my family would be more than fine with it.

    I have recently developed a crush on one of my friends. We were never very close and I didn’t like her but recently we have gotten closer and I like her more and more but one day she came to school and said she had started dating someone who happens to be trans (boy transitioning to a girl). When she said I felt a horrible feeling and started making jokes and ended up making fun of them for being trans, which was completely out of character for me. Everyone was laughing and joining in on th joke but I could tell she was uncomfortable. I still don’t know why I did that. I apologised to her later and she was fine but I felt sooooo guilty.

    I don’t want to be a lesbian but every time I think about being with or kissing a boy I feel nothing like there’s something blocking me and I feel completely different with girls.Thank you for reading to the end and any thoughts would be greatly appreciated
     
    Love4Ever likes this.
  2. Really

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    Hey @Chahiro

    Welcome to EC! You’ll find lots of good info and people here.

    I think you should give yourself a bit of a break. There’s no harm in appreciating the pretty girls around you. And, as you say, if you were gay, your family would be fine. You’re still very young and don’t have to do anything about being gay/straight/bi until you’re ready to. Why don’t you just make friends with the girls you like and see how you feel. There’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian and if that’s who you are, over time you’ll become more comfortable with this and it’ll be just fine.

    Also, remember that your brain is still developing so your feelings are going to be all over the map so try to just go with the flow. It’ll settle down after a while. :]
     
    AJ2018 and 18breanna like this.
  3. Love4Ever

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    Hi there! I’m so sorry that this has caused you so much confusion and agony, and I get where you’re coming from in that you can accept in your head that whomever you are attracted to doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things and yet still be caught up in feeling like you need a label to pin it down.
    I highlighted this because for years I felt this way. In fact I still think and say to people that when my whole family knows they’ll be shocked because I definitely am not someone anyone expected to be gay. I liked guys a ton when I was younger and tbh I’m still attracted to many of them, which is why I’m technically bisexual, but I identify as gay/lesbian because I found that when I started meeting guys outside my head that was not happy with the relationship dynamics. But I totally get the feeling of, I am not “allowed” to be gay. You are, you’re totally allowed. And to me it sounds like you’re definitely attracted to girls. Please don’t feel so ashamed! There’s nothing wrong with enjoying seeing beautiful girls. I get the shame of feeling disgusted, that’s a hard thing to struggle with. I will also add that there is no such thing as “normal.” You can have a family and do all of that with a woman; my girlfriend and I are one day planning to have children and being gay isn’t going to prevent us from doing that. I think you should just do what makes you happy. You don’t have to come out as anything yet, and I know this isn’t probably what you want to hear, but sexuality is so complicated I doubt it can ever be truly known. Why not just try dating a girl and seeing how you feel? It sounds like you are attracted to women, so why not give it a try and see how it makes you feel and if you like it better than being with a man? Not everyone feels the need to experiment but for many people, (including yours truly), it can unravel a big part of your desires. I never would have expected how truly gay I am until I met my girlfriend and realized how off the charts attracted to her I was.
     
    #3 Love4Ever, Mar 27, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2019
  4. Leah061

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    It sounds like you kind of know the answer to the question you're asking in the title of this thread, but perhaps you're still confused, which is completely understandable. You say that when you think about being with boys there's something blocking you and that you can't relate to the way your friends talk about boys, and that there are intense feelings you only get when thinking about girls, like the woman behind the counter.

    As far as what you said about having a boyfriend at 11 or 12, having kissed a boy before your others friends, being the least likely to be gay, etc, those can be part of a lesbian's experience before she realizes she's in fact, a lesbian. Consider the fact that you've grown up your whole life with heterosexuality as the only option. Even if you know the people in your life would accept you as gay, internalized homophobia runs deeper than you may realize. I mean, there are women who don't realize they're lesbians until after they're married to a man with children. I've learned not to underestimate the power of heteronormativity. You say yourself that looking back, there wasn't any real attraction to those boys, but you don't have to have an answer for how you felt about them, because honestly, there's a really good chance that it was never genuine attraction, and just the result of socialization. Of course, you're the only one who can truly get to the bottom of that.

    In the meantime though, you should know that no matter how you end up identifying (if you even want to identify yourself), there's nothing wrong with the way you feel about girls. There's no reason to feel guilty, you should be proud of yourself for being so honest about your feelings, because no matter how accepting your family may be, it's not easy coming to terms with who you really are.