How and when did you know you were lgbtq?

1946 is when I began my journey and my awareness started at 4.5 years of age. I say the beginning in 46 as I was born intersexed and had corrective surgery, a fact that would be revealed 42 years later by my mother.
I was assigned male at birth, but quite possibly sensed something wrong while still in diapers as it was also revealed to me later that mittens needed to be taped to my hands to prevent me from trying to pull my gentiles off and causing myself injury.
At about 4.5 years I distinctly remember becoming very angry at my mother. I was sitting on the kitchen floor playing with pots and pans. Maybe I was pretending to be cooking or something like that. Mother made a comment concerning my activities and becoming angry I turned and glared at her and shouted, "I'm a girl!" I can still see the dumbfounded look on her face. I continued openly with this conception of myself until about my fourth year of school. As my mother paid little attention to me on this, upon entering school I began to express myself to teachers. This didn't go over too well in the early 1950's. I was made to attend therapy in the city and when that cause change, school officials tried to send me off to a special school for the mentally unfit.
We moved! By grade 4 and three moves later I learned to keep quiet. I became pretty much a loner having very few friends, I was only interested in whatever I could do on my own.
As the years continued to pass I always identified with my feminine half. Dressing as netural as possible always denying the male disguise. I was attracted to other girls in my early teens, but rarely did so openly, it was the late 50's early 60's and intimacy was usually limited to traditional expectations that I didn't want to participate in. A boy kissed me once and tried to convince me into sex, but I refused. I faced similar situations with girls with only one ending with me preforming oral. Loved that!
I had a slight built body and was often refered to as "the sissy". The only thing that happened to me during puberty was that I shot up to a 5'8" beanpole. Nothing changed south of my belly button, no hair grows on my legs or armpits nor did my voice change -- at least not until an accident that severely damaged my larynx at age 22.
Through my early adult years I switched gender roles as it suited me. I always viewed myself female and was attracted to women. I always tried to avoid intimacy as there was both a rather small deformed non-functional appendage and small puffy breasts to explain.
After my third suicide attempt at age 38, I sought therapy. After many sessions, psychological evaluations, personality tests, brain scans, blood testing, yada yada yada I was presented with two possibilities. Try T therapy or follow the stronger side and go on estrogen. I chose the latter and started estrogen HRT.
I started feeling better about myself, more confident and self assured. So much so a year later I went mountain climbing, fell and damn near broke my back. Two crushed disc's and five fractured vertebrae wiped out my finances. I had to stop HRT and move across country and live with my mother.
When I made the move I brought only the feminine with me and made legal changes to both my name and gender.
As I was turning 42 and as mum saw my determination and decided to fill me in about my birth situation. I also started dating girls and eventually moved in with one. Unfortunately she was a cheater, but was also a direct link to meeting my future Significant Other with whom I'd spend the next 22 years with. She was the love of my life and the most exciting person I ever knew.
As I've mentioned before, she passed in 2014.

 

I think I knew from a young age, but I didn't hear of bisexuality until about high school. I knew what "lesbian" meant thanks to my mother back in elementary school, but I knew I wasn't that because I did like boys. It wasn't really a moment when I came to acknowledge it, it was more like a process for me. For example there were occasions I'd find myself interested in another woman and it seemed she was interested first which was what started the whole thing. Then I thought I might be asexual for awhile. About six years ago, I was drunk and I blurted out that I thought I might be bisexual, to my mom. She'd hugged me and seemed really concerned. But then it was like she forgot it happened and started trying to force me on men, but having a friend who I eventually also found out was bisexual (married) kind of helped my perspective.

 

HOW WAS THE DATE???

 

I am bi sexual. When i was 6 yrs old and saw Peter Pan with Mary Martin i had the biggest crush on her for years. I am female. Then in 4th grade i had a crush on my female teacher. When i was much older i worked in a bar and had a crush on the female bartender. She was straight and femme, but was like a drill sargent and none of the girls wanted to work on her shift. I was the only one! I would write notes to her and say i wanted to be on her shift. She gave me most days on her shift. She was married and she knew i had a crush on her. From time to time she would Wink at me and it would drive me crazy.
This was in my mid 30's. I forgot to say that i did have a few male boy friends, but when i was in my late 20's i went to a gay bar and had 4 lovers. The last one was my best. Spent 3 yrs living with her, but she drank too much and would argue with me and even hit me two times so i finally left and went back to men. I really cared for her though. Now i am much older and i don't want men anymore and just want a woman. I've been thinking/dwelling on it for the last 2 yrs. I went to a straight bar a few wks ago and found a real Butch there! I am presently working on getting together with her. I like the rough looking butches and not the refined ones. The butchier the better!

 

To be honest since my teens. I was a tomboy in my childhood and remained so until 20s when I had to ‘smarten up’ for work as I held a quite senior position. But teens were when that seed was planted but due to religion and family and also growing up in the 80s I just suppressed it. It didn’t really resurface until after I had my children and got depressed. My kids were amazing but I never liked or enjoyed sex with men, was never happy in relationships with them and found myself hurt, hating myself and confused. To cut an incredibly long story short when my daughter came out to me I remember feeling so happy for her that she was born in a time she was free to be herself. I thought Im a grown woman with my own home I do not have to pretend anymore why I am doing this. However I still did nothing until 4 years ago when my dad became terminally ill and he mentioned regrets he had of things he never got to do and that gave me the kick up the backside to live my life how I wanted to.

 

A few years ago I was breaking up with a girlfriend. I went to her house, hung out for a while and then went home. Later, we were arguing over the phone. She was calling me the worst and I was saying that I didn't do anything when I realized that I was the only one thinking in terms of infidelity, abuse or things like that. Whether we were arguing or in agreement was more a matter of semantics than actual opposition.

I know that it reads like a joke, but it really did happen that way.

At the same time I also realized that I spent a lot of time fantasizing and then calling those fantasies stupid until I had repressed both the fantasies and the part of me that needed them. I decided to work towards accepting that part of myself and the headaches stopped.

 

I really appreciated this post as it hit home...I have often felt that I had strong feminine tendencies for as long as I can remember. I was also a very slight build boy growing up that was often referred to as a sissy, had more friends that were girls then guys and it wasn’t until 1978 just shy of my 7th birthday that I was told there were problems during my birth and that I spent the first week of my life in an NICU and it was because of this situation that I grew up an only child which only exacerbated my negative view of myself.

I remember running out of the room when I was told that I wasn’t breathing and did not have a pulse when I was born as was tangled in my umbilical cord. This discussion took place at a family reunion and I felt like I was a defect or some type of freak because
If this whole situation. Talk about complete embarrassment....

My first sexual experience took place at a sleep over with my best friend when I was ten years old and left me completely confused and I tried to repress/suppress it for years.

I always had long blonde hair as a kid which definitely made me look more like a girl because I would cry and have a hissy fit whenever my parents would try to get my haircut. But in the late 70s/early 80s all kids generally had long hair.

It was during early adolescence that I noticed that my breast would become very sore and I noticed small lumps behind my nipples but never told anyone out of fear of what it might be. I also noticed that my feet were more feminine in shape and size and I would get picked on for having small feet for a boy. I continued to be of a slender build throughout my teens as I only weighed 130 pounds when I graduated from high school.

I was always intimidated by girls even though I was sexually attracted to them and each relationship ended in disaster. It was not until after my divorce that I have been trying to do some research into my personal history and situation. I cannot help but wonder if somehow I had received an infusion of estrogen in utero or during my delivery that may have led to some of these feminine traits ...

Sorry for being long winded but your testimony really struck a deep chord with me...

 

The defining moment for me was the morning after my first sexual experience with another man after many years in "hetero" relationships. Waking up after a night of intense sensual pleasure I could never imagined, next to this gorgeous man and thinking this just seemed so right. I went into the bathroom and shortly afterwards he followed me in. We embraced, kissed and he lovingly and jokingly said " how does it feel to be a newly minted homo". It felt incredibly right, like I had found that 'X" factor I had been missing and after another embrace he said " welcome to your new life as a gay man". He was absolutist right and I knew then I could never go back to a woman. Its been over 2 1/2 years together and I wouldn't change a thing. Haven't looked at a woman sexually since and not miss any aspect of heterosexuality.

 

I was 18. I met a guy in his mid twenties in the apartment complex I lived in. Helped him carry in some groceries and started talking. That Friday I went to his apartment to listen to music and drink beer. Up to that point I was curious about being with a man. The drunker I got the more I talked about it. He said that we would but he wanted me to have a fee more first. When he dropped his pants I could see why he wanted me to have a few more. It was only four inches long but as thick as my wrist. It fit in my mouth and didn't trigger my gag reflex. When he put it in my ass it wad a little uncomfortable for less that a minute. I started to really enjoy it. He fucked me untill his body said no more so I got on top and rode him till he came again. Untill that night i suspected I would like it. I was wrong, I loved it. I woke up later that morning in his arms. It felt so right, so good. Laterthat morning I askef if he wanted a beer. He said yes. I openef it, took a drink and handed it to him. Then I started pulling down his sweat pants. He asked what I was doing. I said last night you told me the only reason I did what I did wad because I was drunk. I'm proving you wrong. I started sucking him again till it was nice and hard then rode him on the couch till he came inside me.

 

There were several things that should have tripped my spidey-senses: an intense crush on a camp counselor (it was so obvious that she took pity on me and we wrote a few times after camp), my questioning if I was gay wnen Ellen came out because I could see liking girls and it made sense (no one would talk to me about it- of course, I chose the wrong people), and my almost revelatory experience at seeing the movie "Better than Chocolate" (a lesbian chick flik kind of movie but with great sex scenes) I left the theater, underwear all but dripping, and all I could think was "I wish I had seen that before i was married."

But ironically, in the midst of all this, what triggered my first "I might not be straight" email to a friend was some chronic questioning (why did I have to think of women in order for any arousal to happen sexually about 98% of the time, etc.) and a dream. A dream where I made love to a woman and months after the dream, I could still feel the pleasure and intensity of it. I'm not a dream-reader. I'm not someone who says to go by dreams, but I knew this sticking around so long was telling me. One night I was doing a lot of thinking and I thought about this and for the first time, put it together with the other stuff I mentioned and tons of stuff I didn't, and I was sure enough to email my LGBT friendly friend and say that "I'm wondering if I'm gay."

 

Hi Where about in the uk are you and if u don’t mind me asking how old are you now?

 

I am 44 and I am in the Wwst of England.

 

I have no light bulb moment. It started with a joke with a friend. My daughter is Pan, I was talking about her and switched to myself, and the sentences sounded like I was outting myself. So she teasingly declared me a lesbian and I jokingly owned it right back.

This exchange however, started me soul searching and really questioning my entire romantic and sexual history. Was it ever great? With a few exceptions, not really.

I’ve been divorced for 5 years now and haven’t dated at all because I’ve been petrified ... and frankly really turned off ... at the prospect of dating men.

I’ve always looked at women more than men. The male form was always kind of comical to me. Women on the other hand are curvy and beautiful and sexy. Fantasies and erotica with women have always been my preferred over straight MF (boring).

How did I not really notice all this about myself until now??

I haven’t dated a woman yet. I’m still in that “heading into foreign territory, I don’t know what I’m doing” zone. But I do notice it feels far more interesting than dating another man. And lately I feel far more awakened inside.

I’m still working through decades of conditioning that there’s only one right way to relationship. Gosh that programming is strong.

 

Langom,
I am with you, on the male side. I have not yet dated a guy, but I want to! I don't even know what the sex is going to be like, or what my role will be. Other guys on this forum have said not to worry about it and that everything will fall into place for me when it does happen. But, I still worry and wonder ... and worry!
-R

 

What a relief to read that someone else is in that limbo land and not quite sure what’s next.

I feel so late to the party. And without any experience at all in this, I’m questioning every.thing. And totally not sure how to get started meeting people...

 

I was in my late 20's or early 30's when I fully realized I was bisexual, a little later when I fully realized I was gender-fluid. In hindsight, there were signs before hand, going all the way back to my childhood, and I did have my suspicions back in my early 20's.

 

When I should have known:
I was 14 and trying to masturbate, literally rubbing myself raw trying to think about the 'hot' girls, then I thought about the 'gay kid' everyone made fun of, and him giving me a blow job. I came in under 30 seconds...

but denial is strong!
When finally realized:
When I first came here and started to face and accept it. Someone posted a question here " who could you imagine coming home looking into their eyes, kissing and saying I love you'... after all these years I finally let myself imagine doing that with a guy.....my heart melted.

 

yesterday i had an epiphany ao i thought id come here to sort it out.

no, not really, but its shorter than my story no one cares to read about.

 

I was 15 when I realised I was "different".. finding guys at school more attractive than I should have...which was hard given I went to an all-boys school.
I only came out much later at 25. But now for various reasons I still stay fairly closeted and only a select few people know.