"I considered myself a knight": How girls explore their sexuality
minorities continue to face discrimination and the palette of identity, sexual and gender definitions within the LGBT community is changing in the meantime. This happens not so much in theory as in real life of people. We talked with different girls about the formation of their sexuality and identity, and also about love and the endings in words.
Since childhood, I hated traditional gender attitudes and physically could not fulfill them. Not that their parents imposed them - they were just in our culture. I read a lot, but I could never imagine myself as a Beautiful Lady, and considered myself a Knight. I wanted to be a man, and physically I was drawn to women. When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, I sort of decided to save that I am not a woman (but not a man), because I do not associate myself with typically female things. I could not call myself a lesbian, because a lesbian is a woman who loves women, and I did not consider myself a woman. From sixteen to eighteen years old, I was unrequitedly in love with three women. At that moment I couldn’t even imagine myself in a romantic or sexual relationship - it was hell.
Soon I fell in love with each other - we have been together for almost two years. Gradually, a relationship with a real living woman who loves me and feminist self-education sobered me up and helped me a lot. It dawned on me that if I am uncomfortable within the boundaries of one gender, this does not make me unmarried. Now I believe that gender as a social construct is crap and it cannot be a violent structure. If from childhood to show on the apple and pronounce the word "apple", then the connection between the word and the object will be fixed. From childhood I was shown femininity and uttered the word "woman." I could not correlate myself with this - and over and over again I made this mistake: "If I do not correlate myself with common ideas about women, then I am not a woman."
It's also a way to escape from the patriarchal reality - because if you feel like a woman, it is harder for you to endure a misogyny around. Now I think that I am a woman, simply because I was born a woman, with a vagina and the name "Masha". Everything else has nothing to do with this word. And if I'm a woman and I love another woman, then I'm a lesbian. From this I drew the conclusion that one should not be led to traditional gender roles and hurry with the transition. And I thought about it, but did not start it, because in principle I hated myself and did not really want to live. If I ventured to make the transition, now I would regret it.
In an ideal world of complete equality, perhaps sexuality would be explained purely biologically on the Kinsey scale. But we are social beings, social institutions influence our personal choice. Perhaps orientation is more a choice than a biological reality. But I cannot confirm or deny this, since the purity of the experiment lacks that ideal world.
At sixteen or seventeen, I decided that I was a man, because I was not considered beautiful, I had a “male soul” and I liked girls. I seriously planned to do the surgery, change the documents and appearance. Fortunately, it was not easy to implement, although I tried as best I could. After a few years, I was “prettier” and began to identify myself as an agent. At twenty-one I finally emerged as a woman, met with feminism and my throwing stopped. Now I often think that I once was in such despair that I could go to extreme measures, put my health, future and life at risk, just because I did not meet other people's expectations.
Now I call myself a lesbian, but I think that this is not quite true. I do not feel rejected or disliked by the male body and male sex; rather, what social gender does to men is disgusting to me. True, I find attractive mostly women, and when it comes to men, I have dark-dark conditions. Of course, there are exceptions, but I noticed that they concern men who have so-called feminine qualities.
I do not know whether sexual orientation changes throughout life. Perhaps over time, we simply come to what we always had a predisposition to. At the same time, I am convinced that sexual orientation cannot be changed by force - by the power of thought, “corrective” rape, psychiatric treatment. I am also not a supporter of the idea of a variety of genders It seems to me that those who support her simply adapted to the state of things, instead of confronting gender prejudice, misogyny and discrimination.
At fourteen, I met a girl who studied with me as an artist, and we immediately became close friends. Too tight. I was literally obsessed with her, told everyone how good she was, I could not wait for the meeting. But I have never crept into the thought of what is actually happening, until someone joked that I fell in love with her. It dawned on me at that very second, and right after that, I began a long period of self-hatred and self-deprecation. I was ashamed of the fact that this girl trusts me, communicates with me, and I have “dirty” feelings for her, “vulgarizing” our friendship. I was afraid to disappoint my parents, I was afraid that someone else would find out, I thought that I was not worthy of life, that I was some kind of "defective."
This lasted for quite a long time, until I had the Internet on the phone and I did not find like-minded people on the Internet. Then all polls were fond of yaoi (manga and anime genre depicting homosexual relationships between men. - Ed.). It was exactly what they were fond of, not too delving into the essence - it was fashionable to impersonate the Web as a guy. For me, it became something of a psychological defense: it seems like you, and not quite you. This allowed the girls to flirt in correspondence with the girls, all guessed about the gender of the interlocutor, but did not utter considerations out loud. It was scary, embarrassing and even disgusting to even think about writing to oneself openly on one's own behalf. Now I understand that it was a big hello from internal misogyny. Gradually, I still began to open up and accept that I was a girl. And that I only like girls.
After a couple of years, I came to a shaky harmony with myself. She graduated from school, moved to St. Petersburg to study and began to encounter older people more often and guys in general. Claims ending with the phrase "You're a girl," it immediately became an incredible lot. It turned out that the girl is not cool, everyone is trying to ban you, they are crammed into an inconvenient box, they are obviously considered weak and stupid, not allowing to prove the opposite. But the boys everywhere the road and honor. I thought: maybe I'm still a boy? But I didn’t really feel like a boy, just from the two options I chose the one that seemed more advantageous to me.
My attempts to try on this role ended rather quickly - I met another girl, and she opened my eyes with the very fact of her existence. She was sharp and witty, she knew everything in the world, she knew how to snap hard and, despite the difference in age, she treated me as an equal. And she was a meter tall with a cap and just adored kittens. That was incredible. Can you be a "man" and love cute things? Can you be a girl and answer sharply? Isn't there just two chairs in the world?
So I gradually began to come to the idea that gender is a constructor and only we can decide from what details we want to assemble our own. Then there was another surprise. After I left school and went to work at a coffee shop, I met one guy and fell in love with him. Oh, what then was! Who would have thought that there is such a thing as internal heterophobia, if you can call it that. I broke a new one. So it was all in vain? All this suffering, torment? So I'm still damn straight? It was funny and weird and scary. Now I was most afraid of the fact that I was "ordinary." That all these were just teen searches that mean nothing, but now everything settled down and I finally found a stereotypical female happiness.
I had to listen to my feelings. In the end, I realized that I, in fact, always liked boys, I simply forbade myself to pay attention to them. Calling myself a lesbian, I narrowed the circle of perception, as if I put a tick in the box in the search box - “show only girls”. I realized that I have preferences, tastes and different criteria that allow people to be considered interesting and attractive, but in principle, gender and gender are not so important to me. I googled and found out that this is called pansexuality. I also learned that my unwillingness to have sex is asexuality. If this information came to me earlier, the search would not be so awkward and painful, with a bunch of mistakes and torments.
In my opinion, sexual orientation cannot change, rather the "label" changes, which we glue on ourselves depending on our awareness and level of reflection.
At first I began to notice that I like girls. Then she turned to action - she began to look for acquaintances with people like me. I had no doubts - obviously, I'm a lesbian. But when I broke up with a woman with whom I lived a little more than two wonderful years, I fell in love with a man. Thought: "Wow, and it happens!" And I married him - then I was eighteen years old. The marriage did not last long, but that's another story.
During life, we can discover for ourselves more and more new facets of sexuality and enjoy them, but the previously open sides remain with us to the end. Now I can say that I am bisexual, but I like girls more. True, I do not like to call myself a bisexual, it seems to me a label. Everything happened to me out of love, but it was “hetero” or “homo” - it never mattered.
There were, of course, problems with all sorts of not very pleasant people, who for some reason thought that they could climb to me with estimates of my sexuality. But this was a big plus - I learned how to build boundaries.
I was sixteen when for the first time I seriously thought that I could like not only guys, but also girls. The family and inner circle were quite tolerant, and yet I could not believe that I could actually be not heterosexual.
Unbeknownst to me, I fell in love with a girl, but it was not easy to admit it. For more than a year I lived in uncertainty, trying to understand what I really felt. The problem was not so much internal homophobia, but rather the attitude adopted in society towards women and lesbianism in particular. I perceived the world through the prism of these patterns and tried to treat women as the men around them. I tried to try on their behavior on myself, but I understood that it didn’t fit me at all, so I was afraid that I had just invented my desire for girls. On the other hand, I tried to deny the possible attraction to men and faced internal biphobia.
Now I define myself as a bisexual. I read many articles and did a lot of self-analysis, although the hesitation period was relatively painless. Others face environmental pressure due to homophobia and begin to hate themselves. Maybe something else will change, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop being bisexual. Even if one sex starts attracting me more than the other — this has already happened — I cannot remove it from my story.
When I was fourteen, I watched one of the most popular TV shows at that time, I actively met and talked in social networks and learned what fanfiction was. One of my friends on the Internet sent me art and fan fiction with two male characters, where they were presented as a couple. I refused to read and watch - it seemed “wrong” and even scarecrow. But one day, while reading other works, I accidentally came across the one where the love story between two of my favorite characters was described. Both were men, and their story was tragic. I decided to finish reading until the end - I thought, I would prove to my friend at the same time, what a nonsense this is. But in the end I really liked it, and not only because of the good plot. I was ashamed, but as if I made a discovery. Can there be love between people of the same gender? It was exciting.
I told my friends about this, and they unexpectedly liked my new hobby. We actively shared content with each other, we even drew and wrote something ourselves. It was a revelation to us that same-sex relationships are, first of all, love, and not, as mom said in childhood, bad and wrong.
After a couple of years, I realized that I like my girlfriend more than just a friend. For a while I thought about it, did not admit anything to myself and waited for it to pass. And then I just accepted it, because if other people in real life love each other, regardless of gender and gender, if I support and protect them, then why can't I be the person who likes not only men, but also women? We have a small town, and I almost did not tell anyone about it. But already then I realized that most likely I am bisexual. Then my friend suddenly confessed to me, practically lamenting that she liked women. I supported her. But I was even afraid to imagine what would happen if I told her about myself - we can become a couple, and it will be very difficult to hide it.
This experience helped me find what I have now. I am in a relationship with a girl for five years, together we live for a year. I still identify myself as a bisexual, with my partner, I feel comfortable. Of course, my passion for slash was infantile and romanticized, but it was it that brought me to my girlfriend and helped me realize my sexuality - I don’t think she will change much with time. This is what's with you forever, for the rest of your life.
Photo: timelapse16 - stock.adobe.com (1, 2)