On Coming Out

Last night I participated in one of those silly Facebook tag games where if you comment on somebody's fabricated status, then you have to choose an option and put it on your status.  So, being a good sport, I posted that I am gay. 175 likes and comments later I feel bad, because I'm not gay.  In fact, I had people telling me they knew I've alway been gay and glad I decided to come out.   I feel like that kid in the Goonies that played the prank in the theater. So, instead of freaking out, I've decided to make lemonade out of lemons. 

I've always openly been bisexual.   I've never been in the closet about anything.  Well there was this one time in middle school, but I digress.  It hit me last night why this isn't accurate that I'm straight, gay, or bi.  As a kid, I was an uber tomboy.  I wanted to be male.  I self-identified as male until I hit puberty.  It became a little impossible what biological gender I was at that point.  Much of my path into Paganism has been about letting go of Patricarchal religious view such as being the lesser sex, women being the originators of sin, or even always being told to "be ladylike".  So, I have accepted I am biologically female and have lady parts.  Penis envy will just be a part of life for me. It helped me deal with the confusion and the pain of being gender queer. However, psychologically, I have some masculine aspects and still inside wish I had been born male. Paganism gave me new archetypes to incorporate female power and deal with gender roles, expectations, and expressions.  It gave me an opportunity not to accept whole hog what a "normal" woman is in society today.  Gender will always be something that I think about and to some extend wrestle with.  

Gender identification is not the same thing as sexual orientation.  However, to be straight or gay implies that you are one gender and are making an absolute statement about which binary gender you are attracted to. While I could name qualities of someone who is my "type", gender just isn't on the list.  I would have to be hard nosed about my own gender for that to make sense. 

So, my gender is somewhere in the non-binary middle and so is my sexual orientation. Nothing new there. So I'll indentify as pansexual.   Pansexual includes all gender identities.  In my case I just don't care about someone's gender, so rather than "all of the above". It's more like non-applicable to me. 

Pansexual, polyamorous, polytheistic...why choice one when you can have the buffet?