One of the biggest reasons that I am so passionate about this movement is because as a young man growing up in the 80s, there was a time in my life that I was so confused about my sexuality. For three years I had not felt the same about myself. I was married, my wife was pregnant, and I was in a relationship with someone that I thought I could be happy with.
This confusion was not a problem for me. I was married, I was a good father, and I loved my girlfriend tremendously. The real problem came from a lack of self-awareness and self-awareness. Being confused about my sexuality is a normal and normal thing to be. Being confused about one’s identity, sexual identity, and sexual orientation is a problem.
I would say there is a spectrum of confusion. We all have a general awareness of ourselves, but it may vary greatly from person to person. Some people are completely unaware of what their sexuality is, for example. Some people are aware, but not much about it, for example. Others have a general awareness of the fact that they are gay or lesbian, but not specifically about their sexuality. I’m aware of my sexual orientation, but it’s not a conscious decision.
It’s difficult to say, but it seems as if there does seem to be a spectrum of confusion in the issue of sexual orientation. Some people don’t have a conscious awareness of their sexual orientation, but just don’t care (for example). Others are consciously aware of their sexual orientation, but may have a hard time accepting that they are gay or lesbian because of their general attitude. There are some people who are aware of their sexual orientation, but not as much as others may be.
The problem we have is that this spectrum is probably impossible to define. It’s not like we’re talking about a spectrum of “gay” and “straight.” We’re talking about people who are gay or lesbian, but do not have a “gay” or “straight” identity. So if you don’t know what a lesbian is, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
So to get straight people to understand that they are gay or lesbian, we have to explain that these are people who do have the same gender. And that they don’t have a gay or lesbian identity. If you are gay or lesbian, you are an individual. If you are a gay or lesbian, you are a person. But the issue here is that people often use these terms to mean something other than what they actually have.
short for short-lived, and recently an identity was thrown around and used to describe some people who have been in the closet for a long time. When a person is in the closet for a long time, they become something other than who they really are. What people want to do, in order to have a “straight” identity, is to use things they feel comfortable with as a reference to who they are. That is the problem with using straight as an identity.
When a straight individual uses a certain term as an identity, it becomes an identity that is really not who they are. For example, if I say I’m gay, I’m really not gay. If I say I’m bisexual, I’m really not bisexual. And then I go to my closet and say, “I’m not gay, I’m not bisexual, and I’m not straight”. And I’m still not straight.
I find this really interesting because it’s the same situation we have with many other things in life. When we use a word that means something other than who we are, we are using an identity that is really not who we are. We are using an identity that doesn’t fit. For example, my straight friends were always saying that I was a straight woman, but I felt like a straight woman. But I was really a fat woman, I never really fit in with the straight women.
Exactly. We use whatever words we think fit to describe ourselves, not just who we are. It is a mistake to assume that because someone uses a term you think they are straight, they necessarily are. So when people use a term that just isn’t right for them, like a woman who says she is straight, that is a sign that they are probably not.