Alphabet Soup

In July last year I began some serious questioning about the structure of families, relationships, and began to ask some questions about my own sexuality.  My questions began in a very broad context around whether I still held on to my values around long term monogamy and marriage.  The issues around having been in such a long term relationship from such a young age surfaced during therapy in 2012, but at the time were put aside while I dealt with more pressing issues - managing anxiety and panic attacks.  My blog posts about 'finding myself' were veiled while I struggled with movement away from my traditional values systems, while I questioned the conditioning of my childhood, and sought to understand a growing awareness that I might be attracted to women. I began talking to a friend about all the issues I was wrestling with - autonomy, values systems, what to do with my life beyond being a mother, how I was questioning my sexuality.  And then I fell for her.

I read and read and read.  Books about women like me in long-term relationships with men who had fallen in love with women.  I'm still reading, and sometimes closing books in tears from the emotion of seeing women just like me on those pages.  

One of the struggles I have had is with how to label myself. "So, are you bisexual now?"  "People like you up my gay friend quota."  My partner is a lesbian, which probably labels me by association, but I'm not sure I'm ready for a lesbian identity.  I might be bisexual, but my reading has made me aware of the animosity that can be directed at bisexual people...and I just don't know where men fit on my spectrum because I'm not with one now.  The best answer I found was in the work of Dr Lisa Diamond on sexual fluidity.  At least it was a start.  A possibility.  Diamond's research suggests that women can move through several 'orientations' in a lifetime.  That isn't to suggest that there is an element of 'choice' but for those who are not firmly lesbian or bisexual, it may be that they are simply able to move through different attractions dependent on things such as environment, people around them, present circumstances and so on.  It might explain why I had experienced traditional heterosexual relationships (albeit only as a teenager) without feeling any of them were 'wrong,' but rather that it seems that being with a woman is more 'right.'   More and more women appeared in my life for whom 'unlabelled' was their best descriptor.  Women were popping up all over the place who were falling for women after being in heterosexual relationships for many years.  Women who were married to each other but didn't identify as lesbians. A new friend in a similar situation to me was asked if she knew she was gay.  "No more than I knew I was straight." It was a relief to not feel like I had to label myself.

It looks more and more like the LGBT community understands this too.  Looking at the website for OUTline they cover all labels with a kind of alphabet soup.  GLBTTFIQQ - gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, takataapui, intersex, fa’afafine, queer and questioning.  Sure, its a mouthful, but it acknowledges that very broad variety that exists on the sexuality spectrum.

I am moving through a process of figuring out where I sit in the world.  A process of figuring out if I need a label, and if I do, what will it be?  My partner appreciates my honesty in my exploration, and I appreciate her not needing me to be anything in particular.

There might have been a time when you needed to 'come out' as something.  But now I can just come out as me, and take comfort in the array of labels I can choose - if I want one.