Questioning my sexual identity

[Mauigirl808]

Hi,

I have been identifying as a lesbian and dating only women for the past 2.5 years.
I identified as bisexual for the previous 12 years.

I have been questioning my sexuality lately because I am realizing that though I am very physically attracted to women and love being with them sexually, I struggle in terms of feeling romantic feelings for women. I think this has something to do with the fact that I was bullied a lot by mean girls growing up, and I haven’t had a lot of deep and meaningful, lasting relationships with women. And so allowing myself to connect with women emotionally and intimately can be hard because I become very guarded around them. Part of it has to do with the fact that I get scared that straight girls will be creeped out by me.
I also am sometimes bored having conversations with women because I feel like my brain is wired differently from most women and I don’t know how to talk to them.

When I stopped dating men, it was because I realized that my feelings for men weren’t sexual, but just very intense platonic love like you’d feel for a friend, and I often felt like I was trading sex for the companionship. I had a lot of codependent friendships and relationships with men because of my anxiety about getting close to and attached to women, even as just friends.

As I am trying to get more involved in my local queer community, I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety about identifying as a lesbian because I’m scared that I have imposter syndrome and that the other lesbians in the community won’t like me or will “sniff me out” as not being a lesbian, because I struggle so much with connecting with women romantically.

I just want to feel sure about myself and confident in my sexual identity so that I don’t have to deal with so much anxiety anymore in terms of coming out to people, because I know who I am and it’s not a phase.

I don’t want to date men anymore, and that’s why I say I’m lesbian, but I’m scared of saying I’m a lesbian because I’m not comfortable with my identity as a lesbian yet because women make me so nervous. I had so many negative experiences with previous female friends breaking up with me, or girls being mean to me. I’ve often felt not accepted by other women. This challenge has been a root cause of a lot of my insecurities about my own identity as a female as well. On top of that, I present as femme, though I sometimes wish I could feel more comfortable with presenting masc, but I don’t think I’m ready to start dressing that way. I like the attention that I get from girls who like girls when I dress like a sexy femme. I also have a feminine body and I don’t think I could pull off dressing masc.

I also am scared I may get a crush on a guy, like I have in the past, and though I don’t want to be with a man sexually ever again, I am scared that I’m an imposter for sometimes thinking a guy is funny and liking to be around a man.
I don’t like saying I’m bi anymore because I don’t want to be with men romantically or sexually.

I just feel very confused. I haven’t been able to talk about this to anyone. If you have any advice for me, please let me know!

[Sam W]

Hi Mauigirl808,

I'm glad you felt able to share this here!

So, I think one thing that might help when you're thinking about all this is that having trouble connecting with the (or a) gender we're attracted to doesn't mean we don't "really" have the sexual orientation we feel we do. If it did, we wouldn't have so many cis, straight men talking about how they just don't understand women. Too, it sounds like the struggles you have connecting with women are due more to past experiences and feeling like the odd one out in your interactions, rather than about you not being interested in women romantically or sexually.

You mention that you feel as if you're wired differently than a lot of women you talk with and haven't felt accepted by them. Can you say a little more about that? Does that have to do with the kinds of things you're interested in? With how you see the world? With your own life experiences feeling radically different than theirs? Or something else entirely?

As far as your own gender presentation goes, if you like presenting as feminine, then there's no need to push yourself to dress less so because you think that's how a lesbian should dress (though if the idea of presenting more masculine is exciting to you, we can certainly talk about how to do that). Lesbians, like any group of people, don't have one set way they're supposed to look, and there's a huge amount of diversity within lesbians about how they like to dress. Too, the concepts of butch and femme to describe gender presentation have their roots in queer women's spaces, so anyone who does try to use your femininity as proof you're not lesbian is mostly just showing they have a poor grasp of queer history (and is being a jerk).

I will say that, in my experience, while there can be gatekeeping jerks in any space, offline queer spaces are less prone to people trying to "prove" that a random person is or isn't the identity they say they are than happens in some online spaces. So I think some of what you're struggling with might actually lessen the more you're able to be in queer spaces and interact with other lesbians, some of whom may have experiences or feelings similar to your own. Too, even if you were the only lesbian to feel the way you do, that wouldn't invalidate your identity; you're the boss of what words you use to describe your sexual orientation, and no one actually has veto power over that, you know?