Scarleteen

I want to start this by saying I understand that labels aren't strictly necessary, but I like having them, I like being able to categorise myself properly.

I'm AFAB trans masc/gender fluid (pre-transition but also unlikely to ever really do anything drastic like hormones or surgery, at least if my feelings stay similar to how they are now).
Recently, I think I've found I'm attracted to a friend of mine, who I can't talk to due to COVID/her not using any social media.
She's AFAB demi-girl (although she only brought it up in passing so I'm not 100% all the things that means for her)
she also describes herself as a lesbian (but has had crushes on fictional boys, but I heard this is a common lesbian experience)
For a while, I liked saying I was aromantic, because in general, I just don't really get feelings for anyone. Even my friend, I've liked her for a while and I want to do stuff like kiss and touch and go on dates with her, and they feel solid, but not in the way most people describe crushes as being intense and short.
Though I suppose that could be just because I'm young (also I once heard somewhere that some autistic people take longer to start feeling this stuff, which is frustrating)
But if I'm attracted to someone that label can't apply, I suppose there's demi/grey aros, but that's usually paired with another identity like het/bi/gay.

The thing is, I don't feel enough like a girl to think of myself as a lesbian (also I don't like the idea that a trans man is some kind of confused butch lesbian, an identity I can't relate to, even ones who go on testosterone or use he/him pronouns), but I can't think of it as straight/hetero either. I can't think of myself as attracted to men/women/non-binary people. Just as someone attracted to this person specifically

The closest labels I can think of are 'questioning' (which I feel misses the point because I'm looking for a more definitive one, at least to tide me over to the next chapter of whatever the hell is going on) or queer (which is okay, but I feel is too general and not very versatile as many allies don't fully understand it and some LGBT+ people don't really see it as anything other than a slur, so not a great basket for all my eggs)

TL;DR I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for a label I could use

How do queer or pansexual feel as options? I think either of those could apply, and both can be excellent catch-all’s.

I hear you on queer, though that’s very much not my experience, and I’m also trying to get a sense of how YOU feel about it rather than how you think others may respond to it, since this is about you and who you are, not other people.

I like queer, as a general term.
But it sort of feels like a continent, as in saying 'I am queer' is like saying 'I have a European accent'.
Its good for sort of summing everything up, it reminds me of some semi-joke labels of "strain't" or "cisn't" (for when you know you aren't straight/cis, but not what you actually are ) like, its a cool umbrella for covering everything at once, without delving into the minutia. I'm just trying to think more specifically.

I think pan is interesting, I was just thinking earlier, how my idea of this relationship could almost be considered a 'bi relationship' (opposed to a het or homo one) due to my fluidity (especially as I sometimes think of myself as bigender rather than strictly 100% boy or girl)
And whilst it seems people have differing opinions on what pan is and how its different to bi
I like to think of it as bi is an attraction to different genders including your own, whilst pan is attraction to people that doesn't really factor gender in (I don't mean this in a bisexuality is trans/enbyphobic way more like a bi person would be attracted to a woman through the lens of attraction to a woman, whereas a pan person would just be attracted to them) ((ok, maybe that was just me projecting, I'm sorry))

I haven't really though about pan tbh, I mostly associated it with someone attracted to all gender (and thus a lot of people) not in the stereotypical 'promiscuous bi' way just in the 'lots of different fictional/real crushes' kind of way, but the more I think about it, it kinda fits.

If pan is feeling like it fits, then it's certainly one you can try out and see how you feel using the term to describe to yourself. I know when I was first figuring out how to describe my sexual orientation, I tested out bisexual and pansexual in my mind, or imagined other people saying them to describe me before finally settling on queer as the one that felt right (it works for me, but I totally get what you're saying with the continent analogy).