As someone who became chronically ill and disabled at age nine, I simply didn’t have the time or energy to focus on getting to explore different facets of my identity. I was too busy being the sick little kid being taken to appointments inside and outside the city, having painful procedures, and being largely isolated from people my own age. I had inklings of different parts of myself over the years, but I was always too sick and otherwise distracted to try and tap into what these inklings might actually mean.
I was just three years old when I started donning fake blue glasses and calling myself Mr. Guy. A year later, I would ask to be called Tommy during library storytime, so named after the green Power Ranger (R.I.P. Jason David Frank). While all the little girls my age wanted to be the Pink or Yellow Rangers, I was adamant about being Tommy.
I was eleven and in grade six when I told my mom I was confused about the feelings I had for a female classmate. I didn’t think I was a lesbian because I knew I liked boys, but my feelings for her felt the same as the way my male crushes had. I barely knew what bisexuality was and had only heard the term from an older online friend with a shared illness. I was young, the internet was still fairly new and not a safe place to search for things when you were a kid (I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted to look at anime and found myself on hentai sites, aka anime porn). Representation in the media was poor. I didn’t know what I was feeling.
I ended up telling my friend in private one day that I thought I liked her as more than a friend. She didn’t say much to me after that. I think I must have scared her. All I know is she must have told others, because by the time I had reached grade eight, I would hear whispers from people I didn’t even know referring to me as “that lesbian girl.” I wasn’t at that school very much, so I wasn’t really bullied, but I felt embarrassed when I heard these things.
It was around that time I also asked my friends to start calling me Li (pronounced Lee, like the first part of my name). I was getting into anime more and more and really liked some of the characters and their names. Li was a name that kept coming up for male characters and I thought it sounded cool, so I adopted it for awhile. I still have a mix CD with that name attached.
In high school, in my grade eleven drama class, I had the chance to write and act out my own scene. It could be about whatever I wanted. I chose to portray a male character, borrowing some of my older brother’s clothes to fit the role. The scene easily could have worked with a female character, but I chose to be a boy instead, not thinking much about what that meant.
It was in that same drama class where I again developed feelings for a female friend of mine. She could light up an entire room with her personality. She also had a great singing voice, which made me even more enamoured with her. This was during a time of Myspace, so we were friends with each other on there too. I noticed on her profile it said she liked guys and girls, so I asked her about it one day. She talked about it very freely, but I never told her I liked her. I had self-esteem issues and was afraid of what would happen if I told her. She seemed out of my league.
I haven’t had the chance to date very much due to my health issues, and when I have, it’s been guys. Just three of them (not counting boyfriends in public school). I was never interested in sex and figured that at first I was just too young and it would develop as I got older; but then I got older and that didn’t happen, so I started to get confused again. The guys I was with seemed to want me in a very specific way that I did not and could not reciprocate. I was attracted to them, and liked them and wanted to be with them, but I didn’t seem to be attracted to them or want them in the same manner. I enjoyed holding hands, hugging, cuddling, and even kissing sometimes, but didn’t care for anything beyond that.
It wasn’t until my adult years that I would get to explore what all of this meant. As the internet grew, as different forms of media came out with better representation, I would gain access to language and resources that helped me better understand myself. Having a close-knit group of (mostly) queer and trans friends didn’t hurt either.
I arrived at pansexuality (or in my case, panromantic) first, probably in my early twenties. Though similar to bisexuality, it is a bit different. Bisexuality means attraction to two or more genders, while pansexuality means attraction to all genders regardless of gender (as in, there is no real emphasis on gender in the attraction). Some people refer to it as bi+, with pansexual and a few other identities falling under the +.
I wouldn’t arrive at asexuality until years later, until I was around thirty. Asexuality just wasn’t — and still isn’t — talked about a lot, and what little discussion is out there is often rife with misconceptions. Disability also massively compounded my confusion as I began to doubt if I was ace or if I was simply experiencing low desire due to my health and medication. I do feel attraction, but it’s not sexual attraction. I can’t and don’t look at anybody and think about sex. I experience aesthetic attraction and find people pleasing to the eye, and I can experience romantic attraction and want to form a bond that’s deeper than platonic, but that’s it. Pro tip: if you have to Google what sexual attraction is (raises hand), you probably don’t experience it.
It was genderfluidity that hit me last. Growing up I didn’t know there was anything other than just a boy or just a girl. I didn’t know about the breadth of non-binary identities that fell between and beyond, or that that was even an option. Any time I felt kind of like a boy, it wasn’t really that I wanted to be one. I knew I wasn’t a trans man. But I also grew to know I wasn’t 100% a girl, a woman. I am happy to embody that part of me when I want to and feel it in me to do so, but I feel much more than that. At times more of a woman, at times more of a man, at times both, and at times neither. I am just me, all-encompassing.
At nearly thirty-four years of age, I finally have the right knowledge, understanding, and vocabulary to say comfortably that I am who I am. I have in some ways known it all along, but without the ability, energy, or resources to find this out at a younger age, it made the journey more difficult than it probably needed to be. It’s also why I shake my head at all the adults who think that kids can’t be queer or trans, because queer and trans people don’t just suddenly spring into being as adults — we had to grow into adulthood just like all the straight and cisgender kids. We all started somewhere, and that somewhere is childhood.
If you are privileged enough to have your child come out to you, then be happy that they trust you, and offer them all of your love and support. And if you are a queer or trans kid in this world, you will always be loved by someone. Be proud.
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The Chronically Chic Blog 