r/ainbow

Hii, first I just want to thank you if you take the time to read this!

I am a 16 year old girl and I am having a few questions on my sexuality that i dont want to address to anyone I know. I know for sure I like guys, but girls are still in the question. I see myself liking girls more sexually that emotionally, but I don't know if I am projecting my insecurity onto them as a form of admiration or me genuinely liking him. Like, do I want THEM or do I want to BE like them... I've thought about dating girls, but it never really sparked joy as the same as guys.

I live in a really accepting area and a lot of my friends are bisexual, but I am indian so i don't know if they would support.

I was first a bit hesitant to go ahead and ignite this discussion because I’ve seen that this tends to get pretty heated way too quickly across many different online platforms but my curiosity and desire to understand has convinced me to do so anyway. Please keep in mind that I am not trying to invalidate anybody or grift, I am only trying to get a perspective that I wasn’t able to do so with my offline LGBT community and simultaneously be able to interact with you guys.

In the past couple years, I have noticed an increasing discourse around trans men (not trans masculine individuals) identifying as lesbians which seems to polarise the community and divide it into two major camps: the ones that either don’t understand or disagree with these two labels being able to coexist at the same time and to those who claim that this is indeed possible (read valid) and it very much depends on each individual how they experience their gender, sex, sexuality, and the relationship of the three. The most common explanation that I came across was that their pre-transition sexuality is something deeply engraved within their identity since this was (and still is) the label that they identified the most with and therefore it is something inherent to them. Although I understand that jumping from one label to the other is very difficult (speaking from my own treacherous experience of fully connecting with my sexuality and accepting my lesbianism) and requires a lot of soul searching and time, wouldn’t the lesbian label be a transitional identity in case of trans men who are only attracted to women and/or female presenting individuals? I guess to put the finger exactly on the question that I’m trying to ask here is that what is the exact dynamic between going through the process of transition and redefining your sexuality accordingly since terms as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual are, according to definitions, are individuals who identify as women and are attracted to the same gender, and so on. Is there a piece that I am still missing here?

Having all that said, this brings me to another topic: labels can be constraining. Everyone has their own individual experience, and sometimes it’s the case that you cannot identify with any of them. Wouldn’t therefore be more appropriate to just not use them at all if they don’t fit, rather than bending them? I know that this took a bit of a linguistic turn lol but I feel like this might be relevant to my previous question so that’s why I decided to include it.

Once again, I hope this does not offend anyone and if it does, then I apologise in advance. I am super curious on what you guys have to say!!!

I've been questioning myself on if I'm Bi or not and I think I actually am cause I saw one ASMRtist (who is a guy for all I know) I like I releasing a Body pillow and I want to get it cause I absolutely love the look the NSFW one more, but it's got me questioning myself again on if I'm Bi or not (which I've excepted I actually might be BI) but how do I bring both up cause I do really want it but don't know how to bring it up to my parents who I live with and also the fact I might actually be Bi. Also thank you for the Advice/comments.

I have recently been doing a lot of thinking, and have come to the realisation that I might be bisexual. I am really questioning it though.

I am both sexually and romantically attracted to men, and have always been and I’ve also always been sexually attracted to women and maybe romantically attracted too. I think I might be romantically attracted to women but have always subconsciously suppressed it due to guilt and internalised misogyny + homophobia (when I say internalised misogyny and homophobia, I want to make it clear that I’m pretty sure both of those things are just a manifestation of suppressed hatred of myself, not anyone else).

From a very young age, I would admire any woman I found beautiful or worthy in my vicinity. Wether it be on TV or a girl in my class (or even older cousins girlfriend lol), but this adoration always outwardly presented itself as “I want to be her, because she is beautiful and clever and funny and kind.”

I also, despite being a biological female, constantly experienced gender envy, feeling unworthy of being referred to with feminine pro nouns.

I’d also listen to straight up queer songs and cry over them, while thinking ,”Wow, I’m straight but I feel this song so deeply in my bones. I am such an empath.”

I’m very tired, and I don’t really want to get any more personal, so with the information I’ve given could someone give me any insight? Apologies for any grammatical mistakes

I'm a Portuguese trans woman starting transition and want friends.