#generqueer

agender, bigender, genderfluid, and genderqueer!

Genderqueer Pride Popsicles 💜🤍💚

You can buy stickers of these pieces on my Etsy!

🌟 Plain Popsicle

Hi anon!!! Thanks for the ask! Sorry that this took so long to answer. (I had everything typed out and then accidentally deleted it :]7- tell your storyI first noticed that something was different around 8th grade (13 yrs old). Everyone else seemed to be having crushes on some celebrity or classmate. Meanwhile, I was more interested with keeping up with the Warriors Cats series. I also did not understand attraction. When I was like, 6 or something, I thought that having a crush on someone meant that you picked a person and then fell in love with them. Like, you point at a random guy, and then a week later, you’re in love. I clearly did not understand romance. 

Move forward to freshman year of high school. I’m 14 and joining my high school’s winterguard team. (for those of you who don’t know, winterguard is like a dance team but with equipment like flags, rifles, and sabers that you throw in the air. You’re usually telling a story throughout the show, and you compete against others with the same level of skill as you. I’ll put some links at the end). There I meet some people who really start to help change my life. 

First off is T. I walked in to one practice and overheard her explaining the difference between ace and aro to someone. It didn’t really mean a lot then, but I guess my subconscious saved it for later. Second is N. She was my first real “crush” (it was actually a squish, but I didn’t know the difference then). Not knowing what to do with my emotions, I did what any sensible 14 year old would do: look up quizzes. 

Most came back with the same result: I was asexual. 

I kept taking quizzes though because I didn’t like the way it was defined: the lack of attraction. I still wanted to be with someone, so asexual just didn’t seem to fit quite right. Then I came across the definition that made sense: the lack of sexual attraction. Asexual people can still feel romantic attraction, or they can be aromantic.

That made sense to me. Terms like squish and panromantic joined my vocabulary. At the end of freshman year, I understood that what I had felt for N was a squish and that I was a panromantic ace. I was still hesitant to use the labels around others though, so I kept it to myself. 

A couple of months later, I was studying abroad, and I decided to use my labels with the people I was travelling with. It felt really good to share that side of me! It helped a lot that the people I was with were open and accepting, so shoutout to my old Jackass Costa Rica group if they ever read this. 

Fast forward a few more months and I come out to T. She was really happy to know another ace person and I was happy to be able to relate to someone so much. It’s one thing to talk to someone online, but having a friend that you see everyday who can relate to every one of the experiences that you thought no one would ever understand especially at such a young age (15) is so important and special. 

It was around this time that I realized that when people think “romance” they think “kissing” and “sharing the same bed every night” and I started to think “hey, I might be aromantic”

I am. It was a bit confusing for me because I thought that I still wanted to spend my life with someone, but the only ways that I knew how didn’t fit with what I wanted. I began to discover some arospec terminology like queerplatonic partner, or qpp and it made so much sense. Seeing how other users talked about their qpps felt right, and I knew that’s what I wanted. I also came across the term oriented aroace which labeled the emotion I was feeling. 

Fast forward again to today. I identify as pan-oriented aroace and probably genderqueer (still figuring that one out). 

7- question I hateSo, I’m not really out to that many people. Obviously people online know I’m ace, but they can easily look up the word so I’ve never had questions asked about it. T knows I’m ace, but she’s ace too. Me being ace has come up one or two times with a specific group of friends, but never with enough significance to warrant questions. I think I’m avoiding coming out to my family and other friends because I don’t want to deal with the questions that will inevitably come.