I first knew that being AFAB was not the most comfortable option for me well before I even consciously understood what it meant to be a human being on this place people were calling Earth. My first memory of finding out that I was in fact, not who I thought I was as early as 2-3 years old when I was scolded for running around with my brothers shirtless. I was very quickly introduced to the expectations put on me from that moment forward about what it meant to be AFAB here in this realm, and regardless I still could not bring myself to conform to the rules. I spent the rest of my childhood defying all the obstacles and pleas that were placed in front of me or directly imprinted on me as I navigated the world as a growing human body.

Aromantic Awareness week is from February 21st to 27th. We take this week to bring awareness to Aromanticism, tell our stories, and educate. In this article, I am going to tell my personal stories of discovering my aromanticism through romantic encounters I have had and talking about things I wish alloromantic people knew.

Like many kids raised in households that do not accept homosexuality, I had no idea about any other sexualities than the mainstream straight, gay, bisexual and lesbian until high school. For my whole life my parents always told me I was straight and expected to like boys, date, marry and have the standard 2.3 kids, and that was the norm and I didn’t question it.

Diverse: in the way that means, in my current position, I’m not going to feel truly excluded for any particular facet of my identity, whether related to my Queerness or not. However, having a multifaceted Queer identity like mine means there are many people who might hesitate to ask about...

I was in the mood for something wholesome and a few laughs. I clicked on a suggested video from his live talk show on YouTube. The thirteen million views and the title reeled me in; Kids Explain Why Women Are Paid Less Than Men. The camera-shy and slightly confused kids on Hollywood Boulevard uttered towards an idea that women don’t work as hard and weren’t taught how to do their job as well as men. A girl, around twelve, mic in hand, sporting some confidence started strong by saying women don’t have equal rights and group of people around the world should rally for them. Then the dealbreaker; with a good president like “probably Donald Trump”. Cue live audience laughter. A boy around the same age looks at the reporter deadpan and said women in the workforce are underrated because they can do more but people expect them to do less. My guy right here.

My story is a long one but let’s put it in short with great perspective. Put yourself in the shoes of an autistic five year old whom has yet to learn their potential and the cause for so much pain. My family’s last name was and still is Stranger so you can imagine how many bullies have tried the “We don’t talk to strangers” line with me. I had a stronger sense of logic more than the other kids just like my sister before me. The thing is though; I was the very different one. I wasn’t diagnosed by a social security psychiatrist until around July of 2011. So as this five year old even until past the age of sixteen. I was non-verbal. My parents fought often because my dad having heart failure and was ready to give up.

The development of the internet and social media platforms including Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube has seen perpetuating, persistent and often anonymous harassment towards the transgender community. transgender content creators and users of social media platforms have been affected, however, the rate and nature of these comments and interactions varies between platforms.

I knew from a very early age that I was different to other children as I saw beautiful things and wanted to own them, I saw beautiful clothes and wanted to wear them. My home life was nothing special, a typical suburban Catholic family - living with a lot of Catholic guilt. Nothing really happened until I reached the age of 10 years and that's when I realised that I was born in the wrong body. I knew from that point I would always identify as female.

We sometimes hear about the awful surgical procedures that some doctors perform on babies with intersex genitalia at birth - I was lucky in that this was not deemed necessary in my case, though I did need a revision at the age of three for underdevelopment. The procedure went poorly, and the anesthetic didn't last the full period - the stitching came loose after surgery and recovery was slow. 

It has been difficult to decide how to approach this piece. What do I want to share about being a parent of a nonbinary child? What things are most important to me for others to hear? How do I talk about my parts of this journey, when most of it is my child’s story, not mine? What message do I want to send to those who are in the beginning of this journey? What message do I want to send those who aren’t parenting a nonbinary child but are learning more about gender? These are some of the questions that were rolling around my mind as I was writing. First and foremost, I got my child’s permission to share pieces of their journey as was necessary to write this. That was the easy part.

I got my first period at eleven years old. Early, but not exactly unheard of. I went through the familiar rituals of congratulations from my female family members along with gifts of pads and chocolate. I got brochures and books on the matter, along with a talk about the birds and the bees (I was fortunate enough to come from a family where discussing these matters was not taboo). It was strange how a spot of blood in my underwear suddenly became a marker in my journey to womanhood, but it was something I felt a sense of pride in all the same.

In a cosy, city-bound one bedroom apartment, I was sitting with some friends scrolling though the horror list on Netflix, strong with midnight rambles. The topic: sex – is it ever anything different or are you normal? I talk about how marriage only kills sex if you let it. Mismatched libidos are something, though tangible, are most likely fixable. One friend mentions, unbothered, how it has been 15 years since they had sex, but they have had romantic feelings towards others since then. I nod slowly and realise it has been, I was around for the better part of that time, it’s just we hadn’t spoke about it so candidly before. Why isn’t this a thing?

It’s no secret that people in the queer community face discrimination. This doesn’t always take the form of an angry mob and posters with hate speech. Often, it’s just the little things that leave their mark. Misunderstandings so trivial that they’re almost not worth bringing up. But that’s where the trouble starts and how it builds.

Demisexuality is under the umbrella of Asexuality, not many people are aware of Demisexuality. For those of you that don’t know, this is when someone only experiences a sexual attraction to a person; regardless of their gender identity, after they have formed an emotional bond.

I’d expected coming out to be simple. Not easy, by any stretch, but not complicated. And I’d expected it to be cathartic, at least to some degree. I thought it would be a weight off my shoulders to share the revelation I’d had after years of soul searching.

The word “lesbian” is not a dirty word. I think in our community, many of us have had to come to terms with this. I was raised in a coercive religious environment in a small town where being a lesbian was not just dirty, it was absolutely prohibited from discussion. So, when I started to notice girls, in a way they had always told me I was supposed to notice boys, I fought my natural attraction to women and threw myself into church involvement, anything to distract me from how alluring I found some of the girls in my life.

The truth - I’m bisexual. And when I shared that with my wife, after hiding it from her and myself for over a decade, at the time, felt like weakness, not courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

“I think I want to kiss Lady Gaga,” my ex-boyfriend, turned friend tells me. It’s 2008 and her successor single Poker Face was just released. It was lyrically confusing to most in its ornate climb to number one, but I knew exactly what kind of cards Gaga had been dealt.

Gender is a confusing thing. I went most of my 21 years identifying as cisgender (she/her), but as I went into my 21st year, I began to question whether that was the case. I experimented with she/they pronouns privately to see how they felt. I began asking my friends to try and use they/them pronouns occasionally so that I could test them. It felt right. I ultimately started researching what it meant to be non-binary or gender-fluid.

My experience realising I was non-binary, and the pockets of joy I found along the way as I embraced my true self and came out to the world, one small step at a time.