let's learn about being gay.

LISTEN UP NERDS, Y'ALL GONNA LEARN TODAY.

today we're going to learn about being gay.

"but emily, you aren't gay!"

sit down, my sweet summer child.

so this all begins with two things. the first thing is the fact that i am bisexual. the second thing is the fact that i found this really great website called helpineedhelp.com.

seriously, after you read my post, click it. i'll tag a link for it for you.

it had all this cool stuff like "help i cut my finger" and "help i'm bored" and "help i'm horny".

that one was really fun because it gave you a picture of a bagel and a banana and you could... well... you could move them.

i'm not horny or anything right now, but i had a little too much fun with that.

there was one that said "help, i'm gay!" so i clicked on it.

it asked me if i preferred men or women.

and i was like

??????????

i ended up clicking women and i got this.

YAY! I'M GAY!

so that's where this post is coming from.

now sit down, buckle up, and learn.

LGBTQIA. LET'S GO THROUGH IT.

L is for lesbian. 

a lesbian is a woman who likes other women and doesn't experience attraction to men. this can be sexually or romantically.

a lot of men (particularly fuckboys) don't seem to get this concept. like, they proliferate lesbian dating sites like "DATE ME PLZ" and the women are like, "... what about lesbian don't you understand?"

and there's the usual "what men hurt you to turn you into a lesbian?"

uh, none. i just like women. back off.

G is for gay. 

this normally refers to gay men. these are men that like men either sexually or romantically or both. they are not attracted to women.

wow, that was easy.

now we transition into the elusive B, which is bisexual.

hi, i'm bisexual. read about that here.

bisexuality is obviously a rather touchy subject with me and something i feel strongly about, but we'll break it down.

bisexual people are attracted to the same and other genders. straight people like to say that bi people are attracted to men and women. i have not been attracted to genders other than people that identify as male and female. sometimes the lines between bisexuality and pansexuality get a little blurry. pansexual people like EVERYONE, so people that identify as one gender, as multiple genders, or as agender.

personally, i am attracted to people that identify as male or as female.

again, this attraction can be sexual or romantic. i am more sexually attracted to women but i am more romantically attracted to men.

i have only dated men. this does not mean that i am in a heterosexual relationship. just because i'm dating a man does not mean that i turned in my bisexuality card or that i dropped it in the parking lot. adam and i are in a non-heterosexual relationship and he understands this.

t is for transgender.

trans people identify as a different gender than the one that they were born. if they are born "male" but identify as female, then they are transgender.

do they have to have a sex reassignment to be transgender? no.

should we ask them about that constantly and not focus on them as human beings? no.

are they normal people? absolutely.

should we be accepting of them and call them by their preferred names and pronouns? absolutely.

i've seen a lot of transphobic shit on my facebook the past few days in the wake of caitlyn jenner and honestly, i'm tired of it. if you're transphobic, you can get away from me.

q is for queer.

queer is like, an umbrella term. like, sometimes i say i'm gay, which confuses people because i'm in a relationship with a man. sometimes i say i'm queer, which still confuses people.

queer just like, kind of covers all the bases. if you don't identify one hundred percent as cishet (cisgendered, which is you identify as the sex you were born, and heterosexual), then you can be queer.

easy enough, right?

i also like queer as in like, "he had a queer look about him" when i read victorian literature. we should bring that back.

i is for intersex.

this isn't too difficult. people that are intersex are born with a set of genitals that doesn't always allow people to biologically assign them as male or female.

i don't know too much about intersex and people that identify that way, so i'm going to stay in my lane and leave that there.

a is for asexual.

did you think it was for ally? most people do. but it's for asexual.

asexual people experience a lot of varying things, but mostly they're just not generically attracted to people sexually. there are many misconceptions about asexual people.

there are asexual people that have sex.

there are asexual people that don't have sex.

and there are asexual people that get married and have children.

who gets to judge what asexual means? that's right. asexual people.

now we can get into proper pronouns and nonbinary people.

there are people that do not identify as male or female. there are people that float in between. there are people that don't even like to have a gender and consider themselves to be agender.

one of my tumblr friends considers herself to be a demigirl, which means that she is nonbinary but most of the time refers to herself as a woman. when she does not, she prefers the pronoun "they" because it does not have a gender.

we also have a new set of pronouns that are gender neutral. the most common are ze, zir, zir, zirself, and ze, hir, hir, hirself.

i do not know anybody who identifies with these, but i know that there are people that do.

we humans, we like dichotomies. (that's a fancy english word for opposites.) cats vs. dogs.

male vs. female.

we have this need to know what gender somebody is. it's instinctual.

this is something that i'm working on. sometimes if i see someone that dresses as nonbinary as possible and seems to be agender, i will catch myself trying to figure out if they are male or female.

so what do we do? we avoid using pronouns and we worry needlessly.

although it's uncomfortable, you can ask someone what pronouns they prefer.

and when they tell you, you should fucking use them.

caitlyn jenner has made it very clear that she would prefer the female pronouns she/her.

if you continue to call her bruce or use he/his pronouns, you are transphobic. sorry to break that to you.

if you go up to someone with a dog and say "your dog is so cute! what's her name?" and the owner says "actually it's a he" you will then call that dog "he" and refer to that dog with he/his pronouns.

do that with people, please.

in my women's studies class, on the first day, we were asked, "what is a woman?"

a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman. they do not have to look like a woman. they do not need to have a vagina. they just need to identify as a woman and they are a woman.

it is a really simple concept that people sometimes have a difficult time grasping.

but we're getting there, america. slowly but surely, we're getting there.

so this whole thing came from me wanting to see if i was gay or not (lol!) and being confused as to which gender i preferred more.

like i said, i am more attracted to women sexually and more attracted to men romantically.

whatever floats your boat, dude.

YOU DO YOU.

thanks for sitting down and learning with me, kids. now have some fun at helpineedhelp.

click HERE for endless fun.