Sexual identity is a touchy subject. Sex, love, peer pressure, family, friends, religion, values, morals, feelings, pressures to “fit in” and to be “normal”, mushy-gushy embarrassing stuff, hormones, the list of things that makes sexual identity so touchy goes on and on for miles probably. It’s not even easy to be straight, let alone gay or bisexual or transgendered/sexual. Life isn’t easy for anyone, we’re all doing the best we can with what we have, but then you add sexuality into the mix and things go from stressful to haywire.
My sexual identity was never something I thought about when I was younger. Boys were icky to think about in that way. I would much rather have just been friends with them. I had my first memorable glimpse into my sexual identity when I was in preschool, although I was unaware of it at the time. Some boys and girls attending my preschool started a “Kissing Club” that they would secretly partake in during our two recesses everyday. My best friend and I were invited to join. No one actually did any real kissing, we were all much too embarrassed and innocent for that sort of thing. My best friend and I were excited to be invited so we went with them one day at recess. The girls all giggled the whole time, including my best friend, all of them except me. Once I was sitting and realized what a “Kissing Club” entailed I was horrified and wanted nothing more to leave and never go back. That wasn’t a problem though because the next day the teachers discovered it and ended the “Kissing Club”.
By kindergarden I had my first “official” boyfriend, of whom I never actually spoke to. I spent all my time in kindergarden and 1st grade with my two first real best friends, Paige* and Karen*. Especially Paige. Paige and I spent spent all of our time together, we were glued at the hip. She had an older sister and a younger brother and I had only a very young little sister. So Paige knew all about “big girl stuff” and she shared all of her missing-puzzle-pieces information with me. She described periods as a horrible disease only curable through painful surgery. She described lots of things to me that we were too young to understand. One in particular was sex. Paige told me all about sex and that her sister did it with her boyfriend but since we only had each other we would have to just make do. Paige and I never did anything but “hookup,” which entailed roughly pressing our mouths together and moving our faces around while moving our bodies around franticly.
Paige would always refer to me as the man in the “relationship.” I realized after a time that it hurt my feelings that I couldn’t just be me in the “relationship.” I wasn’t good enough to just be me, I had to pretend to be a boy, the missing part of the whole equation in her mind.
Paige and I continued to play “relationship” until one awful day my mother walked in to check on us. We were supposed to be napping but we were kissing. My mother, looking down at two 1st grade girls making out, did the only thing she could think of to do. She put me in one bed and Paige in another and then never said another word about it. I was mortified but followed in suite and never talked about it again. Paige and I grew apart.
All during my life I have attended an Episcopalian church that is very open-minded about homosexuality. In fact, we currently have three gay couples and two lesbians couples, one with an older son and the other with four small boys, who actively attend our church, and our curate is homosexual as well.
On top of coming from an open-minded church, I was raised by and surrounded by very opened-minded people. My mother and her friends especially don’t have a single centimeter of homophobia in them. Both my mother and father raised my sister and I to be opened-minded, to accept all people, and to fight for what’s right like our lives depend on it.
Even with all of that in my background I still hid my female relationships from my family. I didn’t know why exactly, all I knew was that it was smarter to just keep it a secret. Through almost all of my life I have had a boyfriend and portrayed myself as heterosexual but usually, secretly had some kind of romantic relationship with a girl. It wasn’t until 9th grade that I began to dress the way I felt. . .different.
I dressed in all black everyday to everything I attended, wore dark makeup, and acted out in rebellion to authority. I even started drinking and smoking marijuana sometimes. That wasn’t who I was but I had been locked inside myself for so long it was like an explosion of rebellion to everyone I had ever changed myself for. My family. My peers. Everyone really. In high school I also decided I was done being in the closet. If I wanted to date a girl I was going to do it and I was going to do it in the loudest and most obnoxious way so that everyone knew, even my family, that “I am Lacey Carr. I am dark and different. I will rebel against your authority. And dammit I’m a lesbian!”
That wasn’t healthy. My grades were terrible and I only made friends with people who brought me down. I was a social outcast in high school and my parents thought I was the Devil reincarnate. Regardless of being gay, bi, or straight I was destroying my life and not being myself.
It took me all through high school to realize I couldn’t pretend anymore, wether I was pretending to be the perfect sweetheart or pretending to be a rebellious devil child. I’m finding who I am, regardless of sexual orientation, somewhere in the middle of the two very different people I disguised as. Since high school I decided to just figure out who I am, figure out me, before I start trying to figure out if I am heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. It may take awhile but that’s ok with me. I’ve always kind of thought that you can’t love anyone for exactly who they are until you can love yourself for exactly who you are.
*Names have been changed
