It's been difficult to process crushes I had as a young trans person before I understood myself as such, in the context of developing sexuality. I've said before that one of the best things about transition is that when your gender is finally sorted, sexuality makes more sense.

Put another way, it's an enormously eye-opening realization to finally understand which sexuality vector your affections are coming from. It's very different to think you like someone as a straight boy than it is to know you like someone as a gay girl. Awareness changes a lot.

Because I didn't have language or safe space to explore gender, it wasn't possible for me to understand myself as a lesbian, only a "not quite straight boy." As frustrating as labels are sometimes, "not quite straight" isn't sufficient at all for satisfying self-awareness.

The result of this dissatisfaction often leads us to choose ill-fitting labels. I, for example, tried to make "bisexual" work for me for years, despite knowing I wasn't attracted to men, having also tried very hard to be a gay boy, as my bullies were desperate to convince me of.

I was trying desperately to define myself with incomplete data. Sexuality doesn't make nearly as much sense without
simultaneous understanding of gender. As such, I've been spending some time thinking backwards on the crushes I developed in my youth through a different lens.

It's been satisfying to reframe my crushes on people in terms of my queerness rather than presumed straightness. It's like those 3D magic-eye pictures; I have to squint and cross my eyes and relax my focus on a closer plane, but that's when the true picture leaps out of the page.

At first, it feels like retconning my life, which is a bit of an icky sensation. But as I learn to be kinder and more generous to myself for the long process of awareness, it feels more like a re-read of a favorite book with new information, discovering what it's REALLY about.

Which is also an important point: the expectation that you have, whether internally or externally motivated, is a false pressure. You don't have to have yourself all figured out right now. You have time, and it is your right to explore yourself and what you want out of life.

You don't have to try to fit inside someone else's box or label or story or narrative framework. Keep searching and thinking and feeling and trying until you find what feels right to you, and take as much time as you need to do it. Even more importantly, it's okay to change, too.

It's okay to develop and expand what you understand about yourself, whether it's your sexuality or gender or relationships or job or your sense of purpose or calling. It's okay to upset the expectations that others have of you if it gives you a more complete sense of yourself.

It's always going to be incredibly hard work to know yourself, and any process of learning is uncomfortable. Any process of creation requires sacrifice. But it's all good work to do, and you are allowed to do it, no matter your age or how much anyone wants you to stay the same.

You can do it. I love you.