Hey, a reminder: while the popular narrative is “I always knew I was gay,” a whole lot of us did not have that experience.

For every five year old who already knows they’re “different,” there’s someone else who won’t know until they’re a teen, or an adult

Some of us need to try stuff to figure things out. Some of us know from day one. Both are valid. No one is “more gay” for knowing early.

I’ve heard the same sort of thing from trans friends, so don’t fall into “am I really trans??” thinking just because you didn’t know at 6

Sometimes it’s a case of needing to know there are alternatives. Sometimes it’s just a more gradual dawning.

I thought I was straight as a teen because although I knew of lesbians, I heard over and over again that they always knew.

I wasn’t actively repulsed by guys, I liked a lot of them as friends, I thought that was enough. I wasn’t really into anyone much.

When I fell in love with a woman in college, I thought okay, I’m bi. Because I’d had crushes on boys, though no experience.

Because I was “being responsible” and “not ready” lololol. Anyway...I needed that push, of a woman being into ME first.

Then that relationship was awful and I didn’t date anyone for years after it. I was scared off women, and for some reason not pursuing men

Eventually I did date again. I dated men. And they were perfectly nice, great guys. And I felt guilty that I didn’t want to fuck them.

I started to wonder if I was ace, or grey ace anyway. Because things with my ex had never been great anyway, and here I was just not into it

And then two things happened- 1) I started engaging with more media filled with lesbians and something in my brain went HELL. YES.

2) I met Tekla and oh hey, there’s my sex drive, wow, here it is, okay, we’re 100% lesbian as hell

And I was 32. I’m 34 now, still kind of a baby lesbian in many ways. And that’s okay. You would not see me in a lesbian bar and notice.

It’s never too late to be gay, kids!!

Also we need to talk about compulsory heterosexuality and how the belief that women don’t enjoy sex anyway leads to many late discoveries

But that’s a story for another day

Oh, one last thing: the omnipresence of this “I always knew” narrative comes from a place that was trying to be helpful to us.

It’s the side effect of having to tell religious zealots over and over that there’s nothing unnatural about us, that we’re “born this way”

The truth is just more complicated than that, but nuance is tough to grapple with when you’re fighting for your lives.

PS- my mentions have been flooded all day with people telling their stories and being glad to find people talking about this. to all