Q&A

Q&A: “I’ve always had a fascination for both sexes and just came to terms about dating a transgender… I’m thinking that I’m pansexual?”

anonymous said:

I’ve been conflicted about my sexuality (again) lately. It started a couple weeks ago when I was talking to a friend and she made a comment about something I said. Normally I would’ve brushed it off (because people’ve always thought I was gay), but I guess it was good timing? I’ve always had a fascination for both sexes, and I just came to terms about dating a transgender, and now I’m thinking that I’m pansexual? I’ve been trying to stay away from dating women (I’m female) because of my parents.

I’m a 17 year old female, don’t know if I added that The anon talking about the pansexuality dilemma
I’ve also never dated anyone before (no one’s legitimately asked me out before). I’m so sorry for spamming you I’ll stop now- have a nice day (Anon from the age and pansexuality thing)

hello anon,

before i delve into this ask, i want to first point out that neither your age nor your inexperience in relationships has any bearing on your sexuality. no one is ever too old, too young or too inexperienced to know their own sexuality. don’t let those things (or anyone else) make you second guess yourself.

perhaps you are bi or perhaps you are pan. you’ve said just enough to suggest that you may be bi, but you really haven’t said anything to really suggest that you are pan (although that doesn’t mean that you aren’t). i’m getting the impression that you might be misinformed as to what pan (and bi) means, so let’s start there.

bi(sexuality): (sexual) attraction to two or more genders.
pan(sexuality): (sexual) attraction to any/all genders.

you’ve said that you’ve always had a “fascination” (i’m going to assume you mean attraction of some kind given the context; one can be fascinated with toy trains, but that doesn’t mean one’s attracted to them) to “both” sexes. just so you know, there are more than two sexes and more than two genders, so you might want to avoid saying “both sexes” and be more specific. you find males and females attractive. since you find two genders attractive, you may be bi.

now on to transgender people (not “a transgender”; this is incorrect & offensive). like far too many, you seem to be under the impression transgender people comprise of a “third” category of people that one can find attractive, separate from males and females. you are very wrong and this way of thinking is transphobic, cissexist and offensive. many transgender people are binary (ie. male or female) just like cisgender people. trans men are men. trans women are women. period. when you say you are attracted to males and females, you shouldn’t need to tack on an “and transgender people” to this as if trans men and trans women are an after thought or a category all their own. being attracted to transgender people does not mean you’re pan.

as i mentioned above, there are more than two genders. male (cis or trans) and female (cis or trans) are just two of them. there are also people who are neither male nor female, who are both male and female, who have no gender at all, and who are something else entirely. this is why bi is defined as “two or more” and pan as “any/all”. non-binary and genderqueer people exist. if this is new to you, i sincerely suggest that you research this more.

if you are only attracted to two genders, then perhaps you’re bi. if you are attracted to more than two, perhaps you are bi or pan. i’m afraid i can’t really help you beyond that as the rest depends on you. sorry for the tl;dr and for (probably) complicating something that was already complicated for you, but i hope it helps. try not to stress yourself out trying to rush to a conclusion because you’ll get there eventually either way. take the time to educate yourself about things you’re unfamiliar with along the way and i guarantee that you’ll learn more about yourself in the process. 🙂

all the best!

YouTuber and Blogger, Vesper is an American expat currently living in Japan.

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