By Phillip Tea

~

Ok, I'm not really sure where to start. Most people say things like "I always knew I was different," "I've known since I was little," etc. but that's not the case for me.

I grew up in a homo- and transphobic household. Christian parents, Christian grandparents, always went to church, went to a bible camp over the summer. My dad would take every opportunity to tell me that loving the same sex was wrong (and I wasn't even told about trans/non-binary people until seventh grade). And being told something since you were a child really makes you believe it.

So anyway, I was kind of a homophobic jerk myself until sixth grade. Sorry bout that.

It was then that I started questioning why it was so wrong to fall in love with someone other than the opposite sex. I'd heard some LGBTQ+ stories from the internet and started thinking, is it really so horrible to like the same sex?

I realized it wasn't, it was just as beautiful as any type of love, and so I kept this to myself, silently supporting it as a straight ally.

Then in seventh grade, things got a little crazy. Over the summer, the director of that summer camp made an entire lesson plan and all to teach us that being LGBTQ+ was wrong. I silently fumed at him the whole time, disagreeing in my head. That was the last summer I'll ever spend there.

I also started realizing "wow, some girls are... really attractive." Then I thought, "wait no, aren't you straight?"

I thought maybe I was bi but refused to admit it to myself.

In eighth grade, I learned more about other gender identities and started supporting them, too.

At the very end of eighth grade, everything I thought I knew about myself was stomped on like a bug. My three best friends came out as pansexual one day, which I thought was really awesome and brave of them, and I wholeheartedly supported them. Then I started thinking, maybe I should stop avoiding coming out to myself, and slowly figured out I was pansexual, too.

One thing did help- I had a small crush on one of those friends I mentioned earlier, let's call them Sunshine. They are funny and weird in the best way, REALLY smart, and also freaking adorable. I fell pretty hard for them once I figured out my sexuality.

I told one of my other friends that I mentioned earlier about this crush, and they got really excited because it turned out, Sunshine had liked me for two years, I think, and had only told those other two friends.

So a couple days later, in a rush of nervous texts, I told Sunshine I had feelings for them after they told me the same thing and we were both really happy that day.

A little while later we started dating and our other two friends wouldn't stop saying our ship name that they made up every five minutes.

So then, after a long and complicated summer, we broke up because it was stressful since we live two hours apart and my parents still didn't know I was pansexual and yeah. But we're still good friends. I hope. *nervous gay laughter*

Also, gender dysphoria started happening. It started in the middle of the summer, when something funny happened and I was given the nickname "Phillip" by my friends. I realized "wait, why do I like that name so much?" I pushed it to the back of my mind until a few weeks ago.

So, I'm physically female. I don't really have a problem with my body, other than the stupid stuff that happens once a month. I don't mind my chest or anything (there's hardly anything there anyway).

But people always say "she," "her," "girl," when they talk about me and I realized I kind of hated that. It just feels wrong and annoying. But I didn't feel like a boy either, so what was I?

After a while I sort of figured out I was either agender or a demigirl. But I don't know, neither of those feel quite right. I usually just go with agender, but I honestly just don't care what my gender is or what people call me anymore. (They/them sounds nice though.) I like wearing boy's clothes, though I kind of can't since my mom wouldn't let me, but sometimes I still like wearing dresses/skirts just because I feel nice in them.

So yup, thanks for reading my long and complicated story. Currently I identify as a panromantic-demisexual magical genderless creature (agender). (ﾉ0ヮ0)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧