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#happy pride everyone!! made my other pride icon sets & then decided to make some trans icons for our beloved dean <3 hope u all like them!
emeraldcas · 2 years
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trans dean pride icons 💙💗🤍🏳️‍🌈
*feel free to use! (credit appreciated)
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iaintnosidekick · 5 years
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A Semi-Closeted Demisexual
I’ve been thinking about coming out a lot this month. As it is pride that’s not entirely uncommon, but it’s been weighing on me a lot as I’ve struggled to make peace with the fact I’m going to be a semi-closeted demisexual for the for seeable future. Now I’m sure some of you are wondering to yourself why someone on the ace spectrum would even need to come out and to that I simply say (in a very overly sweet but annoyed tone) “Because it’s a part of who I am and I want the most important people in my life to know”. And for the most part, they do. For the people in my life that were already familiar with all things LGBT+, all I had to do was drop the word and they got it just fine. But I’ve always known it was going to take some explaining for everyone else. Therefore, I’ve only ever officially come out to four people in my life. Each time was a little different, and not all of them went well. But I want to share them with you as a way of getting some thoughts off of my chest and possibly be able to relate with anyone going through a similar situation.
The first person I decided to tell was my little sister who… didn’t exactly take it well. She’s about two years younger than me and we’ve been very close ever since our oldest sister moved out. Of course, I love her very much, but she can be a bit opinionated and not one to be easily persuaded. So, having just figured out the whole thing myself not too long before then, I decided to try to explain it to her just casually in the car. I don’t want to say she had the worst reaction possible, but it felt that way at the time. Not because I wasn’t attracted to people or that I was content with my single self but that I felt the need to put a label on it. Which I get, I REALLY get some people’s distaste to having to define such abstract feelings such as sexuality. But, as I explained to her, it wasn’t that I wanted the label, it was that I found comfort in the fact that my experience was common enough to have a label in the first place. But she stood her ground. I understand where she is coming from, but I had hoped she’d at least be a little less… dismissive. I don’t know. We’re fine, she just kind of put it out of mind after that and I’ve only ever broached the topic one other time (same result). It was disheartening and it took me over a year to even want to tell anyone else. 
The next person I told was my childhood best friend. Now we have been friends since we were eight and may have been the only person that could have seen this coming if she had any idea what asexuality was. She’d at least four boyfriends when we went to school together and while I come up with a couple crushes in middle school, but my desire to date dried up pretty quickly after the seventh grade. For a long time I hid be hide my father’s rule of having to be 16 (which actually did ruin my one experience of attraction in high school), but even after I was sixteen, I just couldn’t even fake it to her anymore. My girl was ready to be a wingman at a moment’s notice and was willing to set me up at even a hint of passing attraction (more on that later). It was sweet, but it made me feel weird. I still love this woman with all of my heart but when I made the decision to tell her I had no idea how she would respond. She grew up in a similarly conservative household and I wasn’t sure how much of that she had internalized. Sure she literally would have been the best person to validate me as she had been there during my more formative years, but that didn’t exactly make me feel better. But, I did it and she was amazing. She was so kind and let me get everything out first and I even got to tell her a bit about it being the A in LGBTGIA+. It was really great and I was incredibly giddy and happy afterward. She’s brought it up a couple times on her own just to ask a couple of questions and I feel like it’s been a really good thing for her relationship. I know she’d always kind of felt bad that I’d been her third wheel growing up and I’m glad she knows I was happy to be it.
I told the third person on a bit on a whim. We’d been friends since we’d met at a church conference and he actually had dated the same friend from above. There was a brief moment were we almost went on a date (like I said, my BFF was ready to wingman), but it felt kind of weird and I backed out before it even happened. That ended up being completely fine because he is a much better friend and I’ve since figured out that he is definitely not one of my exceptions. In fact, he’s kind of turned into this quasi-brother type figure or at least he did for a while. He had this kind of odd determination to teach me how to flirt and finally go on a date or two. As you can imagine, all attempts were a COMPLETE disaster and I usually ended up feeling pretty horrible afterward. So, one day as I was walking him back to his car, I just kind told him. At first, he thought I was telling him I actually liked girls but I think I surprised him more when I said I didn’t really like either. He took it kind of strangely and I feel rather ambivalent about the whole thing but after that, all the flirting practice stopped. He never asked me to point out someone I thought was cute or really even asked if he could set me up with someone. We have never talked about it since, but looking back on it I realize that he actually heard me and used it to update his understanding of me. I know I made him sound weird in the little bit I’ve told you about him, but I really appreciate his willingness to listen to me and stop pushing me into situations that I won’t feel comfortable in. He didn’t make a big deal about it which was nice since that’s all I ever wanted.  
Finally, just this past March I told my big sister. Now, I love both of my sisters very much. They’re both different people and I love each equally for their own reasons. But my big sister is the eldest and she holds this almost reverent aura around her in my mind. Of course, I know she is a person with weakness and flaws and putting such a weight on her shoulders is not something that’s practically fair. However, when you are the oldest of five children with a significant age gap between you and the second oldest (me), you kind of take on this responsibility to be a good leader. Which she is. She’s been an excellent example for me and my younger siblings and is why we’ve set such high bars for ourselves in life. But we hadn’t really lived together for almost seven years. I stayed with her over the summer, but she was so busy with med-school we never really had time for heart to hearts about our evolving personal beliefs. But just a couple months ago she had a rotation in the town my college was in and came over to hand out a lot. It was amazing and I loved seeing her so often but the more she interacted with my roommates, the more I realized empty spaces in the conversation where we would normally slip in jokes about our different sexualities. Just little random things about them being on opposite ends of the spectrum and me just confusingly in the middle. My roommates didn’t seem to mind, but I started to get this deep desire for her to know. I wasn’t exactly worried about she’d say, but I was very worried about how I was going to explain it to her. Because I wanted her to understand the word so that she could then understand me and why I was going to be twenty-two and still never so much as gone on a date. So, I took her on a walk, got a few laps done around the track and just started rambling. I’m not sure how well I got my point across, but I can’t tell you the relief I felt when she looked at me and said: “that makes sense”. It was liberating.
So here we are. In the year of the Lord’s 20biteen and one would think I’d be done telling people that I only become attracted to people after I’ve befriended them for a while. I thought so too. I’ve made an effort to tell everyone I thought have a hard time understanding and everyone else picked it up with no fuss what so ever. But there are still the two looming figures that all non-traditional lovers have to face at least some point in their lives. My parents, while lovely and have been nothing but the best for my entire life, are going to be a completely different ball game. My mother is what I would call an evangelist and my father is a strong conservative maybe even leaning libertarian. They are very much not supporters of anything LGBT or otherwise and I am 100% certain they would be concerned to see my icon with a little pride flag behind it. Even if I am telling them that I identify with a sexuality that means I am the least likely person to lust after someone, not my spouse I have no idea how they would react to me claiming an identity at all. I suspect they’d react more or less like my little sister and ask me why I even need to put a label on it. I’ve already been told I just haven’t found the right guy yet and I really don’t want to be force-fed dating advice from my mom. But then again, I still have the desire to tell them. Not now, not when I just moved back in to save up money for graduate school. It would just complicate what is already going to be an adjustment for all of us and probably end up being more hurtful than helpful. I wish I could just tell them, but I want to be able to find a time that would be best for all of us do it in a way that would help us all grow. 
Now we’ve come circle and now is the time I tell you why I even made this too long post. Well, I’ve been inspired by the LGBTQIA+ community a lot for the past couple of months. I started watching Natalie Wynn who exposed me a lot of Tran’s issues more than I ever could have in my day to day life. Dan Howell just released his fantastic 45-minute opus that had had me literally in tears and nearly bust out a pride flag right then and there. But most importantly of all, my roommate found the bravery to wave her black and purple stripes to the whole world and even found the courage to tell her mom. I can’t tell you all how proud I am of her and how inspired I am to one day be able to do the same thing. And I want to. I want to be just as loud and proud and brave as her and everyone else who as ever came out. But there is just a part of me that knows this is not the time and that I shouldn’t be swept up in the sheer emotion of it all. Yes, I am Demisexual and yes that is a great way to explain how I experience attraction. But life is more complicated than that and there are more factors to consider than simply needing to live my truth. Plus there is more to me than just how I become attracted to people. I’m a sister, a daughter, a best friend and a freaking fantastic third wheel. There are other things about me that are just as true as my sexuality and for now, they can be enough. I will tell the whole world one day and maybe at that point, I’ll have built up so much pent up pride I’ll just pop into black and purple fun-fete. But for now, I’m just going to keep the door open just a crack. I’ll stay here and be proud of my friend and be thankful for those how can and have accepted me for my happy single self.
Happy Pride Month! To you all my fellow semi-closeted from all corners of the rainbow.
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