"What’s an experiment? It’s a trial without an answer. We’re venturing
into the unknown. We can’t be certain of the outcome — that’s why we’re
experimenting in the first place. Nothing can “make you” gay or bisexual
or straight or trans. You don’t get “turned” by incidences in your
life. These exploratory adventures help you figure it out, but they
don’t determine your sexual identity.
You could be a girl who says she wants to marry her girl friend at
the age of four, who fools around with the neighbor boy at eight, who
practices kissing her best friend at 12, who kisses boys at 14, and who
develops a totally consuming crush on a cool girl at school at 15, and
what are you?
You’re you.
Anybody walking in on you at any one of these moments might jump to
conclusions and make a snap judgment about your sexuality, but they’d be
wrong. Liking boys now doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be straight
forever (although it might). Jesus, I identified as totally straight
until I was 20.
On the other hand, liking girls now doesn’t necessarily mean that
you’re going to be bi or a lesbian. A friend of mine had only
girlfriends for 32 years of her life, and then she dated and married a
guy this winter, surprising everyone.
Only you know what you like. Only you decide if
you’re straight or bi or gay or queer or asexual — or whether you want to
label yourself at all. Some people know what they are right away. Some
people take years to figure out what they like. Some people are
65-years-old and still figuring it out. It can change. You can spend
your life learning about your preferences.
Nothing that you do now locks you into a label."
by Krista Burton
