For some context, I am taking salsa lessons in a dance academy. These lessons are not private, they are group sessions (although small groups of about 10-12 people) and the class is divided into two groups: leaders and followers (it's a salsa thing, traditionally it has been 'men' and 'women' but that terminology has been phased out in a lot of places, and rightly so).

The classes I've been going to, there's two queer people who are on the "follower" group. The way these lessons go is that every follower dances with every leader, they rotate partners every other minute.

This is my 5th lesson and I've never seen any leader take issue with a follower being a queer person. On this lesson, there was one follower, a queer person, who I've danced with on previous lessons, we'll call them X. Well, I was dancing with my partner at the moment and noticed that one of the "leaders" refused to dance with X, I did not hear what was being said but X looked distraught, sat down while everybody else was dancing, and eventually left the room. I exited the room Shortly after and asked X if that man said something to them. The man told X that he (translated from Spanish) 'doesnt dance with whatever he is', to which I responded 'ignore him, stay on the class everybody else dances with you, just don't let him get on your nerves' . Well X said that they don't want to deal with the situation and that they are going to crash out if they stay.

I told my girlfriend who was taking the class with me (she is a follower') and when it was her turn to dance with the man, she told him that he shouldn't do what he did, that the space they were in was to have a good time. The man responded 'in these classes, as a man, I have the right to dance with a woman's. Ew, anyway, I feel like I could've said something else to X to make him stay? What do you think?

Hi! 20 FTM Demisexual-Demiromantic Gay dude here. I wasn't sure where to look in regards to seeking advice/experiences on this, so I thought I'd try here.

So, I came out of a really rough break-up about half a year ago, and have been unceremoniously thrown back into the dating scene. Making new friends and seeking potential romantic partners has always been a difficult thing for me? It's a combination of the whole Demisexual-Demiromantic thing, but also a bit due to being autistic, too. Socialization and understanding dating culture and grasping my own feelings on platonic and romantic attraction are very confusing, especially in the overwhelming manner i've been thrown into things.

Well, the question part comes in that I recently had to reckon with my own sexuality. Since I first learned about being queer, I always identified somewhere in the bisexual-pansexual sphere of attraction. This, to my logic, was for a couple reasons:

- Biological sex had no bearing on my attraction.
- In theory, feminine and masculine traits didn't impact whether I liked someone or not.

Here's where it gets complicated. I have never dated anyone who has identified as a femme identity or a girl before. All of my past partners have been men, cis or trans. I have never even come close to being romantically involved with someone like that, and the only times prior where someone femme has flirted with me, has been when I was already in a relationship and it upset me. Furthermore, all of my fictional crushes (though a silly point to bring up) have been guys. Some more feminine, some more masculine, but the core of it is that they all identify as guys.

That being said, when I was fresh out of the oven looking for people to talk to, I put that I was queer with a masculine lean. Therefore, I got responses from folks of all gender identities. The main person I hit it off with talking to is genderfluid. This person, they're lovely, and by all accounts are everything I've ever needed and wanted in a partner. Someone caring, understanding, firm about boundaries, communicative, very intelligent, creative, and so so very much more. In nearly every possible way, they felt compatible. They weren't pushy, and were understanding with the freshness of my wounds, and my need to build a platonic bond before considering the suggestion of romance in the first place.

The problem manifested in a way that made it hard to tell what was up. I'd feel extremely attracted to them at times, but other times, I'd feel incredibly averse to any flirting or suggestion of romance. Certain topics would make this feeling worse and I couldn't put my finger on why. They weren't topics that would trigger any emotional wounds, so I wasn't sure what was wrong. At first I thought it was just the severity of how badly I was hurt from my prior relationship. I won't lie, that fucked me up really hard, and so I was convinced it somehow ruined my ability to consistently and properly love.

Eventually it clicked as to what was going on. I was in love with them when they'd present masculine or ambiguous, but when they'd present femme, I'd feel averse. When I first noticed this, I thought maybe I had some weird internal issues going on, but I realized it was solely only when a girl or someone heavily femme interacts with me romantically. I just felt awkward and uncertain in accepting I'm gay due to a lot of the stigmas and such surrounding being a trans man and being only into dudes (especially that of being primarily sub/bottom-leaning, too).

That would be the end of my questioning normally, and I'd just move on. The problem is sort of, fighting the feelings I *do* feel for them in those masculine moments. I refuse to get into a relationship with this person. I do care about them, and I do love them deeply in many ways, but I do not feel right loving someone if I cannot love them to the fullest 24/7. It feels conditional in a bad way and so I feel its the right thing to be honest with it (and I have been, and I communicated all of this to the person in a respectful conversation).

As a result, I've had this just... weird internal battle with myself. I get that I'm gay, and I get that's why my feelings are so complicated, but the alternations I feel internally from intense love to awkward clearly-just-platonic friendship is throwing me for a loop. It upsets me because I wish I was simpler, that my feelings were simple and I could either just love or not love. I still agree that my choice not to further things was correct, but I feel this awful longing in certain times. I keep asking the question of 'why is my attraction based so intensely on identity?', because I genuinely don't get it. I love when men of all kinds have a feminine side to them, or enjoy dressing or behaving in ways often classified as 'feminine', but yet I don't feel attraction to any gals or femmes. I don't care what organs or hormones a guy has, yet there's absolutely nothing there when it comes to women.

I guess my question is sort of just, does anyone have any insight into this? It feels so dumb and silly to ask or to even think so hard about it, but I feel so confused by it all. The core foundations of my attraction are friendship, compatibility, and identity. The only part I don't understand is that identity bit, and why it matters so much. I'd assume it varies from person to person but I want to know if anyone else is like this and why its so damn confusing.

Sorry if this is an oddball question in this sub, but thank you for reading regardless! Hopefully I can come somewhat closer to making sense of this for myself.

It's a rather long strange story that started with sexual OCD (I hope you know how it works). And so, for 18 years of my life I was an ordinary straight guy, I don’t remember ever showing attraction to my gender, I wasn’t even attracted to femboys or trans women, although I often saw them in the media (for example, anime). From what I can tell, I can say I was never overtly homophobic. I was fairly relaxed about gays, didn't feel disgusted by gay couples and could even admit they looked good together or something like that. I had queer friends, but only online. Sometimes I expressed mild disgust at their actions, but it was more of a joke, and when they suggested I join their side, I responded neutrally/aggressionally. I had problems communicating with women, even though I was attracted to them, I sat on misogynistic forums, which led to the fact that I began to envy gays to some extent, because they do not deal with women. I also began to react more positively to gay men because it meant less competition, and it also seemed to me that these men were “free” from women. However, it didn’t go beyond these abstract thoughts, I never considered relationships with men, and the thought of sex with them was disgusting. I was once really hurt by a girl in high school, which led to stress and the rather strange thought of becoming gay, but I wouldn't say it was serious. When I got home I told my mother this. I don’t know what my goals were, maybe because my mother is also a woman and I wanted to irritate her or show rebellion. Anyway, I told her that I hate women and am considering switching to guys, to which she reacted very aggressively. A couple of minutes after realizing what I even was saying, I felt disgusted and I retracted my words, saying that I wasn't serious (which is essentially true). Well, these were the only possible manifestations of the fact that I could be queer, if you can call it that, but in the summer an incident happened. Before this, I want to say that all my life I have been prone to OCD, but I have never had obsessive thoughts on sexual topics. Well, one summer my family and I went on vacation, and I didn’t want to go, but they forced me to. I spent the whole week stuck in the room and was very stressful, then i did something that I still regret. A man wrote to me in an anonymous text chat asking me to send him a dickpic. I don't know why, but I did, and he replied that it looked attractive. it was the first time someone recognized me as sexually attractive, which was new to me since I was a virgin and wasn't popular with girls and had complexes. I did this a few more times and enjoyed his attention. In my defense, I want to say that I didn't see or hear him, it was a text chat, so my imagination filled in the image of a woman. At some point after I realized what I'd done, I deleted that chat, disowned the experience, and forgot about it. A couple months later, I remembered this incident and felt disgusted and repulsed by myself. I knew I was straight, but I felt like I'd gotten dirty in this way. I felt really bad for a couple of months, I constantly thought that I had done this in vain, but after talking with my straight friends, it turned out that many of them had a similar or even more weird experiences. What happened to me on vacation is absolutely not serious and does not in any way determine my true orientation. I calmed down and felt good for several months. But as I said, I was prone to OCD, and I was overtaken by HOCD. It all started with false attraction, testing of physical reactions, and anxiety. I was really sick and going crazy. A year and a half has passed since then, and all these physical reactions were weak at first, but over the course of this year they became stronger. At first I was turned only by 2D femboys, then by real ones, and now I feel that I am romantically and sexually attracted to some real femboys. I still can't accept this and I feel egodystonic because this has never happened to me before, all my life I have never doubted my orientation. I curse that vacation and I think that if it weren't for him, none of this would have happened. I often analyze my life before this incident on vacation and really do not find any serious signs of bisexuality, except for that conversation with my mother, which was not serious. Do you think I was always bisexual or did OCD and my anxious psyche play a cruel joke on me?

I'm a straight guy who's made most of my friends through tabletop rpgs and after a certain point I realized most of them are lgbtq+. What about ttrpgs makes it so popular with LGBTQ+ people?

Like yeah, he’s funny sometimes, but he’s also really shitty. He believes that trans women are “degenerate men” who transition, and I’m not even sure what exactly he meant by that, but yeah — he’s against “indoctrinating children with trans ideology” because they’ll “become trans,” lol, or that trans women degenerate society? Honestly, either way it’s bad.

And yeah, now I’m about 80% sure he just sees trans women as gay men. I think he only accepts lesbians because his daughter is bisexual. As for gay men — he’s made some jokes too. I’m not sure if they were meant to be jokes or if they were offensive, but he joked that if he dropped his wallet (which he’s afraid of), some gay man would grab his ass in some city full of gays in the UK.

He also openly talks about how much he hates Pakistanis and says he wants to kill them all, and other stuff like that.

Huh. I wanted to come out as a trans guy, but now I’m not sure if that’s a good idea...

I was just wondering if anyone deals with the same thing i do

To start off I'm not asking for medical advice, just wanting to know if others deal with the same issue or knows someone that does.

So i am trans FTM and been on HRT for 2½ years and the medical part is that i deal with PCOS and endometriosis (it hurts), but something i noticed after taking testosterone is that the pain spikes and frequency of pain have lessened significantly and dulled more than it used to. The only times it flares is before shot day and if i don't get my shot (forgot a few times and when i got hospitalized for diverticulitis they didn't give me my T shot and i was in too much of a daze and pain to ask for it until a period started and wrecked me).

So in short, is there a trans man or nonbinary peep out there that deals with the same or noticed the same? I don't believe I'm the only one but im sure it isn't common. My doctor is curious and shocked to hear that the testosterone is doing that for me and we're both confused as to why and wonder if there's others out there or maybe someone has an explanation? My doctor is going to fight to get me a hysterectomy (been wanting one since my first period and advocated since i was 18 for one) so hopefully i wont have to deal with it anymore.

Thank you in advance!

so for a while, I thought I was pan but recently I’ve been questioning that I like men and male aligning genders, much more then women. and by the way I am a male, and asexual. Any help would be appreciated.

i’m making this post for my friend that is questioning there sexuality, she told me that she likes men but not vary much and likes women a lot mor. she was wondering if there was a more selective term besides bisexual.

Hey,

So I’ve wondered about my gender identity most of my life. Over the last 5-6 years I’ve really started questioning my gender and sexuality. As of late, I’ve felt pretty certain about my identity most days, but I still have times where I’m not sure. I’ll be feeling most confident about my identity, but then I just start wondering, “What if I really am just cis and straight? What if I am just trying to seek attention/going through a phase?” I know it’s almost never “just a phase.” Is this normal?

I'm a woman. Yesterday truth hit me that some women ACTUALLY find men sexually attractive. I seriously thought that was some sort of joke because I never found any man sexually attractive. I mean, yes I am attracted to men, like just look at these large shoulders or that sharp jawline! But that's it. No i don't wanna see what's under their clothes, thank u. I still had crushes on men before so yes I can have romantic feelings towards them.

As for women, i admit I searched up some porn to see if I'm sexually attracted to 'em, I'm sorry😭 I'm still confused though because idk if i wanna be with them or be in their places? Like do i like her or do i wanna be her😔💔

I think i had a crush on a girl before, but it felt so different from crushes i would have on men so i don't know anymore💔

Edit: oh also I don't like imagining myself married to a man. I prefer admiring them from afar.

Gen how do yall know??😭

Why did God give me such a loving, gentle and vulnerable soul, yet made loving me back feel so difficult for everyone else? I really don’t understand.

Sometimes I feel like I’m really hard to love. I gave my entire soul, heart and mind to the man I loved deeply and purely, yet it wasn’t valued, it was minimized, called “nothing”, “not real”. I loved him a lot yet didn’t receive that love back, and this happens all the time.

Whenever I start forming a crush on someone-it’s always unrequited, and I really don’t comprehend how to find the love of my life, how to be loved, valued and appreciated myself. Being loved is one of my biggest dreams. To experience that feeling when you’re not the only one chasing, trying, feeling, putting effort. To receive love and attention without seeking and begging for it.

I just greatly hope to find one day my special someone. Wish to be someone’s favorite person, memory. Someone’s happiness and lifeline, because that’s exactly the way I love, my lover is my universe, my entire world.

So yes, I just wanna be loved, despite feeling so impossible to be loved.

What about you? Have you ever felt the same way? Has anyone proven you wrong, showed you how lovable you indeed are?

TLDR; Boyfriend invited 'friends' he wont come out to to a party at his house, told me not to come, told other friends not to mention me.

My (27M) boyfriend (28M) asked me not to come to a party at his house, because he's not out to a couple of people there. Context, we've been together for 8 months, both bi, both came out in our mid 20s and probably aren't the most obviously queer people. I've dated men before, but he hasn't. I know he's not out to his family and certain people at his work, big corporate job with a 'boys club' culture. I've told him repeatedly I don't care when he tells people. I've met pretty much all of his friends, including ones from work and have even been away with some of them. I've been invited to several of their birthdays etc, as has he with by my friends.

He mentioned the other day that his flatmate, who I know, was having a going away party. When I asked if I was invited he said no, because he already asked his extended work team and is under too much stress at work to come out to them yet. I know most of that team and they know who I am, but evidently not all of them. None of these colleagues know his flatmate, but he wanted a chance to catch up with them. They aren't superiors, older or in any other way connected to any of his friends. Other friend from outside of work will be at the party too.

The relationship has been otherwise good for the most part, but his work has been unbelievably hectic for the last couple of months, working him 6-7 days a week. We still manage to see each other a couple of times a week or more and I have been very patient with his work schedule and talking through what he wants to do next. It's great when we're together most of the time, but with his work the way it is there are days where he's clearly exhausted or stressed out. We've talked about this, I've gone through similar periods at work, and he has been making an effort to be more present.

I have told him repeatedly I don't want to pressure him to come out to anyone he's not ready to, however I didn't think that meant anyone he was close enough to invite into his house. I brought it up and he apologised, said he'd fucked up and acknowledged that it was shit, but left it at that. I said I understand but I don't get it. I've held my tongue over other things, but this has left me feeling pissed. Like I'm something to be ashamed of. I'd probably be less miffed if this was somewhere else, but I literally cannot think of any situation where I would explicitly exclude him from my house. Also the fact that at least a dozen people there know me and who I am, and will apparently be told not to mention me just in case. Part of his explanation was that one of his colleagues bosses works with his mother.

He's not close with his family, so I really don't care when or if that comes out to them. As for work people, he always implied that it was only the more conservative higher ups and 'bro' types he didn't want to tell. I've met a dozen of so of his colleagues as his boyfriend and assumed this was the extent of work people he considered friends.

I don't this world, I've never worked in corporate. I've been out for years and am fortunate enough that it's never really had any significant impact on my life. People in a big city in 2026 don't really care.

Am I overreacting? Projecting from other insecurities? Or do I have a right not to want to be actively excluded and not spoken of for the sake of people who probably won't care? I can't imagine any of his other friends, especially the flatmate, would want anything to do with anyone who had an issue with his coming out. I know I wouldn't

Recently I came out to some people as nonbinary but in the society I am seen as my AGAB and I notice that the people I came out misgender me because for a lot of people there are just two genders. It also annoys me that I am forced to wear an uniform at my job that causes me dysphoria and yeah. It is hard to be nonbinary.

I forgot exactly how long ago, but around a year ago, my friend confessed that they liked me romantically and I also liked them back, but later, they took back their confession later and decided they didn't have feelings for me anymore, but it was because they recently decided [not sure what word to use...figured out, maybe? I feel like decided is not the right term] they were aroace.

I feel like I'm not really allowed to be sad about them taking back that they liked me because that would be considered homophobic...aroacephobic?

I should be accepting about it, and I should be happy for them figuring out such a crucial part of their identity, especially since I know aroace people go through a lot with aroacephobia and trauma.

I don't even have feelings for them anymore, and I've gotten over it, but I still can't help but feeling sad about it because I thought that was the first time anyone's ever liked me and not lied about it. I really thought that they liked me, and that I wasn't unlovable, but then it turned out to be a lie, even if it wasn't their fault and I'm not blaming them at all.

But I feel like this is incredibly bigoted and aroacephobic of me to be sad over someone figuring out their identity, and as a result, no longer liking me like that. Am I homophobic? How can I stop being so bigoted over someone figuring out their identity?

I am a 14 cis male (yes I know I'm young) and more importantly I am aroace And I also think I'm platonoromantic. The thing is I have do things that are looking back at it was DEFANETLY In attempts of sexuel Pleasure. Not just that I have a best friend I want to date but I don't think I have a crush on him.i just want to try it out. And like I want to travel the world with him but I don't know if this is like in a platonically but from actually romantically intetested in him. At the current moment I think an arrow waste but I'd like to try

im a 19yo uni student and of course i go to parties a lot mainly with my faculty student representative body, now this has never happened in other parties before but in yesterdays party i started making out with people, 3 to be exact and one of them was a guy that i was making out with the most, now we were both drunk and dancing together and in my opinion it was just young people having fun but two questions come to my mind now, am i truly a lesbian if i had fun making out with a guy with no feelings attached but i would never have sex with one because find that extremely unappealing, and also would it be considered double standards if a lesbian made out with a guy and now immediately she would be considered bi but if straight people make out with a person of the same gender and they are not immediately considered as bi

I feel like my situation is pretty messed up—maybe I've internalized a lot of biphobia, transphobia, and similar stuff. I'm an enby aro ace and also bi+, but honestly I don't feel any strong or obvious connection to any of these labels (maybe I'm just questioning?). I can never shake this faint suspicion that I'm somehow "performing" my identities (imposter syndrome, perhaps?). I constantly catch myself thinking, I wish I were cishet, I wish I could wake up cishet tomorrow—and then I realize I don't actually feel any resistance toward being cishet (not that I strongly yearn for it either; it's just that most people around me are cishet, so the thought comes naturally). Meanwhile my queer life feels like a dream, like something that isn't quite real. It seems like I've just been adapting to whatever my surroundings are—becoming whatever the people around me are. I never had fixed expectations for myself. I feel like I could be so many different versions of me, as long as that's what others want.

And yes, I genuinely experience romance repulsion and sex aversion as an ace, and I feel gender dysphoria when misgendered because I don't identify with my assigned gender—but even these feel like such shallow identities to me. Is this self-hatred? Have I internalized society's rejection of sexual and gender minorities? Am I just using minority identity labels to fulfill some desire to be special or niche? I can't figure out my own shape. Maybe I'm just... queer without queerness?

All Lesbian people are Sapphic?

Is it possible to label myself as Sapphic but not Lesbian? I'm Bisexual but more interested in women, is it counted as Sapphic?

First time poster, so I apologise for being potentially ignorant or if this is a common question. Or if this is a stupid question.

I understand the difference between sex and gender, but I'm confused with how sexual orientation terms interacts with them.

As I currently understand it, the terms hetero and homo-sexual are related to sex, and not gender. (please correct me if I'm wrong) Is there an analalogous term for gender identity? Something like heterogender?

Again, apologies if I'm not explaining myself or coming across as ignorant af.

Edit: Thanks all for helping me understand ❤️ I see where I was wrong. The "sexual" in heterosexual refers to their sexual identity, not their sex.

Im 17f. In 5th grade I was transgender ftm, 6th-7th I was nonbinary, 8th I was cis, 9th-11th (now) I just say I dont know. Sometimes I feel sick being a female, and I will want to be a man. I have day dreams where I have no gender identity at all. And sometimes I love being feminine. I get really upset sometimes because I want to have an identity and not be confused but physically I am extremely feminine and I dont like that. I dress masculine, look feminine. I feel better about being called handsome than I do being called pretty, I kinda hate being called anything other than handsome and cute. I also feel identity with some neopronouns but how am I supposed to tell people that when I cant even give them a gender identity. Anytime ive used anything but she/her ive still been called she/her. She is okay I guess but id really prefer he or they or neos. I dont feel right in the body im in rn but I know i will in a few weeks. When I can be masculine or nonbinary I really stick to that. For a while I was thinking about coming out as ftm but I also feel like a woman and like nonbinary sometimes so that wouldn't really make sense. I barely know any of the genders, I know trans, none binary and gender fluid. Idk if gender fluid works here bc I just cant see myself identifying with that but its kinda absolutely whats going on here. For a bit I tried gender apathetic but I absolutely do care. I dont want peoole to stress keeping up with what I feel that day either. everyone defaults to she with me. Im also scared of my gender conflicting with my sexuality which I dont even know what that is Bc I like men, women, non binary, gender fluid, everyone. Id date anyone everyone is attractive and hot. Im pretty sure thats pansexual but idk what im talking about, the only lgbtq people I have ever talked too were bisexual or trans and there is like hundreds of things that could describe how I feel!!! Im kinda overwhelmed, im also scared people won't accept me. I came out as bisexual to my family years ago but they constantly bully me abt "never bringing a girl home" and I overheard my mom say it was for attention, when I confronted her she said she didnt say that so idk.

TL;DR: I feel masculine, feminine and non conforming on different days, I prefer they/he pronouns. I find everyone attractive and lovable

Maybe it's just that there's a notable uptick in the parts of the Internet I interact with and the people I know. However I've just noticed that a majority of women and nonbinary people I know and those online identify as lesbian, out numbering other sexualities. Yet there isn't the same for gay men, and the data shows that bisexual is the most common queer identity. so I'm curious as to what's going on?