Letter

Since I started college, I’ve had time to talk to a bunch of different people and to learn about things I might not have been exposed to elsewhere. I’ve had time to think more about my own personal identity and how I want to express it. I’ve found groups of super supportive people that have helped me to see that what I was feeling wasn’t completely unheard of, that other people in similar situations have been able to accept themselves. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to be fully comfortable with myself if I didn’t tell my two biggest supporters something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and didn’t know how to say in person.

I know back in March I told you I was attracted to men, but that’s not really the whole of it. I’m attracted to men, women, and people who don’t identify as either. I’m what’s known as pansexual. I’m attracted to people of all genders (because it’s not really just men and women you know). I figured this out after realizing that after March and starting this semester, I would look at some people and just be entranced by how they looked and it wasn’t limited to just men, but some women and people who weren’t either, so I figured that it must have fewer limits on my attraction than I initially realized. I’ve spent basically since March thinking it over and trying to find a word to describe how I felt and pansexual fits what that means to me. This ultimately doesn’t change much, as being non-straight makes things annoying enough as is, but I just didn’t want you assuming what kind of people I would be attracted to when the reality is that it could be all kinds of people.

That brings me to my next thing. First, just so you don’t have to read my convoluted attempt at an explanation, I’d like you to read the information in the links below so you have a better idea of what I’m trying to say.

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-gender-identity

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/trans-and-gender-nonconforming-identities

All done? Thank you! Stuff surrounding gender identity is stuff I learned fairly recently through sources like Planned Parenthood and websites of LGBTQ organizations, so I figured they would be a better way to explain that than I would be.

You know that for many years I’ve taken more easily to things that would be considered traditionally feminine, such as cooking, playing with dolls, liking things that are flowery, and (possibly) talking to people, but I’ve also quite enjoyed things that are considered traditionally masculine, like LEGOs and Pokémon and (I guess?) Minecraft. Now there’s not much meaning that can be taken from that, but I think all those things are a result of how I have been feeling since very early on in school.

Storytime!

Since kindergarten, I realized that my interests didn’t really align with those of boys my age. They mostly talked about sports or video games, one of which I had no interest in and the other I had yet to be fully exposed to. That’s not to say I couldn’t relate to them at all, I just couldn’t relate to them as much as I was hoping. The same kind of thing happened with girls, but I think part of what held me back from trying to befriend girls was the weird reactions people had as well as the disinterest in some of the things a lot of girls my age liked. For example, I hated (and still hate) an overabundance of pink. It’s fine in small amounts, but the amount they put into girls’ toys is sickening. Anyway, that meant my friends were the kinds of people who had friends regardless of gender, that is once I got to the age where I had people I could consistently call friends. After I lost touch with Aldrich and Eleanor come 3rd grade, I didn’t have people I could consider friends until I met Josh, Vijay, Brian, Evan, Alex, and others in 5th and 6th grade (I already knew Joseph, Raymond, and Sruti from prior years but I didn’t befriend them until 6th grade). At that point, gender was irrelevant as interests kinda mixed, and I felt comfortable relating to people. That shifted once high school started, as I hung out more and more with Josh, Brian, Evan, and etc, who all were pretty masculine. I felt more of a disconnect with them, like the only thing holding us together was a shared history and similar interests without much else there. What I really wanted (and probably needed) was someone I could talk to freely about how I was feeling, which I didn’t feel I could do in the kind of environment that was my friend group. I sort of did that with Alex but as time went on I found that she was actually not a very good person so I lost the one friend I felt comfortable enough with to be open. That is probably why I spend so much time alone because I feel like there are so few people I can really connect with in a way that makes me feel comfortable.

So what did all this lead to? Well, when I went to the new student orientation over the summer, I learned that Rutgers is super aware of all things LGBTQ, and before my orientation leader met me he used gender-neutral pronouns (they/them/their) to refer to me. This concept is used by people to avoid misgendering people they haven’t met, as gender is not always obvious just by appearance. What was a simple courtesy though made me realize that I didn’t have to be limited to the pronouns I was assigned. The months over the summer that followed, I filled my endless amounts of time with research, looking up things about sexuality, gender, etc to better understand the kinds of things I knew I would be getting into come the fall. A few weeks in, after talking to tons of other LGBTQ people and getting more time to myself to figure things out, I realized something that was a long time coming.

I don’t feel like a boy. I don’t feel like a girl. Honestly, with all my research I’m still not sure what feeling a certain gender actually feels like. All I know is that I don’t feel like the gender binary defines me the way I want to express myself. Does this change who I am? No, because as I’ve tried to explain this is something I’ve been thinking about for most of my life.

I have felt really weird about not telling you this sooner, but I was scared of how you might react and what you would think. I know that these aren’t things you’re very familiar with, but they are things I’ve spent months researching and learning about through people I’ve met, so I know resources that can help you better understand what I’m talking about. I also know a great deal and I can do my best to explain what I know when you are ready to listen. Ultimately I don’t know exactly how you will react, but I hope that this will open up better communication between us in the future.

I love both of you with all my heart❤️

~Shaan