"Even as a girl, my stomach always fluttered around girls" When did you realize you were attracted to your own gender?

When – as a boy – I mentioned several times at school that Henry Cavill was way too hot to be Superman, someone asked me, "What, are you gay?" That question stuck with me all day and even kept me awake at night. I thought about which celebrities I had crushes on, and they were all men. So the next morning, I told the guy that my answer to his question was probably yes, "I am gay."

For a long time, I thought I was a boy because at school I always wanted to impress the girls. I was 12 when I saw a music video where two women kissed, and in that moment, I realized that liking girls didn’t mean I had to be a boy—I was simply a lesbian.

Strangely, I always thought I was a straight man, until a hallucinogenic trip brought a mini-enlightenment that maybe that wasn’t true. I started wondering if I might be bisexual, and it took another four years of self-reflection to accept that I love boys.

I grew up in a religious family and held conservative values all my life. I never openly rejected homosexuality (unlike many closeted gay men who overcompensate), but I always saw it as a rebellious phase, like "they just don’t know what to do with themselves." After two divorces and three kids, at 52, I realized I love women. After my second divorce, I didn’t want men in my life anymore—no more relationships.

Out of curiosity, I joined a psychodrama group where I met a woman my age who introduced me to her girlfriend. That’s when it clicked: this isn’t just young people figuring things out, but a real, natural part of life. Therapy helped me release all the suppressed feelings and desires. It was incredibly freeing to finally find myself and be who I truly am.

Maybe I sensed something as a kid—I remember asking my parents if two girls could get married, and they said no. But in eighth grade, I fell so hard for a new (girl) classmate that my stomach fluttered and my hands trembled every time I saw her. Still, it took 15 more years to accept and come out as gay.

In Fortnite, the character Hybrid has the only round butt I liked, so at 13, I searched on the PlayStation 3 internet for "boys kissing boys." I had never seen that before—only boys kissing girls—and I wondered if it was just in my head. Seeing those pictures reassured me it was real. That’s when I decided I’d become the world’s first openly gay pro gamer.

When I was 24, I looked at a girl and thought, wow, she’s beautiful. After that, I never saw women the same way again. I stopped admiring girls from the outside and wanted to be part of that admiration.

I kissed girls while drunk and high so much that in the end, I "stayed that way," and men no longer interested me.

At a non-gay club, I’d had a bit too much to drink when my eyes met a handsome guy’s in the bathroom. He came over, kissed me, then left—and I never saw him again. I lived in denial for two more years after that.

Thanks to a heteronormative society, I wanted the world to see me as a boy—even though I was a girl—and I did everything to make that happen. I got upset if called a girl because deep down I knew I loved girls, but I thought only boys loved girls, so I convinced myself I was a boy. Interestingly, I found it easier to accept being born in the wrong body than that girls could love girls.

Photos: istockphoto.com