Well. I have a problem interesting observation about my attraction style*. Not only do I keep finding myself attracted to people who aren't attracted to me, but people who categorically are not attracted to me.

I'm NB but AMAB and androgynous looking enough and presenting to get kicked out of the men's bathroom on a semi regular basis (lol but not really - I need to pee!) but really most people assume I am male. My type has always been more tomboyish, androgynous but like 60-70% feminine women or nb afabs. Shorter hair, clear skin, no makeup, a few tasteful piercings, maybe don't even shave your armpits, general cottagecore vibes ranging to literal forest fairy.

The problem is they're all gay and one reason they dress like that is to attract other women lol

I do like people with different styles as well. I think it's just because I met another one I really liked yesterday who checked all the boxes and of course, they were a lesbian.

Does anybody else struggle with having a type that is totally incompatible with you?

edit: I think there's been some mistake based on the comments. I'm not saying I want wlw people to change their orientation and be attracted to me. And I'm not trying to fit into that either - I don't identify as a woman. I just wondered whether anyone relates to the fact, that in my case, I keep getting attracted to people often described as "dressing for the female gaze" while not being female myself.

edit 2: in case there is further misunderstanding this isn't a problem I'm looking to solve. I was talking to a friend who is female and tends to get attracted to gay men frequently. Just thought it was interesting and seeing if others related to getting attracted to signals that aren't meant for you

For LGBT+ students in Bangladesh, a single accusation can end their time at university. https://allout.lgbt/4z1TAoA

This year, students accused of being gay have had their phones searched, lost their dorm places, been expelled, and been handed over to police. At the University of Dhaka, one student says he was filmed by his own roommate. He was forced out of his dorm the same day, without being allowed to collect his belongings. In most cases, the punishment has come before anyone finishes investigating.

This happens because Bangladesh’s colonial-era law makes same-sex relations a crime, and universities are going further, acting as judges themselves.

But education is a human right, and that includes LGBT+ students. Students and activists in Bangladesh are fighting back, and All Out is standing with them. More than 12,000 people have already asked Bangladesh’s government to step in.

Join them! Sign the petition: https://allout.lgbt/4z1TAoA

İ have a question i am a very new bisexual and i am proud of it and i am more interested on lgbtq community than ever how do i know i am queer person to my research queer is like umbrella type thing which puts everything please i would love to be a queer person

so i’ve been crushing on this girl , we’re friends , we’re always making romantic, sexual gay jokes , but now i found out she’s straight. i know she has a boyfriend (i wasn’t interested in making any moves ș since ik she’s in a relationship) but i thought if she ever breaks up with him and when she’s over him i could shoot my shot. she was telling me a story and this topic came on and i finally asked her sexuality and she said “i’ll say straight “ and that her only queer interaction was her ex odd codependent friendship. i don’t understand why she’s always making weird jokes like she wants to see me naked or making sex jokes if she’s strraught. am i doomed

I’m having a queer existential crisis. I’m a pansexual, AFAB non-binary. I know sexuality and gender are both a spectrum. I’ve begun to question whether I’m not a gay (maybe still pan) trans-man. I recently stumbled onto mlm smut and it turns me on more than wlw smut. I’ve always imagined myself with a penis but I love my breasts. So I don’t see myself transitioning. At the moment I have a crush on cis women. So my confusion is deep. If anyone has similar stories or any insight on this queer experience, please share.

​

I need some advice from some fellow LGBTQ people. Burner account because I don't want my friends seeing this. I get sexuality is a fluid thing, attraction is weird and complicated, but I just don't know what I'm feeling. I have identified as a lesbian, full stop, since middle school. I think men can be nice to look at but never ever was I actually attracted to them. I was good with this for eight years, I'm out to all my friends and family, they're aware I'm fully gay, with no wiggle room. Here arrives my problem.

I met a guy at a shop I frequent and we've become friends, we have a ton in common, and I absolutely love talking to him. He's definitely physically attractive, but he's so interesting and kind, and I find myself having a great time whenever I see him. At first I thought it was just friendship because he is really awesome, but I think I've started to develop a crush. It's strange, I've never been attracted to any man before, and he's not even a slightly feminine looking guy, he's tall and has facial hair. I'm so confused and don't know what to do. I've been in lots of relationships with women, and I often occupy the more masculine role in the relationship, but I've been getting more in touch with my feminine side, and figuring out my relationship to womanhood.

I'm also worried about my friends reactions, I've always been so strictly lesbian, I know they would all be absolutely shocked. I'm scared of telling them and then realizing I was wrong and I don't actually like him. I never thought coming out as attracted to men would be harder than coming out as attracted to women.

What do I do? Do I tell my friends or wait to figure out what I'm feeling? Do I get closer to him? How does one even approach a relationship with a man? I've never kissed a guy or anything, what are the rules or conventions? I don't even know what his sexuality is, he might be gay. What would I even do then?

I'm feeling confused and conflicted and any input on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

I am a 26 year old lesbian living in Bangladesh. Being a lesbian is already illegal here. I have never met a queer person in real life or don't know any online community for bangladeshi queer people. Most online places I am in are for international queer people.

So people living in homophobic countries; how to you find your people in real life? Or even online?

I want some recommendations, I’ve got plenty of movies to watch but I want shows

Preferably the main character is queer in some way, but it doesn’t have to be a romance

I'm a 15-year-old girl and I've been lesbian for as long as I can remember. I live in a really homophobic country with strict Muslim parents, and lately I've been feeling so hopeless. My mom keeps talking about me getting married to a good man, and even though I love her and don't want to disappoint her, it feels so toxic.
Sometimes I almost convince myself to just give up and go along with it, even though I know that's not what I want. And I know I won't end up marrying a man. And I also know that I have to be financially independent and all that before ever thinking of coming out or anything.

I find so much comfort in hearing about other people's coming out stories the good and the bad ones. It makes me feel so much less alone, and it gives me hope that if other people made it through and built a life for themselves, I can too.
If you've ever moved out or came out, I'd really love to hear your story. I desperately want to know how it actually felt when you finally left a homophobic place behind and could just be yourself fully without people constantly up your ass about it.

Also, for anyone who's been to a Pride event, what was it like being surrounded by those huge crowds flooding the streets during Pride month?
How did that feel for the first time?

Any stories or perspective would mean the world right now.

I (21F) have never really understood romantic attraction. For a good majority of my childhood, I had never had crushes on either genders and the one "crush" I did have was more so a label I had assigned to a random dude because I thought I had to have a crush on a boy.

When I got older, I started having talking stages with guys that I'd thought I'd liked (as in we just got along well) but they never went anywhere further than that because the moment it seemed like it could go somewhere and the guy started openly showing he liked me, I would start getting random irrational icks out of nowhere and the idea of talking to the guy would suddenly disgust and irritate me. I genuinely thought this just meant the comphet was getting me and I didn't actually have any attraction to men at all, which kind of made sense at the time because I had never really found any of them physically attractive, I just liked talking to them.

On the other hand, I've always thought women were physically attractive and there were times I was really obsessed with certain girls but never gave it too much thought. I likened this to actually having romantic feelings for them at the time but never acknowledging it until then, so for a moment of time I had considered myself to be a lesbian. The thing was, even though I continued to have these crushes and obsessions with girls, they were all at a very surface level and never grew deeper. I mostly just liked the way they looked and their general vibe (I never actually had a crush on a close friend, it was always unattainable girls I barely knew) which was ironically the complete opposite reason for my male crushes.

So now I'm just confused because I don't know if any of those crushes, male or female, were real anymore. I don't know if I like guys, girls, both, or neither. I can find all of them attractive in their own ways but I've also never liked any one of them enough to want to date them. The only recent turn of events was that I started to find guys physically cute too but same thing happens where I just start to lose all interest the moment they reciprocate. In theory I would really love to date a girl but I've never actually met a girl that I've truly liked for both her looks and her personality before, most of my crushes were just fantasies I made up in my head and projected onto them without truly knowing them.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this before??? And can someone please explain to me what romantic attraction is supposed to feel like because I'm so lost 😭😭😭😭😭 Thank you for reading I would really appreciate all thoughts and any kind of advice because I'm starting to get tired of my loveless life 😭😭😭😭

Hi I'm 21 M living in Germany , and like the title states, I'm trapped within a homophobic household. Now , you must be thinking "oh but you're 21 you're an adult you can just leave" nope not true, I can't just up and leave. I don't have the finances for it, morally I'm stuck here. My parents are in their mid 40s and are continually gaining more and more health issues and I know that if I was to leave right now they'd get worse but also my siblings would struggle as well and it would just be a huge unnecessary strain on the family. However , my parents keep annoying me about getting an arranged marriage like 24/7 and it's getting to a point where I know I don't have long left before it's a reality. It's a huge culture issue as well

I hope my post is good w/ the guildelines of this sub. I just need some help from ppl who figured their labels out 🥲.

All of my life I labeled myself that Im an aroace (on the spectrum being demiromantic and I think aegosexual to be specific), but not that long time ago I started thinking about my romantic attraction, since Ig I can feel it a little. Ive tried doing it on my own with my own research, but I need help and I cannot ask anyone in rl.

I always wanted to be in a relationship, but could never really picture myself in one. I never had a crush (other than "celeb crushes") never kissed, never dated etc etc. Pda and kissing kinda disguist me, but seldom I have a feeling that I'd like to kiss someone (if that makes sense).

The real problem is that I dont know who im attracted to. [I think of myself as genderless but for disclosure, Im AFAB].

I think that both men and women are attractive, but when it comes to men, I always found feminine men to be more attractive- lanky builds, longer hair, (little to) no facial hair. Every celeb guy I liked had to be "pretty" in my eyes, not "handsome". When it comes to women, I never had a woman celeb crush, but theres a lot of girls around me irl that I consider very pretty (in comparison to only 2 or 3 guys).

Also recently I made a guy friend that l talk to and hung out with, but since hes a guy, Im super awkward with him. And just because we are both dif genders, Im being asked by a lot of ppl if that hang out was intended as a date, which kinda annoys me. I never really could have a "connection" with men, I always prefered my friends to be women. I had only 2 guy friends in my entire life that I hung out with outside of school and never 1on1, there was always one or more friends w us that were girls. Thats why I think that if I had to be in a relationship, Id prefer it to be a woman.

Am I just hetero, bi, homo or what im looking for isnt a romantic relation but a platonic instead?

I'd love someone to help me w this.

I can answer any questions or provide more info if needed. 🙏

I recently realised I am attracted to women, and can't seem to figure out if I have feelings for my best friend or not. Neither of us really define our sexuality, and our relationship is a little odd in the sense that we've always been best friends but I've always been very jealous of her, especially in terms of friendships with other women. I am now realising that may have been jealousy? Either way, the thought of being anything more than friends with her makes me uncomfortable, but to be perfectly honest the thought of any relationship in a romantic and/or sexual scope makes me deeply uncomfortable, so it may just be a maturity thing. She's also always been a little distant - she is one of my best friends and I know her really well, but one of these things I "know" so well is how she will never truly be totally 100% comfortable with/around anyone, and will always keep to herself just a little bit. As of late, ever since I began to have such doubt about the true nature of our friendship, hanging out with her has always been a little bit awkward (to me atleast). I don't know what to do with myself, feel embarrassed and self conscious in a way I don't remember feeling before. To be honest, I have always been just a little bit obsessed with her growing up, but I always assumed it was my own insecurities playing out over how she was me but cooler, smarter, prettier, and better. And perhaps it was? Female friendships are so complicated! I really don't know, any advice would be of great help. Or anyone who is able to ask me the right questions to get this sorted out in my head. I hate the anxiety and dread I now feel when anticipating meeting her, I wish I could just be normal about this!!

Very proud of the lyrics and final sound! Appreciate any listens 💜 Making music has been very empowering for me! Will be active in the comments if anyone cares for discussion(:

---

Codependent and upended, qualified for a new lease

‘Nother day, going on a date with a dime piece

Running late, send a text- she doesn’t mind, please

Step out the car, wings on point, yeah that sounds like me

Dozen texts left on read, yeah I’ll hit you up soon

Say I’m busy, but I’ll ‘prolly just stay in my room

Work hard, play hard-

Think about me too long and you just might get-

Just kidding, no need for me to take it that far

Bow down and shut the fuck up cuz you stand before the czar

Spending money making money, like a good capitalist pig

Some on rent, some on bills, some on nails, makeups, wigs

Calling out the next fucker that looks at me funny

Brain dead, shriveled lobes if you think that I’ma let you run me

No worries- cuz you ‘bout to get a glow up of a lifetime

Please step through the door, there's a spot just for you primed

When I sit you in that chair, crank the dial see the

Voltage soar

N’ play that shit like I’m tryna get a new

Fucking highscore

When I sit you in that…

Ooo when I sit you in that…

Ooo when I sit you in that-ah…

Ooo

When I sit you in that chair, crank the dial see the

Voltage soar

Play that shit like I’m tryna get a new

Fucking highscore

Watch your eyeballs blow up like an asteroid from my missiles

Now where do I get to type in my initials?

Oh please, I’ve seen better people put people to death for less

Ew gross, you got your innards on my dress

Now I hope your’e listening- your’e about to get the best part

Ten years in a coma like a chrysalis in your backyard

Now the matriarch emerges like a No Kings March

Aged like fine wine, all bottled up and in the dark

Now I’m full-bodied; sweet, but with undertones of tart

A backbone, complex, a finish that lasts in your mouth

Twirl me ‘round, see the long legs that are pronounced

Bring it to the party and it’s what everyone's gonna talk about

Hope you're feeling what I’m feeling but I mean like

How I’m feeling right now

Self assured, know your worth ‘cuz sometimes

You’ll feel trapped underground

Certified killer, I’m the winner- dripped in blood stained gold

Summit of life feeling empty when I’m up here all alone

But a frozen hand feels better - and you can put that in a quote

When I’m dead and buried gonna need a gravegem not a stone

Someone who ships characters that aren't LGBTQIA+, doesn't have a confirmed sexuality, or doesn't have any relationship with the LGBTQIA+ community together in a queer sense or ship.

Queershipping is the action.

Queership (adjective/noun).

Queershipping may also be non-fictional as long as it's not assumptions or making someone uncomfortable. Non-fictional queerships are advised to be an inside joke but idrc to be honest.

I'll lowk use this to ship homophobes together in my head. Mwehehehe >:3

I really want to come out to my parents i know they will accept me(i am bi) but i am just afraid they will view me differently and something will change and i feel like i cant tell them

Heyyo, I'm relatively newly out to myself and still exploring different labels but thats a post for another time. Essentially, I'm AMAB and have had a beard for going on 5ish years now but given recent revelations I wanna try and lean more into an effeminate (or straight up fem) side to test the waters and see how it feels.

My main issue, ofc, is the beard. Is there any reasonable way I could style myself to still chase that feeling? w/o shaving it away in its entirety.

I will add, from what I've read up on thats sparked this post, going through and actually ridding of it is a big (arguably beneficial) step forward but, yk, is a difficult step 😅

I've spent the last year doing a lot of thinking about femininity, attraction, identity, and self-expression. I'm a middle-aged guy who has become increasingly comfortable with a softer, more feminine side of myself, and I'm realizing I'm often attracted to femininity regardless of gender.

Not necessarily looking for a perfect label. Just curious whether anyone else started this journey later in life and what helped you understand yourself.

I am omnisexual and just had my first male crush I am Omni he is gay we are both male what do I do

Okay, so this like my first post ever.

Basically this is me asking for relationship advice (or non-relationship advice?) while also expressing my frustrations with my romantic identity.

I know this is just BS teenager stuff, but I don’t have anyone I can talk to about it so here I am.

I am in high school, though I won’t specify my age, for privacy reasons. I’m also trans (MtF), which may seem irrelevant, but I promise it’s not.

I’ve known I was trans for a very long time. I’m talking like, from ages ten and up. And luckily, (and I cannot stress how lucky I am), I grew up in a very accepting community so all I’ve ever had was support in that regard. Though, I do think I fall more on the nonbinary spectrum but that’s neither here nor there. She/Her pronouns just fit the closest, yk?

I’ve also always been open about my sexuality, too. I’ve always identified as aroace. I’ve never felt a pull towards liking men, women, or anybody else for that matter. Mind you, this is well into puberty too. That’s not until recently, though.

Recently I’ve had this pull in my chest. Or, like, a deep heavy feeling when I see someone. It’s usually guys, or really anyone my brain perceives as a guy. (That is to say at first glance, obvi if they’re not then I’d use their pronouns). I’m pretty sure this lines up with me starting estrogen. Ever since I have, I’ve been having those feelings, those pulls towards other people.

That’s all well and good, right? Like, on paper. Except I find that feeling kind of terrifying. As a trans person, I’ve always known that there are inherent risks with dating. I’ve been flirted with many times, but I essentially run away. I’m scared that they think I’m a cis girl, and that when they find out I’m not then shit will get real. I’m talking like jumped in the parking lot for “tricking” somebody. Or, on the other side, someone will like me only because I’m a trans girl. Chasers, right? People who seek out trans woman to satisfy their fetishes or whatever.

It’s like all the complexities of dating in high school but ten times more dangerous or difficult. It’s like:

“Am I actually attracted to this person?” + “would they be attracted to me?” + “If they are, how would they react to the fact that I’m trans?” + “would I be in danger?” + having to explain to every person I know and love that “hey, I’m not actually aroace and I actually do want somebody in my life. Surprise!”

Well, all of that, coupled with all the normal insecurities that come with dating. You know like “am I hot enough?”, “would anyone actually like my personality enough to date me?”, etc etc.

Do you get that? Couple it with the fact that I’m only just now experiencing these things, only just now questioning myself after all these years. Everyone I know is so sure of themselves and their sexuality it feels like I’m five steps behind them. I know that’s kind of a bad way to think, and I know that’s kind everyone is always figuring themselves out, but that’s what it feels like.

It’s somehow terrifying, confusing, and fucking exhilarating. All of those things. Wrapped up in a big bundle of frustration. Because that’s what it is, frustration.

I know I’m not aroace. That’s just a lie I’ve been telling myself because I’m too afraid to admit the truth, and all that comes with it. It’s kind of funny how instead of a queer person pretending they’re straight, it’s a queer person pretending they’re another form of queer.

I don’t know, I just wanted to voice my problems. Maybe receive some advice. Like, I know this is all probably just hormones being released by the estrogen, but just because that’s true doesn’t make the problem any less real. It is hormones, yeah, but it’s also my identity. The very thing I’ll struggle with for the rest of my life.

I’m supposed to do like a summary right? A TLDR or whatever?

TLDR: I’ve convinced myself I was aroace for years, but after taking estrogen I’ve been feeling attracted to people. Please bring help. Or a gun.

First 3 songs have pretty varying vibes.

This song is quite loud/ hard.

But give the others a peak if this isn't quite your forté maybe 👀

Hi so recently I changed my Bumble dating app to only see women and non binary people as I am a pan cis woman. Unfortunately I haven’t had any luck :/ unlike my matches with cis men. I have spaticy Cerebral Palsy and I use a power wheelchair and have a speech impediment. Has anyone who is queer and has the SAME type of cerebral palsy as me had any luck finding a queer partner??

Last few days I’ve been struggling a lot with my identity/sexuality to the point I’m not doing very well mentally. Actually I’m at my lowest I’ve ever been.

I’m 33 and I never really put labels on myself because I’ve been confused about it my whole life. I’ve never felt like a woman but I never had the thought of changing my body (like hormones or surgery). I feel more like I don’t have a gender or I’m leaning more towards the male side. But I always labeled myself as a cis woman because I don’t have the courage to tell anyone.

And I currently met a trans man and it opened something in me. I remember growing up and hating having boobs. At 18 I had an eating disorder but I never wanted to be skinny. I wanted to look more like myslef. But I ended up in a state where my mind went “If I can’t look the way I want to, I rather not look like anything”. This sent me into a spiral. I started antidepressants and gained a lot of weight. And I went from one extreme to another. I started feeling “safe” in being fat because I felt like it’s not my body anymore and I completely dissociated from it.

So I started reconnecting with myself again and I feel really bad about what I’ve done to my body and how I enetered this self-destructive, self-harming cycle that now makes it even more difficult for me to have hope I’ll ever look the way I feel inside.

I feel really lonely because it’s hard for me to say out loud “I don’t feel like a woman” when I clearly look like one.

Has anyone ever experienced this? Especially the part about weightloss/weightgain?

Thx

With National Coming Out Day come and gone, I've (33M) been reflecting on my own coming out to my family, and how shitty its been with them since. I hadn't intended to come out on on that day specifically, two years ago, but I realized a couple of days after that I had, so the rough date has stuck with me.

Coming out as bi to my parents wasn't great. They are deeply conservative Catholics living in a tiny, nearly all-white village in the Midwest. The very first thing my dad said was "We love you, but we're Catholic, and that's not changing" and kept emphasizing how he didn't want to change. Mom was mostly silent. I have a much younger brother, who I was very close with, almost a second father. They said they needed to think and talk about it before I could tell him. They decided, at 14, that he was too young to be "talking about sex" and that I couldn't tell him.

Things became really terrible when my mom found out about my partner (33M). I was visiting my parents one weekend, and was dreading telling them. He and I had been seeing each other for a couple months and were getting serious (we are still together, and very happy). He is a queer-focused therapist, pagan, and polyamorous, all things I knew wouldn't sit well with my family. I had wanted to date people like him for some time, but had for years convinced myself to take it slow with how "out there" a potential partner was - avoiding overtly queer people I thought might "offend" my family. The fact was, though, my worldview was and is similar to his, and I admire his work. Moreover, my parents were already making no space for me to be my authentic self at family gatherings, so why not date for me instead of them?

I tried to limit how many details I gave them at first, hoping to ease them into the other details later. The only identifying details they had at that point were his first name and place of work. Mom got to work on Google quickly, and within a couple of hours of my leaving, called me, at nearly 11 p.m. on a work night, and tore into me. She said, flat out, that my younger brother could never know about this, that my partner would never work out with the family, and that she hoped I'd figure out "where my loyalties are."

The next day, she texted me and asked to stop over my apartment. I was, understandably, very hesitant, but eventually agreed. She stayed outside my door when she arrived, gave me a letter, telling me that she wanted to deliver it in-person and that she had been praying and felt this was what she needed to say. That letter is below, and it confuses me as much now as it did then. It doesn't address anything of substance. Most of the memories are from before I was 20, before I lost my Catholic faith, something my parents never really forgave.

On the note of losing my faith, I had tried for years to reassure them I was still part of the family. I tried to be present, to help out at family gatherings, to help out with my aging grandparents, to be part of their lives. I saw how weak my relationship with my father was and got set up with him to take weekly walks on our lunch breaks from work. It stung to think that accomplished so little. Not only were almost all of mom's happy memories in that letter from before my 20s, but my dad flat out told me, in the few months of troubles after learning about my partner, that he missed the person I used to be before losing faith - the person who had kept showing up for family gatherings, made dinners for the family, cared for our grandparetns, was the only grandchild to be present with grandpa the moment he died. I had kept my liberal (increasingly leftist) political beliefs private, had kept my lack of religion private, tried hard for years not to cause a scene even when my more extremist MAGA family members spoke freely and spewed some really offensive things to me. Now all I can think is I never should have bothered shrinking myself for these people.

We are largely estranged now. I haven't spoken with my parents in over half a year, nor my other siblings. I just feel sad today. I've been thinking a lot about my gender identity. I think there is a very good chance that I am trans, and I know my family will be horrible about that if they ever find out - everything they've had to say on that subject has been awful through the years.

I’m not exactly sure if this is the correct subreddit for this but I feel like it is. I am currently in cosmetology school and my two closest friends are pretty alternative and also queer (one lesbian, one bisexual). I myself am a lesbian and very loud about it but my whole life in the space (Dance) I grew up in have been bullied for how emo, weird, alternative etc. I was. Now, however, I am the basic one who’s not alternative? My question really is: am I alternative or not? I have always considered myself to be, I have tattoos, facial piercings, colored hair. I wear pretty heavy eyeliner when I do my makeup, and these are things I find to be just my style. I also probably have the most leftist/alternative political views/ideologies out of the people I know. For example I will not shop fast fashion or in major chains if possible, I protest, I am very socialist, to name a couple. But because I am not really emo goth or grunge or into heavy metal rock music I am “basic”? I’m not really upset if I am it’s just a conflicting label with what I’ve felt my whole life now that I have queer friends and more of the queer community telling me otherwise.
Thank you for reading and any advice is appreciated!