This blog post is very important to me, so please read it fully and take it in. Let me know if you have any questions or want to talk about this more. Even though I know that you'd love me no matter how I identify myself, I just know that I needed to convey this message to you in some way.
As I've gotten older and have lived separately from you both, I have changed and grown in so many ways and understood myself better. I have even surprised myself as I've gotten to know who I really am. This is me disclosing to you only one part of myself, but a very important part of who I am. This part has to do with my sexual orientation and gender. I do not like to label myself, but sometimes labels help to explain myself to you.
When it comes to who I am attracted to, I identify as "pansexual." This might be a word that you have never heard of before. A lot of people haven't heard of it. To me, pansexual means that I do not care if the person I fall in love with is a man, a woman, or someone in between or neither, I love who I love and have found myself attracted to those who aren't just men. This is similar to "bisexual" if you have heard of that.
You might be wondering how I know that I'm pansexual if I have only dated men. Well, it's like me asking Daddy how he knew he liked women if he never dated them or asking Mommy how she knew she liked men if she never dated them. I just felt it deep down in my soul and found myself becoming attracted to all sorts of people growing up.
When it comes to gender and being feminine or masculine, I am a mixture of both and do not like referring to myself as either female or male. I remember Mommy often calling me a boy when I was younger or saying that I wasn't acting very ladylike. This is because I am not a traditional lady and I want you to love me no matter how I present myself. For example, sometimes I may enjoy and look like this:
As I'm sure you've both noticed, we are living in a world where the traditional norms of romantic relationships and marriage are changing. People are becoming more accepting of those who are different from tradition, but there is also still a lot of hate out there. It's like when interracial marriages used to be "illegal" and unacceptable. I want to be a part of a family of love and acceptance, so I need your support to do that. I do not know if we want or need to share this information with the rest of our family members. For example, I don't know if your parents will accept and understand this (I know people like Grandma Angie are very traditional and religious), but I just felt called to tell you both about this because your support means the world to me.
I love you both and thank you for allowing me to love and stick to what I believe in and to always be true to myself.
Love your daughter,
Erica