Zoe Stoller

It's always challenging to exist in an environment where you know outright that people are not accepting of you, and to have to keep yourself hidden from that. I would say if you have to remain in that environment, it's important to find another environment to go outside of that where you can be yourself. Whether that is an in-person community or an online space, find a safe, accessible space where you can be truthful about who you are and not have to keep it fully inside. This way, you can better coexist as a safer, authentic version of yourself while you're forced to still be in this unsafe environment. Hopefully, there will be a time you can leave that environment, though that's not always possible for everybody. Some people are forced to remain in a toxic environment, so I'd say to supplement it with a place that does feel good.

It's always a challenge to have a crush on a friend who is (in theory) straight when you are not, especially if you are not quite sure where they stand. So many people have been through that experience. It's challenging because you have choices to make (you always have agency), but their choices might not always result in the best outcomes.

You could spare the friendship and keep this to yourself because you don't know whether the person, first of all, is queer, and second of all, if the person would want to be more than friends with you. Maybe they're content with the friendship, and you could risk ruining the friendship and or having an awkward hurdle to go over. It's possible the hurdle would not be insurmountable, but it would likely be an awkward moment.

You could share your feelings because you don't want to bottle up your feelings and keep them to yourself. For what it's worth, I would typically never advocate for bottling things up. You could share your feelings, but I think it's important to be aware of the risks.

I would recommend talking to other people around you, such as other trusted friends, and going through the possibilities with them. Weigh the pros and cons of bottling up your feelings or putting them out there. Once you've gone through those possibilities, I'd see which one feels most authentic to you and go from there.

"Agender" describes a gender identity that is either neutral or no gender whatsoever. It can be a variety of different things. The cool thing about gender identity, or the way we feel about ourselves and the way we label it with those words, is that it can be very different from the way that we present ourselves. In society, there's often that conflation of if you are a woman, then you dress femininely, and if you are a man, then you dress masculinely, and that's it. However, within any gender, but especially within the world of non-binary genders, there really are no rules. And so you can present in whatever ways feel best to your body. And by present, I mean, whatever clothes you wear, how you have your hair, how you speak, how you hold your body, everything like that. It can be in a way that society might perceive as traditionally masculine, and you get to decide how you feel about that perception in relation to your identity. You get to be the arbiter of that. I think it's great to dress and present in whatever ways feel best for your body, even if it doesn't match what society might think.

Non-binary is a broad gender and category of genders, which is lovely. It describes any gender identity that is outside of the strict binary of man and woman, in whatever way. So some non-binary people do connect with manhood or womanhood in some capacity, whether it's at all times or fluctuating. For example. I'm genderfluid, so my gender identity shifts and changes over time; sometimes I feel more connected to womanhood, and sometimes I feel more connected to manhood–sometimes I feel connected to neither. So it's completely possible for non-binary people to feel connected to the binary in some capacity. A lot of non-binary people also feel completely separate from the binary, whether that is through xenogenders and having a gender that uses language that is completely different from how we ascribe language to gender in our society, or whether that is through being agender. There are so many ways to be non-binary.

In that thread, it can be challenging to figure out if you are non-binary, because it's not one strict yes or no thing that you can answer. However, my biggest piece of advice would be to think about how your mind and body feel in reaction to being placed within whatever strict societal gendered box you find yourself placed in. For example, I was placed in the box of being a woman, and I always felt constricted, embarrassed and strange within that. It always felt wrong to me, and I couldn't quite articulate why. Later on, I was able to discover language like "non-binary" and "genderfluid", which really helped me understand who I am further. So, I'd suggest noticing that discomfort, and see if that leads you anywhere. But it's also possible that you might not have discomfort or dysphoria whatsoever. You might feel completely comfortable with the language around you and how you feel, and you just might want to use the label non-binary (or any other label), and that's completely fine as well.

It's hard when you have identified with one label, and have come to understand that label to be your sexuality based on your experiences, but then suddenly you have a shift in your experiences, and you have to come to reckon with that language. That's a challenging and unnerving experience. And, it's also a cool experience to be able to learn about what different identities are out there and find an identity and label that works for you.

It's not necessary to define and label your identity and your sexuality if that is not helpful to you at this point, or if it feels more stressful/harmful than helpful, then that is not a requirement.

But, if it feels like a label would be helpful in order to better understand yourself, then my suggestion is to read through the definitions of different labels, read through all the different sexualities, and read them out loud to yourself – see if any of the words stick out to you. Try saying, "I am bisexual" versus "I am gay" out loud or to your friends and see if it feels right or not. Oftentimes, you can get a sense of if a word feels right to you by being in tune with your body. You can also stick with one word for a little bit and then change the word if you find a word that feels better for you; it's totally up to you.