It was eighth grade when the rumors stated. They resulted in an endless barrage of questions, nasty jokes, and lost friendships. What was this horrible rumor that marked my middle school experience?

That I was a lesbian.

And back then, that was the worst thing to be. A lot has changed for me since then and yet there are still people who ask me if I'm gay. The main difference now is my answer. It changed from, "Oh my god, no! How could you think that?!" To a simple, "No." And if I'm feeling open or trust the person asking, I'll explain that I'm asexual. This shift happened for three reasons.

1. I realized that generally people are just curious (even though it's none of their business). They usually don't mean to be rude or insulting.

2. Even if they were trying to insult me, they did a horrible job. There is nothing wrong or offensive about being a lesbian.

3. I discovered my and became confident in my identity and stopped wondering if they were right. When I was still questioning my sexuality it was very hard to hear people that seemed to know what they were talking about telling me that there was something wrong with me and they knew the answer better than I did.

My experience has led me to understand a lot more about stereotypes and microaggressions that lesbians face. Once I stopped being offended, I began to understand some of the things that led to their assumptions and the effects they had on me.

I fit well into the classic lesbian stereotype, especially in middle school. I'd never had a boyfriend and didn't seem interested in pursuing one, kept my hair short and wore loose fitting clothes, loved baseball, and was very into choir. I preferred to hang out with boys and only had one close girl friend. She fit into a pretty similar stereotype. So the rumors were not just that I was a lesbian, but that the two of us were secretly dating.

This friend had an on-again-off-again boyfriend and rumors began flying that he was just her beard. These were especially harmful to their relationship because she had to constantly defend herself to him and her other friends. Our friendship was also strained because we felt we had to spend less time together to get people to stop assuming we were dating. These reactions were caused by repeated microaggressions. Comments we always heard included,

"How can you be friends when you are clearly attracted to each other?"

"You probably only like her because you can't get a boyfriend."

"Your parents still let you have sleepovers together?"

"I could never do that/ lie like that to my boyfriend."

"Why do you keep pretending you are straight when everyone knows you are gay?"

Most people were in disbelief of our "relationship" and "identities" despite the fact that they made them up. People were ready to throw labels on us and then assume they knew everything about us and those identities. This is incredibly oppressive because it gives cishets the power to define what an LGBTQ+ person looks like, what their relationships look like, and what their identity means. It in fact should be up to each individual to discover their identity and it should not be defined by stereotypes enforced by a cisheteronormative society.

I know that being mislabeled as a lesbian hurt me in discovering my identity. I began to wonder if they were right and there was something wrong with me. I was not open to learning about more identities because I was determined to be straight and prove them wrong. Being afraid of your identity or any LGBTQ+ identity is toxic for yourself and the community.

One thing I have learned since then is they your identity doesn't define you, you define your identity. The same is true for identities that others try to push on you. Only you can know who you are and what your identity means to you.