Alexander Lustig

I’m a guy currently attending high school in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’m an animal lover, a computer enthusiast, a digital artist, a musician, interested in zoology, a webcomic/comic book/manga reader, and a lover of cartoons and animation. I’m also transgender and bisexual. Some of my favorite things to watch and read are: Homestuck, Neon Genesis Evangelion, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Scott Pilgrim series, the books of Osamu Dazai, Adventure Time, and other things.

Heh, I’m not sure if this is a "define your sexuality" thing or something more poetic, but I’m bad at eloquence, so I’m just gonna go ahead and say that: bisexuality means finally embracing myself as I’ve been for as long as I can remember after a lifetime of people telling me I was something else. Also, I’m attracted to my own and other genders.

I would like people to know that we exist- I want people to realize that there are people who aren’t gay OR straight, that bisexual people aren’t "greedy", "promiscuous", or "evil" because of being bisexual. We aren’t a plot device to make stories seem more edgy, we aren’t "the bad kind of not-straight person", we aren’t a phase. We are real, legitimate people who don’t fit into the gay/straight dichotomy, and we have a right to a place in this world.

When I was in sixth grade and began developing romantic feelings towards others, I noticed that I wasn’t attracted to any one gender. I hid this and stuffed it down so far that when I attempted to come out to someone in high school, she thought that I was just lying because (at this point in time I wasn’t transitioned) shed only seen me date men. This made me upset and made me shove it down again, until I began dating a female friend of mine and the time had come to come out to my parents. My mom was very supportive of me; her fiancée is bisexual as well, so she understands. My biological mother, however, claimed she thought I was "really only into girls" and forced me to believe I was just that until after I began my gender transition. At first I kept calling myself straight, but that wasn’t right, I was attracted to people of my gender as well as those of non binary genders; I became frustrated by this, and self identified as just "queer" for a very long time (I didn’t like the label of pansexual for me for personal reasons) until I read some things bisexual people had written about being bisexual and, voila, I realized that I was home, and I never really want to leave again.

The toughest thing for me is the combination of erasure from being bisexual and being trans. Many people assume trans men in particular are automatically straight- because "why would anyone wanna transition to be gay, am I right?". This is not only incorrect but really hurtful. Oftentimes when I come out to people in spaces for men who like men I am met with a lot of disdain- even from other bisexual men (albeit cisgender ones). I feel like I’m unwelcome in my own spaces a lot of the time because of the way I came to be my gender, which is really upsetting.

The best thing is finally accepting myself- and, admittedly, confusing monosexuals by dating pretty much anybody and being avoidant when asked if I’m gay or straight and left with no other options for an answer.

My mom is really supportive of me, and everyone else seems to not really know what’s going on but, luckily enough for me, the gender thing has them distracted so much already they can’t remember to pass judgement, ha.