Profile: Leo
You can call me… Leo.
I identify as… Female-to-genderqueer-to-confused-to-male-to-genderqueer-to-nothing-boi-to-myheadisgonnaexplode, etc., etc., etc..
As far as third-person pronouns go, … choose your own adventure! I’ve been using male pronouns lately, but I kind of like the idea of letting trans-friendly people that know me choose the pronouns they that feel are most fitting for me.
I’m attracted to… outside-of-the-box thinking, voices of reason, absurdity, kindness, tolerance, outcasts, freckles, and charmingly crooked teeth. Sometimes I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?
I want people to understand… my gender identity is somewhat fluid, and I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it out.
About Leo
Leo is an introverted 24-year old kid residing in Brooklyn, NY. He works as a speech-language therapist at an elementary school and often exists in a haze of sleepiness. He spends way too much time on the internet, especially via Livejournal.
» Define yourself. «
Category: profiles 24 comments »
July 7th, 2010 at 4:34 pm |
“Female-to-genderqueer-to-confused-to-male-to-genderqueer-to-nothing-boi-to-myheadisgonnaexplode, etc., etc., etc..”
i know the feeling.
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July 7th, 2010 at 7:10 pm |
Neat!
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July 7th, 2010 at 8:37 pm |
Are…are you me? The confusion, the excessive LiveJournal, the inability to tell attraction from…envy? Whatever, I know what you mean. :)
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July 7th, 2010 at 8:40 pm |
“I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?”
Well, maybe, but I think slash hope it might be common in transfolk… I spent the first five years of my sexual maturity in relationships that I can now see to be more based on appropriation than attraction. But.. I got a lot of good makeup tips.
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July 7th, 2010 at 10:00 pm |
that attraction vs. envy thing is the way i feel all the time
i can very rarely tell the difference anymore D:
also, you’re quite adorable.
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July 8th, 2010 at 1:11 am |
The attraction thing is pretty relate-able. Other then that… just keep on rocking at life. (:
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July 8th, 2010 at 2:40 am |
Could’ve been me in that photo.. The gender-confusion, the attraction/envy-confusion, haze of sleepiness, too much internet… Me in a nutshell!
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July 8th, 2010 at 5:57 am |
“Sometimes I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?”
Through most of my teens I kept thinking I was gay, then 2nd guessing myself by thinking that maybe I just wanted to be that person..
10+ years later I’ve allowed myself to just feel what I feel for what it is. Publicly admitting & acting on these feelings helped me to believe that I really am gay & yes I am actually attracted to these people.
I don’t find it creepy.. but I may be a tad biased ;)
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July 8th, 2010 at 6:24 am |
Like, it seems, many others on here, I relate to quite a lot of this, from the head-explodey gender to the love of freckles. I too find it hard to separate attraction and envy/idolization. I hope it does more to inspire me to be kinder/stronger/more patient etc. than to compromise my individuality and leave me with a wardrobe that shifts like some sort of creepy chameleon.
On an entirely different note, my love and respect to you for being a speech therapist. I had a really horrible rhotacism growing up which left me inexpressibly (literally, ha) frustrated for a lot of my childhood. I think I was bound to be an introvert in any case, but that was a pretty surefire way to produce a quiet dreamy kid. It was only corrected through years of speech therapy, during which I remember being an uncooperative little brat from time to time.
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July 8th, 2010 at 7:50 am |
Haha, your identification is great!!
And: it’s totally not creepy to sometimes not know whether you are attracted to a person or whether you want to be that person. I REALLY know that feeling. My answer to that was/is, that I actually would like to be more / look more like that person.
Thanks for the entry ;)!
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July 8th, 2010 at 8:15 am |
Wow. It’s very… nice to see that you all also feel the attraction/envy thing! No one else I’ve ever known has been able to understand what I meant when I said that.
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July 8th, 2010 at 9:07 am |
Even though everyone else has already said it, I can completely, totally, 100% agree with:
“I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?”
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July 8th, 2010 at 9:55 am |
I’d love to be my partner, who is good at everything I can’t do. Sometimes I think I’m kept around to reach things off high shelves.
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July 8th, 2010 at 11:30 am |
Envy / attraction conundrum rings so true. Recently told my partner how much I envied her femininity. I think I spooked her a little, but it’s good to know it’s not just me feeling that. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Good luck to you in all you do.
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July 8th, 2010 at 12:56 pm |
Wow, so glad to know other people feel the attraction vs. envy problem. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the whole reason I’m not comfortable being a regular girly girl. Now I wonder, do non-genderqueer people have the same problem?
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July 8th, 2010 at 2:43 pm |
Perhaps it only happens to authors, but it happens quite often to them, ergo and based upon all contemporary and classic literature, I’d have to conclude that many different people feel just exactly these kinds of confused feelings.
We have so many unofficial barriers to love and affection: the person must only be of this narrow age range, they must be this sex or have these physical characteristics, they must find these things important and be able to ignore these others. Considering how many barriers we erect between us, it is a wonder actual love ever breaks out.
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July 8th, 2010 at 6:27 pm |
Nothing I can really say here that no one else hasn’t already said, but word to the El Jay!
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July 9th, 2010 at 1:04 pm |
“Sometimes I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?”
I didn’t think anyone else felt this way, but, judging by comments, it’s clearly common, which makes me feel less alone but all the more abnormal because it’s liberatingly exhilarating officially identifying with an off-kilter group of people.
Sometimes run-on sentences are suitable.
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July 9th, 2010 at 1:22 pm |
Society’s rules of conduct remind me of what Mark Twain said about the rules of German grammar. He said for every rule of German grammar there are “more exceptions to the rule than instances of it.”
People get so uptight because they stray (or someone else strays) from the normal. Trouble is, we’re taught that about 2% of human feelings and behavior is normal and the 98% is aberrant. Whereas in actual fact there’s more like 98% of regular human feelings and behavior that is normal and experienced regularly by most people in similar circumstance.
David Attenborough called humans the “Compulsive Communicators” but I sometimes think of us as compulsive concealers. We hide the truth – or hide from the truth – at every twist and turn of life and end up where we began, knowing very little about where we’ve been.
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July 9th, 2010 at 10:53 pm |
I really liked your answers to the questions on here. You sound really awesome. Also, I’m so sorry about Shadow. I clicked on the LJ link from this page and read your recent post. It made me cry a little.
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July 10th, 2010 at 8:08 pm |
I totally get the attraction/envy thing – I have NEVER been able to sort those out. Probably never will. Also, speech therapists rock!
Also, @Sammeson – “it’s liberatingly exhilarating officially identifying with an off-kilter group of people”. You just pretty much summed up my whole life, right there :)
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July 19th, 2010 at 7:57 pm |
“I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?”
I felt the same way for a really long time, and when I understood that I finally had an awesome relationship… It also helps to figure out part of the gender confusion, but I still totally identify with your Female-to-genderqueer-to-confused-to-male-to-genderqueer-to-nothing-boi-to-myheadisgonnaexplode!
thanks for posting your profile Leo!
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July 19th, 2010 at 8:14 pm |
@Aaron I love your self-description. I am becoming less and less satisfied with my own taxonomy. Too many words. Words explain, but I can’t trust the explanation, don’t want to justify my indecision, just want to be me.
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February 7th, 2011 at 9:28 pm |
“Sometimes I have difficulty discerning whether I’m actually attracted to someone or whether I want to be them. Is that creepy?” this this this this this!!!!!!!!! I always think/feel this. It’s annoying at times but why not have your cake and eat it to? Be attracted to them AND be them. :P
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