Love Without Gender
I love without boundaries, without a need to label, conceptualize or define gender within it. The way I see it at the core a person is a person "who loves the way they love, laughs the way they laugh"`(Nic da Silva) just like anyone no matter what happens to be between their legs. If we're going to get technical and assign labels I consider myself Pan-sexual, which is both confusing and fascinating to those who've known me long enough to be aware that I have been with only one male partner in my life for nearly 8 years.
I face many questions behind the label of Pan-sexual. Ignorant comments about the "obvious fact" that I must be Bi-Curious if I have never truly been with a woman or that I'm a Lesbian that has yet to come out. I have thought long and hard many nights about where this comes from and why the concept is such a challenge for people to grasp and I have realized one thing very concretely; I am lucky. I am lucky as a Pan-sexual woman that I fell in love with and have stayed in love with a man...
That is sadly a core reason why I can be so strong about my statements within the LGBTQI community and why I am not afraid to speak out for those who are being marginalized in their day-to-day lives for loving who they love and acting on it. I am not marginalized because people who don't know me or my partner work under the wrongful assumption that we are both Straight.
WE make the choice to tell people we both actually feel both emotionally and yes, sexually attracted to the same sex as well and even further those who don't define themselves by a gender at all... Then often there is scrutiny, and harsh words from many but most often there is denial.
"There's no way you can like women if you've never been with one." Is a common comment I'm faced with. When I respond by telling them my 15 year old self didn't need to experiment to know I liked men, I just always knew. Yet, somehow its an exception, people know they are straight inherently but knowing you fall in the Queer spectrum can only come about through coercion  and for me there is something so traumatic and fraught about that line of thinking.
 So sadly, I am lucky. Lucky I can love my partner in public without drawing attention, lucky that if I kiss a girl at a party that's just something "straight women" do when they get together with their friends, lucky that I'm not bashed everyday for love. But I'm not, I'm not lucky that I have to justify my sexual attraction to women, not lucky that people think I cannot be monogamous to Jared, not lucky that I feel a tremendous weight of guilt for my fellow LGBTQI community every time someone limits their love, tries to quantify it or worse tries to belittle it. I'm not lucky that I have to try and convince people that I'm "a little bit gay" . I'm not lucky, none of us are and if we truly want to bring about change we will drop the labels, we will work to see change in our world and if we're lucky, eventually our communities around the world will be working together to limit and destroy hate; not love...