Let’s get a few things out of the way.

My debut piece for Human Parts went viral. A few days ago, it was trending as the most popular piece on Medium. I’m ecstatic, obviously.

My essay reached so many people, most who told me they felt lovingly seen and/or they have more understanding now for people different than them (empathy for the win!)

Over 22,000 people have already viewed my essay (whoa). With that many readers, some people are bound to take issue.

I kind of can’t believe I need to say this, but I am not trying to convince anyone to be or not be attracted to anyone else. I am pansexual. I tried to explain what that feels like to me, and how it affects my life, married to a straight man. I think I did a really good job.

My pansexuality does not mean I think you should or shouldn’t marry or date or fuck or daydream about anyone else. It’s just my story.

I believe, to quote my essay, “Each person knows their own gender and their own sexuality better than anyone else does.” For those who insist on summarizing my essay with one sentence, I’d rather you choose that one.

I expected some homophobic straight people to take issue with my essay (and some did). I expected trolls to come out from under their bridges to tell me I’m going to Hell. I’m used to it. I don’t feed those trolls.

I didn’t expect fellow LGBTQ folks to take issue. But, again, with this many readers, not everyone can be a fan. Unlike with the homophobic trolls, I care about respectful feedback from my LGBTQ community, and I was glad to have some Twitter conversations about parts of my piece that didn’t sit well with everyone. Usually I’m the one posting those comments, not the one on the receiving end. I’ll get more into that in a second.

We are all on our journeys. In my essay, I documented a piece of my journey. My “first impulse” is not the same place as where I end up. You can choose whether or not to read my writing, whether to follow me on this very personal piece of my journey, but I don’t think it’s helpful when readers summarize my essay or my worldview with a sentence that begins with, “My first impulse….”

“Each person knows their own gender and their own sexuality better than anyone else does.”

This essay was personal. So personal. People don’t usually write about issues they have in their marriage unless that marriage is over. It is not easy to write about these things. I am very lucky to have a partner who emotionally supports me in my writing, because he believes I’m good at it, and he knows I write the truth. In this case, the truth is my truth. It’s a personal essay. It’s a look into my mind.

I’m not claiming I’m perfect. And I’m certainly not claiming my relationship is perfect. (Nope.) I’m not giving advice here. I’m just giving a window into my reality. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable, sometimes it’s beautiful.

Is it problematic that my husband says it’s okay for me to be with a woman but not another man? I think so. You might think so too. Or maybe it makes sense to you. I got multiple messages on Twitter telling me that part was problematic. To be clear, they weren’t just saying it was problematic that my husband said it; they were saying it was problematic that I wrote about it. I wrote about it because it’s real, and you the reader might relate to it in a way that helps you feel something, that helps you figure out something about yourself or your relationship, or the life you want.

Here are some comments I didn’t feel the need to respond to:

“You can’t understand not being attracted to someone for their gender? Are you attracted sexually to dogs, or trees? No? Same thing.”

“ You don’t understand straight people? That’s like saying you don’t understand how a magnet works, hot and cold, up and down, night and day.”

“ The fact is that if we all suddenly became gay the human race would go extinct in a few generations.”

“Is there such a thing as being a degenerate? How can one judge objectively that someone is a degenerate or that a society is degenerate?

degenerate • adjective

>having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline: a degenerate form of a higher civilization.”

“This author can’t get it through her stubborn brain that the vast majority of humans ever born will be strictly heterosexual for obvious evolutionary reasons.”

And here’s a link to people posting gifs on Twitter to declare their hatred for my essay.

I brushed those comments away without a worry.

But I also got a bunch of Twitter messages from lesbians, calling me lesbophobic.

The complaints centered on three quotes from my essay:

1.

“My first impulse is to assume society tricked all the 100% heterosexual and 100% homosexual people into thinking they had to live in the binary.”

That’s the sentence they kept screenshotting and ridiculing. I’m fine with admitting my “first impulse,” and if you want to write me off because I grew up feeling the pressure to be straight and assumed everyone else was facing that same pressure and building up that same trauma as they hid their sexualities, go for it. But I’d rather you see we’re all in the same struggle to be ourselves in a world that tells us there is a right and a wrong way to be and to feel.

The reason I included homosexual people in this comment, rather than just hetero people like my husband, was because I wanted to decenter heterosexuality. I specifically wanted to elevate gayness. If I talked about hetero vs. pan, that would’ve put heterosexuality on a pedestal of normality, and would’ve left out a lot of gay/lesbian people as well. I wanted homophobic straight readers to realize if they accepted their own straightness, they needed to accept gayness too.

And like the quote I included from Elle Beau, I was brought up believing there were only two choices, so this essay was about me realizing maybe I’m the weirdo, because the binary really does resonate for some people. But then (I hoped) the overall takeaway is that regardless of if somebody seems like a weirdo to you, it’s not up for you to define anyone else’s sexuality.

Reminder: “Each person knows their own gender and their own sexuality better than anyone else does.”

2.

“I fear I won’t live up to his feminine ideal. I wear overalls. I don’t shave my pits or wear makeup very often. When I take the time to look femme, it’s as a gift to him. My femininity is his love language.”

A few people told me I was co-opting the word femme from lesbians. I also received the complaint that femme should never be used in a sentence that implies it’s something done for a man. I understand words have power and also they have different meanings to different people. I feel I used the word exactly as I meant it. I am not saying it’s awesome that my gender expression is all tied up in the way I show love to my partner. I’m saying it’s confusing and problematic, and yet it’s my reality, a reality that’s caused a lot of marital fights, and one I’m continuing to figure out how to navigate.

3.

“My worldview is colored by my sexuality. ‘I only date women,’ sounds to me like ‘I only date redheads.’ Like, really, you can’t even imagine being attracted to a brunette?”

The complaint here was that similar language has been used before to communicate to lesbians that they need to fuck men, because how can they know they don’t want men unless they try?

This one really got to me. I never wanted anyone to read my writing and hear the words of their abusers. I dated a lesbian who got threatening comments from men all the time that they would fuck her straight. I never imagined my writing could be taken that way, but I can understand how that paragraph could trigger someone who had heard something similar before, from someone trying to coerce them into unwanted sex.

I’m sorry my words caused pain to anyone, and I want to be clear: no one ever owes sex to anyone else, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation.

One last time: “Each person knows their own gender and their own sexuality better than anyone else does.”

Yesterday, I read a fantastic piece by Zulie Rane called Why Do We Pressure Girls to Give Boys a Chance? where she wrote about how girls are socialized to ignore our feelings and endure discomfort so boys will feel good about themselves.

Whether girls/women are lesbians or not, they receive these sorts of pressures. Lesbians don’t deserve it, and neither do women who are sometimes attracted to men.

It’s wrong to tell lesbians they need to have sex with men, and it’s wrong to tell non-lesbians they need to have sex with men. It’s wrong to tell anyone they need to have sex with anyone or need to give anyone else a chance.

Okay, one final, final time, because really, I can’t say this enough:

Each person knows their own gender and their own sexuality better than anyone else does.

Edit: I’m still chewing on these messages, and I really appreciated this great piece by Devon Price to help me think through it all with openness and empathy.