Discovering Your Queerness
Libby invites her best friend Mara on the podcast to answer a listener who recently discovered they were queer. Libby and Mara what it was like for them to realize you're queer later in life.
Bisexual vs. Pansexual: https://www.minus18.org.au/articles/what's-the-difference-between-bisexual-and-pansexual
Does Being Polyamorous Mean that You're Queer Belong: https://medium.com/polyamory-today/polyamory-and-the-lgbt-community-3a8a52debbc3
Transcript
Embrace that liminality of, I don't know what the categories are, what they should be. Can I live without having solid categories? Can I find my way through when the categories are just kind of fluffy and you're giggling because you knew me because you knew me when I could not tolerate that, that is why I'm laughing. I was not able to tolerate that lack of categorization at all, and that so painful and so hard.
Before we jump into that, I want to tell you that I'm excited to finally announce that I have launched the relational non-monogamy circle. It is live. You can access it by going to relational non-monogamy dot com. So what is the relational non monogamy circle? It is a group coaching program because I am regularly getting maxed out on the number of coaching clients that I can take individually. So I decided to offer this program to more people at a more affordable price than my individual custom coaching is. So the relational, non monogamy circle, I encourage you just go check it out on the website, but briefly I will tell you that we are going to dive deep together. There will be teaching on topics that I talk about on the podcast, but going in much greater depth with worksheets and practice scripts and all different kinds of things so that you can get your hands really deep into stuff. And also ask me questions. Addition to that, we're going to have twice monthly group coaching calls where it's nothing, but you're in the hot seat getting coached by me, but in a group. So if this sounds like something that you would like to do, you'd like to join a community of folks who are all working on their relationships together. I encourage you to go over to relational non-monogamy dot com. All right, now we're just gonna dive into this conversation with Mera about queerness.
So for today's episode, I have invited a person who I adore and I'm very close to
Mera: Hello. Thank you Libby, for having me here. I'm excited to do this together. My name is Mera. pronouns She, her, I am a Queer femme cisgender polyamorous kinkster. I've been around in the polyamory and kink community since about 2009. And in keeping with today's theme of the episode, I came into my queerness a few years after my entry into the kink community. So I was in my mid thirties when I started figuring that out for myself.
Libby: Yeah. And the reason why we're doing this episode, thank you very much for leading right in, the theme for today's episode is realizing your queer later in life. Well, first of all, I got a listener question reaching out to me, and it was actually the partner of someone who their partner was realizing that they were queer and really that was rocking their world and were having a huge reckoning about it. And the partner wanted to know, well, are there any resources for people who are going through this who are realizing they're bisexual, or maybe they're gay as someone who in this case is in a heterosexual marriage and has been for years with children and, what do you do? How do you work through that make sense of that, and for the purpose of this episode, I mostly wanna talk about not, what do you do about your marriage and what do you do about all of the structural stuff that you have in place, cuz that is gonna take some time, but more, how do you understand yourself in this new paradigm and Mera and I both have talked about going through this ourselves. I don't wanna speak for Mera's story, but I'll say for my story, I always knew I was queer.
I think for a little while I was running from the idea that I was queer, cuz I grew up in a very conservative Southern community where most everyone I knew was pretty religious and anti gay, even though my family was very welcoming of homosexuality and affirming of that, it to me really didn't feel like a safe thing that I could embrace about myself as a cisgender woman. I was attracted to, to cisgender men. I was like, well, cool. I'm covered. I don't have to worry about that. And then of course that was not even close to the whole story or me and I have encountered this a lot with polyamorous of all genders realizing, Hey, I'm not who I thought I was.
Mera: absolutely.
Libby: But they don't realize it until later because especially if you're someone like Mary, you're how old now?
Mera: I'm 41 now.
Libby: Yep. And I'm 42. And I think when you're realizing it sort of after the heyday of your youth has passed, perhaps it can be a really earth shattering realization about yourself.
Mera: We missed out the queer in college.
Libby: Yeah. Well there's that? Yeah. But so I wanna talk about that, but I guess I wanna back up just a little bit because I wanna ask you Mera, what does queer even mean to you?
Mera: Oh, What does queer mean? I mean, to me, queerness is both about being, not CIS, not straight or both. It's about, it's a political thing. It's a philosophical thing. It is letting go of the categories, turning them upside down, giving them a good shaking. And figuring out a new way of being it is specifically not following the old rules and the old categories.
Libby: And the old scripts.
Mera: And the old script, throwing away. Lotting them up and burning them. So for me, queerness is very much a political thing and a philosophical thing from a straight up just who am I attracted to? I would more use the word bisexual to describe myself. In that I'm attracted to my gender and other genders. That's really how I define bisexuality. And so my attraction spans pretty much everyone, you know, I've dated men, women, non-binary peoples, et cetera. People I've dated and been attracted to have been all over the map.
Libby: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting that you define that as bisexual. Some people define that as pansexual and we're not gonna get into the debate about it here.
Mera: Because it's such a debate.
Libby: Well, And it, it seems a little unnecessary and my view, but I think if you're being, if you're trying to be inclusive, then be inclusive. Some people think bisexuality is reinforcing the gender binary the way Mera defines it. It does not obviously reinforce the gender binary. It reinforces the binary between me and other people and my gender and other people's genders. But some people define it differently. And so they prefer to use and sexual to say that they're inclusive of non-binary people, two-spirit people, et cetera, you know, all the different gender folks, all the spectrum of genders, cuz genders are construct
Mera: Such a construct and, I don't see bisexual as being exclusive of that.
Libby: Right. But if you, we're not gonna dig into that debate. If you are interested in going down a rabbit hole, I’d do a Google search is all I gotta tell you.
Mera: Such a google, such a rabbit hole.
Libby: You know, for me, my queerness, it's a little different. And for a while I would say I identified as bisexual in the same way that you would describe your sexuality, like my gender and other people's genders. But then I realized a couple things. The first thing is I am not sexually driven in my attraction to people. So, it didn't actually make sense to me to define myself as bisexual. And I actually kind of identify on the asexual spectrum and that alone is included in queerness, which is kind of an interesting thing.
But however, I am also in a heterosexual marriage. So there's some passing privilege that comes with my queerness that I have to name there. And I also am very attracted to cisgender men. I also am very attracted to pretty much anyone, gender isn't really a relevant category for me to define my attraction by. Gender isn't, bodies aren't, body parts Aren't. I'm not really interested in those things. I'm far more interested in energy, general aesthetic, banter, sense of humor. Definitely like all of those things are sort of the greater vectors of my attraction. The first thing I'm thinking about with a new person isn't whether we're gonna have sex and what the sex is gonna be like, that's actually not the thing that drives me.
Mera: Although I will say that when people do their gender in a really beautiful way. It's just gorgeous.
Libby: It's hot. No, I mean, and that's the thing, but see, I see that as aesthetic attraction, because I'm like just admiring a work of art, you know, and I'm going Oh my God. Oh, Queers. Well, that's why it's a rainbow. It really is. Taste the rainbow. Anyway, I think what might be really nice here is to talk about our stories and how we got here. Because as I said, we both kind of landed in our queerness. At least for me, again, it was there inside of me, but it was very denied. I guess. I'd love to hear your story Mera, if you're willing to share it.
Mera: Yeah, definitely. I grew up super Christian grew up very Catholic and then my teenage rebellion was going to evangelical church so like super, super Christian, super religious with all of that implies, it didn't even occur to me. That being would be or could be a thing. Like I remember talking about how, I mean, of course women are gorgeous, but everyone knows that, but you know, I'm straight. looking back. I'm like, oh baby-egg Mera. So my evolution really was in my twenties. I was letting go of those religious beliefs in a very big way. And then 29, I entered the kink community through there. I landed in the polyamorous community very quickly. I became polyamorous when one of my first play partners was like, I'd be interested in dating, but I'm poly. And that's how I do relationships.
So you should go check that out. And if you're interested, we can pursue this. And if you're not then cool bye. So I did some research and I was like, this is an option you can like, have relationships that don't need to follow the relationship escalator. You can have relationships that don't just have to be with the purpose of finding the person you're gonna spend the rest of your life with and have little straight babies with, this is a thing that exists and you can just follow a relationship as long as it is good. And as a good relationship and still look for the one. And then a little Bit later. So there was a lot of letting go of all my categories. At that point, there was a lot of letting go of my ideas about what relationships were and what relationships were for and what doing relationships with people was like.
Libby: How much of that was as a result of just modeling, like what you were able to see other people doing.
Mera: I think that seeing other people around me doing it definitely helped like, oh, this is a thing people can do. Yeah. This is a thing that people can do and be happy and be functional humans who I like as people and who I think are mature, emotionally aware adults.
Libby: Who are also doing all the life things like if they want to having fair families, if they want to having chosen family communities, all different kinds of stuff.
Mera: Heck I mean the number of people in the community where I was who have security clearances. was wild.
Libby: Well, you know what I'm thinking there, it's a little bit like if you think about heterosexuality as the standard, right. You know, a lot of people talk about compulsory monogamy. I also think we live in a culture of compulsory, hetero sexuality. And cisgender, those are all compulsory in our culture. It's sort of like going to a restaurant and you have like one thing on the menu. Yeah. This is the menu. This is, but there's one thing you can order and that's it. And then It's sort of like going to the same restaurant sitting down in a different section and someone like, slipping you the secret menu and it's like, got 20,000 things on it. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, I could order anything on the menu that I want. And if I want something specially prepared by the chef, that's an option too. What?
Mera: Right. So yeah. So during my thirties, I was going through all of this. Oh wow. Relationships can be all of this way. I was also learning about gender theory and about, you know, letting go of my ideas about binary gender and how that's all.
Libby: This might be a good moment to mention that you were a philosophy major.
Mera:I was a philosophy major in college. So the thinky stuff is really big for me.
Libby: Well, and I feel like you are a person and not everyone's like this. You're a person who really likes to do her research. You like reading all the books, all the blog posts. I think you like to wrap your intellect around things.
Mera: I do. I like to know things. And then once I know things, I can start to allow myself to feel things.
Libby: So it looked like for you, one of the things that being in community gave you was a validation to try these things, to explore these things for yourself, and then to reflect it back when seeing the ideas that you had about yourself reflected in other people kind of helped. Gel it for you. It sounds like.
Mera: And then through all of this time, I started realizing that my ideas about gender and attraction also needed to be thrown away and given a good shaking. Yeah. So I started doing kinky play with women. I started doing kinky play with everyone and just letting go of all of these ideas. And I was actually in a long-term relationship with a CIS man at the time. And my first girlfriend was actually my ‘metamor’. So just sort of realizing.
Libby: Are you saying that's an FFM triad?
Mera: No. We decided that she was our unicorn. She claimed it. but we did not get there on purpose. She was a very accidental unicorn.
Libby: So your first girlfriend was your metamor, what was that like?
Mera: Unstable. It didn't actually stay a triad very long. And then I, the two of them broke up and then I was dating both of them separately for a while. So, you know, first he was the hinge for a while and then I was a hinge for a while.
Libby: So that was sort of the first foray of, Hey, I am queer.
Mera: That was when I was like, I own this I, that was when I had come to the place of really being able to own my queerness. Yeah. And that was also when I came out to my family, was when I had to say like, no I'm going with my boyfriend and my girlfriend and we were gonna be traveling like, no, we're all together.
Libby: How is your relationship ecosystem now? Cuz I don't think you're in either of those relationships currently. Right?
Mera: Not anymore. I have only been seeing one person for quite some time who is a non-binary person uses all pronouns and they are absolutely delightful. We've been together for about five years and it's been a very low contact relationship, but really solid and good. Yeah. I've got a comment who is a CIS man, but he's not straight and you know, have had a first date with another cutie wa little while ago and we'll see what happens there. But yeah, that's sort of where my ecosystem is right now. And then I have friends who are deeply, deeply important to me, you know, there's you, you know, there's my bromance, who's a nonsexual partnership. Also like I have my queer family, which is in some ways as important or more important than my named polyamorous relationships. I actually get very, very confused when I try to define what is a partner and what is a loved one. Who's not a partner, but is still family or incredibly integral to my life functioning. And part of my emotional wellbeing. What's the difference really? And when you get into the point where you've thrown away, all these categories, where relationship isn't about sex and it isn't about exclusivity, it's not about gender and it's not about gender and it's not about having kids. What is the difference? Anyway,
Libby: I think it's all about relationality and how you show up with people and how you yeah. Are consistent and commit to them and blah. But anyway, that's like a whole nother thing. So would you say you identify as like solo poly now
Mera: That's probably the best description. Yeah. I don't hold that as an identity per se. Okay. I'm opening to that shifting, but functionally, that's the way I'm living my life right now.
Libby: I love your story. When I met marrow Samara and I have known each other for about 20 years and when I met her, she was like, I'm gonna get married and have babies and we're gonna have a lovely Christian family. And you know, it's been really amazing to watch and be part of your journey. it's quite an arc, you know, and it's a continuing arc, which I kind of love. I mean, that's kind of the thing I love about when you're willing to like, not hold onto this one thing on the menu anymore and you're willing to create your life, your sexuality, your attraction, your relationships, and you're using all the colors of the palette. Yeah. Well then there's this freedom, you know, and the thing is you can bring back things you liked about your old self. If you want to, you know, it's up to you, it's not similar to my story. My story is different, but I would say there are elements that are the same. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> for me. I, I think I never really thought I would get married and I never thought I would have babies. And it's kind of funny that she was the one that wanted to get married and have babies and didn't, and I'm the one that didn't wanna get married and have babies. And I did. but when I was much younger, I, I knew I was attracted to non CIS men, but I felt like I was still very caught in the binary either you're gay or you're straight. I was definitely attracted to heterosexual, cisgender men. And so I figured, well, if I have to pick a side, I can be gay, but there aren't not as many gay people as there are straight people. And so like, I was actually calculating the odds of not being alone at that time when I was quite young. And I was like, well, I feel like there are more people that I would meet if I declared myself as straight. So I did because I also got the sense that, and we can talk about this a little bit more. That bisexual wasn't really an option instead of choosing either gay or straight, you were choosing neither side because neither side would accept you. And I think that's still to an extent, somewhat true. Don't you think? It's not true in the polyamory community, in the, in the polyamory community. Bisexuality is sometimes presumed, especially if you're a woman.
Mera: I mean, bisexual women and straight men is such a thing in some pieces of the community.
Libby: So, you know, but at the time when I was younger, I didn't know about all this stuff. So I really felt like I had to choose. And so I was like, well, I'm gonna go with the best odds of compatibility for myself. Not knowing, of course I know now, which is actually not true. The truth is that the more I look for people who are just like me, the greater chances I am gonna have finding someone who's compatible. And so it was very silly for me to think that by picking the biggest chunk of the pie, that I would increase my likelihood of finding a partner, not true, given that my husband is also and he identifies as a CIS man, but he's not really committed to the idea at all, not a very masculine person by his own definition of himself. So at the end of the day, we're queer over.
You know, I really didn't feel like I could be bisexual until I became polyamorous. And then I started, similar to you. I started seeing what I wanted, what I sort of dreamed, but never thought was possible actually existing in the world in front of me. And I was going, oh, I can do that. And that's a thing. And that's the thing people can do. Again, I sort of engaged in a lot of sexual acts when I was in my twenties, but it always felt like this thing that I would have to like give up in order to have a long term partner or something like that. So to find that it wasn't true at all, that I could have my cake and pie on the same plate. Which was great. I love that I have so many food metaphors, right? Well, people are snacks after all. Mm I'm a home meal so that was such a freeing thing.
Again, same as you, like, I suddenly was like, oh, I don't need any of these scripts. Like I don't need the straight script or the gay script I can use the queer script. And the queer script is whoever you are is whoever you are. And then when I kind of came into understanding my asexuality, in addition to my queerness, suddenly it was like, oh, I can really redefine everything. Now that we've kind of shared our stories. I wanna delve into the advice giving portion of the episode here, because I had someone reach out to me, someone at the beginning of this journey of discovering and understanding their queerness, what should they be doing? How can they be supported? I'll tell you the first thing that comes up for me is I think the thing that helped us both was finding our people. I don't think anything has been more powerful for me than meeting other people who have gone through this self-discovery process, either young or as a grown adult and people who are living in a way that is in alignment with who they are so that you can see what the possibilities are. So you can get that secret menu.
And if anything on there appeals to you. Yeah. So you can look at what's on the other table and say, oh, I want that. Right. Right, right, right. Yeah. That's true. You gotta go to the back section of the restaurant where everybody's eating the things so you can see what's that, and then ask them. And I think you and I both have had the experience of one of the really, really helpful things is to have queer role models. And initially I was thinking about people who are like, famous. But then, Those folks are, I think, role models. But I think for me, I think about people who I know more closely and I Think,
Mera: Yeah, really my role model is my friends. It's the people that I go to parties with. It's the people that I drink late night coffee with. It's the people that I know them, and I know their partners and I see how they explore their gender and see how they explore their relationships. And those are my role models. Those are my people.
Libby: One of the things that was so hugely helpful for me was to be part of a community where someone could talk about, oh, I remember what it was like when I was a baby queer. And I was trying to make sense of myself just having certain things that you're thinking about or going through really normalized for you. By having it be a shared experience can be really meaningful. And speaking of being a baby, what did we say? That the one single most shared experience among all people is
Both: We All believe that we are not queer enough.
Mera: Every single one of us has had the experience of feeling that I'm not queer enough to go to that party. Or my haircut's not queer enough. Or other queers aren't going to recognize me, or I shouldn't be there because I haven't even kissed someone as the same gender as me. So clearly I'm not queer enough.
Libby: Or I have, I have a partner that presents our relationship presents as heterosexual. And so we don't belong at pride.
Mera: Yeah. I look like I'm in a straight relationship. So I'm not queer enough.
Libby: Nevermind that you don't actually know anything about what someone is by what they look like. And you can look like the most conservative convention appearing person in the universe. And that doesn't,
Mera: Maybe they're both Non-Binary like, you don't know by looking.
Libby: But so if you're wondering, as you're listening to this, am I? You are, if you say you are, is kind of my position. Yeah f**k And anybody who is gate keeping you out of an identity. Now, that being said, Important Disclaimer, Mera and I are both white. We're both cisgender. We're both able bodied. We're both neurodiverse neuro on some kind of form, but we are fairly privileged. And so I know that I can say the same thing. I know that Mera feels the same way that I do that when I'm in a space, I'm not likely to center myself. I'm not likely to take up the most space in the room. And I think that is something to check. If you tend to be more privileged
Mera: I belong there, but that doesn't mean I belong as the center of attention.
Libby: Doesn't mean I'm the leader. And I think that's important. You can claim the lay, but I don't know that you're leading the parade you can go to pride. Yeah. That's advice. I would give, allow yourself to be whoever you want to be. And I like what you say before of queerness is not just an identity for some people. Some, for some people, it is for some people, queerness is an orientation for some people, queerness is an identity for some people, queerness is a behavior for some people, queerness is a political act and a philosophical act and it's worth allowing that to be whatever it is for you. But recognizing where you're stepping. If you wanna step into certain kinds of space, but you, I think you're welcome. yeah. It's just worth being careful about how much you center yourself. Yeah. But I think that's true in a lot of spaces. Absolutely. What's some other advice you would give to someone who's newly realizing their queer.
Mera: So In terms of the thinky parts of it, the intellectual parts of it, I would really encourage people to lean into tearing down and building and new differently. Like heteronormativity is such an edifice. It's like this incredibly solid building of interrelated elements. And once you start pulling out a few of the Jenga pieces you realize that there's no reason to keep any of it. At least not automatically. Once you start letting go of pieces, you can really realize all of it can be rethought. All of it can be thought in different ways. There's exploring what does gender even mean to you and how does it apply you and how does it apply and
Libby: Reconstructing your notions of what's attractive and what's not attractive because that's rooted in heteronormativity and patriarchy and racism.
Mera: Yeah. So just realizing there's so many ways that you can think about yourself and some of coming into queerness might be like becoming more, anti-racist becoming more social justice oriented. Maybe for some people, certainly for me, just really let the building fall down, and don't rebuild it right away. And don't feel urgency about rebuilding it any particular way, like embrace that ality of, I don't know what the categories are, what they should be. Can I live without having solid categories? Can I find my way through when the categories are just kind of fluffy and you're giggling because knew me because you knew me when I could not tolerate that.
Libby: That is why I'm laughing.
Mera: I was not able to tolerate that lack of categorization at all. And that was so painful and so hard.
Libby: Yeah. I remember we used to argue, do you remember this argument we had at the bus stop years ago about male, female essentialism.
Mera: Oh my. Oh, oh. I disagree with myself, then so hard past me. What were you thinkin past me?
Libby: You loved cons I don't know.
Mera: I loved JP too. Is what I did. I loved the Pope. I was reading the pope's ideas about gender and Catholicism. Oh, past me. What were you thinking?
Libby: Well, and I like what you said when we talked about this earlier, that in that vein, your inclination, if you really liked the label of straight and CIS, even though you might not have used that to describe yourself, you might be inclined very quickly to stick some new labels on yourself. Or you might really struggle with understanding yourself because you're trying to stick a label on and it doesn't fit. And I love what you said, which was, don't try right away to stick a new label on yourself. Don't be afraid to. You can let it go.
Mera: You know, there's something about saying, I am feeling kind of by these days without saying I am bisexual. My gender. You know, know what is gender anyway. But, you know, woman works for me right now. I think, you know, you could sort of hold it lightly. And you know, right now I still identify as CIS. And I still don't know if that's always going to be true, but right now it's just sort of an expansive idea of what being a woman is because what is gender anyway?
Libby: Well, and I think on that vein coming out, right? And what I think about that is if you're gonna hold your labels lightly, you might want to hold your coming out lightly. Here's a metaphor for you. When I think about when you're pregnant, right? You might not tell everybody, in the first trimester, not just because you lose the pregnancy because actually really wanna normalize miscarriage is a thing that is just part of pregnancy and not anything that you should hide, but like, you may not want to like, have everybody know about it until you've sort of internalized what it is for you first, before you're telling everybody else. So I think it's okay if you realize you're queer and you wanna hold onto that for a little while and turn it over inside yourself, maybe bounce it off a few safe people who, you know, are gonna hold you lightly as well. And not have their own agenda for you. Whether it is to pull that apart and challenge you. Or, you know, try to smash a label, a new label on you and say, you're one of us now. And here's how you have to be. They might see themselves and you, and they may want to spare you some of their own experience. They may have some desires for you that aren't necessarily about you, but they're about them. And so you wanna have a trust in people that they're not gonna do that with you, if, or that you can kind of hold your own. You're solid enough in your own experience to like, understand when someone else is sharing theirs, that's about them. And that what your experience is is about you. And you don't have to match them. You don't have to match their expectations of you. You know, I think coming out is one of those things that I don't think you don't have to be a poster child for queerness right away. In understanding yourself and you don't have to fly the rainbow flag. I do think that though, if you are a privileged person and you do come to an understanding of yourself as queer, I think it's not a bad thing. One reason why I am out as much as I am. And I think maybe this is how you feel too. Is so that it makes it safer for other people to be. But if you're one of those people where it's not safe, you would lose family members, you would lose access to your job, your housing. It's okay to hold yourself where you are first, and protect yourself.
Mera: I am as loud as I am because of my privilege. Although I would also say on coming out, it's also fun to come out to strangers that you will never see again, that is a great way to sort of get your feet wet with how coming out is. You're never gonna see this person again, if you flub it up or if you tell them the wrong thing, They don't matter to your life in any way.
Libby: Yeah. That's a good thought. I never thought of that.
Mera: Telling the barista a different name to write on your label or whatever it is. It's a nice way to sort of ease into the experiments before you start to try something off, start the high stakes coming out of the people where you really care about their opinion. And don't know how they'll react.
Libby: I really think when it's time, I think you just know. I know that sounds so cheesy, but I really do think like there's a certain time when you know that if you continue to not tell people who you are, then you're not able to live in integrity anymore, and that'll be the time for you. And again, it's different for everybody. And for some people, it always feels like integrity to not tell them. Another thing I wanna say, speaking of coming out and being in spaces where it's in the not safe to be queer. Is to be prepared to confront your own internalized homophobia. Because we, we live in a compulsive, heterosexual society. We have homophobia running through our culture still. And I know I picked it up, even though I had a very, queer-gay affirming household. And I had friends who were gay in high school and middle school, but I still, you can't avoid it. You know, you can't.
Mera: Which is kind of funny because I did not go through that as much. And that's interesting with my family background, you would've expected a lot more.
Libby: Yeah. But I would just say, be prepared for that. Be prepared for the fear of yourself and the fear of what you might become and it's okay to feel that I would hold yourself very tenderly. If that's a thing that you're feeling and don't blame yourself for it either because, you know, homophobia is something like racism, like sexism that we just breathe in in a lot of cultures. And so if that's a thing that's going on for you just be tender with it and acknowledge it within yourself and acknowledge the fears that might be coming up for you. And again, it might be useful to find a safe person to talk about that with whether it's a friend that you trust or a counselor or someone like that can be a really good thing to work through.
Mera: And just having somebody see you can be really meaningful.
Libby: Someone who's really affirming because it's a process. I mean, I really do like the analogy of birth because you really are possibly rebirthing yourself in a way, and you're into a different version of yourself and it's really worth honoring all of that process. Absolutely. Including the grief that might come with it. I went through this. I don't know if you went through this. I went through this grief where I knew that I was not straight from a young age, but I quashed that within myself. And I think that's why maybe you didn't go to the internalize homophobia stuff cuz you didn't see it in yourself at first. That might be it. Yeah. But I saw it inside myself and I said, I can't be that way. That's not the way I wanna be. I don't want anybody to see me like that. I'm gonna try to hide that from other people. I was so afraid that people would think I was gay. I was really afraid of that. I didn't have any boyfriends in high school and I was terrified that people would think that about me. So I was like, let me be as heterosexual as I can.
Mera: Although I remember when we were like 20 that you told me that you were BI.
Libby: Well that was then, but that was after being at Sarah Lawrence for a little while. <Laugh> that'll do that. Yeah, but I just remember going through this moment of feeling really sad for my younger self, that she couldn't be the version of herself that I am now. I just think of all the things I could have done and all the ways I could have been and all the relationships I could have had if I had not been so desirous of conforming, I went through and still sometimes go through grief around that because it really is a missed opportunity that I think they'll never get back. You know, as you mentioned before, we missed out on being in our twenties, like how great is that? Like, I get so much joy from seeing super young people, just living their life with freedom and happiness and joy. I love that. Increasingly younger people just start out with throwing out the gender binary. I love that so much. There's so fluidity in themselves and there's no judgment about it.
Mera: Just living with their liminality, living with the fluidity of life.
Libby: I also love how much it makes other people's heads explode.
Mera: Well, part of being is enjoying that. Right? I don't know.
Libby: I think I want to close, but I think you had one more really good piece of advice for people.
Mera: Yeah. I mean just holding yourself gently as you let go of all these categories, just hold yourself so gently. It's hard to let it all go and it's okay. That it's hard. It's okay. That it’s confusing.That's fine. It's confusing. Gender and relationships and sexuality are confusing.
Libby: Yep. And it's a transition. It's a transition.
Mera: It's this whole new you that you get to explore in whole new aspects of life. You get to explore and just be gentle with yourself and be patient. Let it come. You'll get there. You'll figure it out. It'll all become clear eventually or not. And you get to just enjoy the confusingness. The confusing, gorgeous mess
Libby: Yeah. I like that. I think that's right on the money. Thanks for joining me in this conversation.
Mera: Thanks so much for having me here.
