‘Coming out’ is one of the many things that don’t feel as free as it should be. There is still so much hate towards the LGBTQ+ community, to the point it feels unsafe to talk about. So, that is exactly why I’m doing it.

(Sexual) identity
I identify as pansexual and demisexual. To quickly explain; pansexuality, to me, is the fact that I simply don’t care about which gender someone identifies as. If I fall in love, that’s that. Demisexuality, to me, is the absence of a certain need to sleep around with people. Only when forming a strong emotional connection, these needs might come up.

Identifying as pansexual and demisexual makes it part of my identity, obviously. But should it? Should, who I fall in love with, be a part of who I am? Why can’t love be simply that; love?

Labelling
As if falling in love isn’t confusing enough on its own already. Falling in love may be even harder for the LGBTQ+ community. The labels can be extremely overwhelming, there is barely any representation, and although it is getting much better, there is still so much homophobia out there. Which caused me, and many others, to not want to be a part of the LGBTQ+ in the first place. Because how do you figure out what is wrong or right in your situation, if people expect you to have a label they don’t want you to have in the first place?

Heteronormative norms
I barely ever ‘come out’. Why? Because it’s easier. Everyone just assumes I will fall in love with a man, and I might, but I also might not, and one way or another people will find out. It is so much easier to just be included in the heteronormative norm because it comes with privileges, and most of all; safety.

What is so unsafe about being part of the LGBTQ+ community? The fact that it has to be a community on its own. What is so different about who we love, or what we identify as, that it has to be a separate community? I understand that we, as a society, still have a long way to go. But isn’t love supposed to be a good thing? So why don’t we give people the freedom to love as they wish?

Because the last time I checked, we’re all human, so I suggest we all identify as that and let love be to each their own.