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Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to write to me youre not bothering me at all! I love to hear from everyone who writes and just wish I had time to reply to more letters.
When I was reading your letter, I was reminded of how complex sexuality and gender can be. Society tends to need people to put a label on themselves or stick to set definitions. I can hear that both you and the person you are talking about have really thought about that and you are finding your own way. That takes a lot of courage.
I can hear that its difficult for you to feel attracted to someone whos more comfortable with male pronouns at the moment. It seems like you were ready to be in a relationship with another female. However, youve said that this person has feminine qualities that youre attracted to. It is worth thinking about whether the pronouns change that.
At the beginning of your letter you said that this other person is asexual and genderqueer. To me, asexual means someone who doesnt have sexual feelings for anyone of any gender. But people can have different understandings of the same word. So what I dont know is what that word means for the person in your life.
Youve said that youre not sure how you feel about them and that you enjoy their company and hugs. This persons definition of asexuality might be that they dont have sexual feelings. If thats the case then the hugs, affection and companionship might be perfect. So it makes it really important to understand what you both want from your friendship or relationship. It's also important that you feel okay about communicating that but you seem to be doing a really good job of that so far!
Lots of young people write to me about their confusion about their feelings for another person. It might be that the only way to know for sure is to give it a go if it doesnt work out, thats okay. When people write to me about successful relationships, they all have the same things in common; respect, compassion and good communication.
We have some more information about relationships, sexual identity and about transgender issues - I hope you find these pages useful.
I hope that whatever you decide brings you happiness.
Take care,
Sam
P.S Did you see that Facebook recently changed their site to give people the option to customise their gender status? It also allows people to choose the pronouns they want to be referred to as (he/she/they etc.) Hopefully others will start to recognise gender in the same way soon!
You can talk privately to a counsellor online or call 0800 1111 for free.
You can ask me about anything you want, there's nothing too big or small. I read every single letter but I can only answer a few each week. My replies are published here on my page.