It took a long time for me to realize I was bisexual.  I knew what being gay was, but it was always seen as such a bad thing in my family that I never let myself consider that I might actually be gay, be “that” person.  I’d had a very close friend in high school, and we’d pretend to be lesbians.  But it was in play, and I never thought that the intense love I had for her was anything out of the ordinary or would put me in the “gay” category.  It took my best friend from University moving away to realize that I’d been in love with her.   And even then I didn’t step into acceptance that I might be sexually attracted to the same sex-that the heart yearning I had felt for her might indicate something more than having a really close friend.  I wasn’t very connected to my body in a lot of ways, especially my sexuality, and I wonder if that was part of the disconnect.  It might just be a coincidence, but around the time I’d started doing body/chakra energy work was when I realized I was bisexual. Read More I started noticing physical responses to women, excitability, which was almost a bit painful, and certainly uncomfortable, as if I was being born into a new world. I was confused at the physical sensations and sexual yearning. I was new to the city where I was living, and I didn’t have anyone to connect with as this was happening. I also didn’t have anyone in my life that I was interested in exploring these yearnings with, so it was pretty theoretical for a while, and I had a lot of conflicting thoughts and imagined possibilities flowing through my mind and body. I could literally feel the identities and certainties I’d had being thrown up into the air and new ones forming. After watching some lgbt movies, I started to realize how convoluted the whole bisexual thing was. I learned that bisexuals didn’t fit into either group- they weren’t in the homosexual group, and they weren’t in the straight group, and quite often they weren’t accepted by either. It would be taboo for me to be in the straight group, because I was interested in the same gender, and it would be taboo for me in the homosexual group, because I was interested in the opposite gender. As I met people and started to engage socially, I started to form two identities, depending on whichever group I was with. So when I was hanging out with my straight friends, I’d be straight. And when I was with my lesbian or gay friends, I’d be...

From the start of what dawned as the life of Jacob I realized that I was simply different then the majority of society. It took me many years to realize the fact that I was “different.”  I grew up in a christian household with strict moral understandingof how things should be, and how I should live my life going forward. As you can imagine it was the story of work hard, go to college, marry a woman and live a happy life that I was chasing after. You know, the christian way to a pleasing life for God. Childhood was difficult and nothing was ever consistent and with the divorce of my parents I felt I had no identity in this world. So I put all of my efforts into sports, and avoiding the fact that I was ‘different’.  I always knew I was gay somewhere deep within, but I avoided it with every mechanism of my body.  It was so obvious even at the age of 5-7. I remember how I used to always stand with my hip out to the side like most women do. But I knew that wasn’t the ‘manly’ image so I learned to change those habits right away. I was always trying so hard to just fit into the society, to the conditioning of what I was told I should be. These images haunted me for many years. Actually they haunted me all the way until I was almost 20 years old.  Read More The shift and the transformation happened after I had an awakening to Life as it is beyond my conditioning. As I was sitting in my bed during a hurricane, with an Indian Saints book on my phone, I realized that my whole life as Jacob was a construction of something that wasn’t absolutely REAL. In that instance, the shift from personality-conditioning to being in touch with my presence exchanged. But even after this explosive and destructive hit to my sense of Jacob I still didn’t come to terms with the fact that I was gay. In fact in those moments after that experience I was more in the peace and wonder of the unknown quality of life. Free from any labels that I placed on my experience. Months after that happened I stayed with what I had intuitively felt and experienced – everything from that silent place. Insights where coming through often and I was seeing everything I was not. And with that seeing, spontaneously, freedom was being experienced and felt more and more relatively. The dreams I once had of being a baseball player and such fell away as I hurt my arm and saw that my happiness...

I knew I was gay when I was nine years old. Though I didn’t have the word for it yet, I had thoughts of kissing my best friend in third grade. I had sensations pulsating throughout my prepubescent body whenever I was near her. And I had feelings that I longed to express but didn’t quite know how. The terms gay, lesbian or homosexuality weren’t even on my radar. But the feelings, sensations and thoughts never went away. In fact, they grew stronger. By the time I was a teenager, I learned through the eyes of society that those feelings, sensations and thoughts were wrong. I also learned that there was a word to describe them. That word was “gay.” At first I distanced myself from the word. I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to be an outcast. Gay? Not me! That’s not my identity. Of course, by the time I graduated from college and moved to Boston, MA, that changed over time. I came out, met other gay individuals and met my first girlfriend. Suddenly, the word “gay” was appealing. Sure. I’m gay. Yep … that’s me. The truth is, I’ve never been the “ra, ra, I’m gay” type of individual. I’ve gone to pride parades for the experience of it but you wouldn’t see me marching in the procession. Maybe it’s because I never glued myself to the word “gay” itself. Yes, it gave me a sense of understanding in regards to those feelings, sensations and thoughts I often had. But I never attached my identity to it. I never thought it was the be-all-end-all of “me.” Words are funny. We can wrap our entire human identity into something as simple as a word. Why is that? Some words even have multiple meanings, which one is right? For example, do I tie myself to the word “gay” because I am attracted to the same sex or because I am innocently happy? So many of us in the LGBT community take being gay so seriously that it overshadows everything else. In defining my sexuality, I can nod my head and say, “yes, I am gay.” But in defining who I am in totality, a simple three-letter word is too limiting. How can three little letters define anyone? They can’t. Word can never truly describe who we really are. Once the letters drop away, what’s left to identify with? Lyndsey www.lyndseydarcangelo.com    ...