IMG_6203I’m Elle! In many ways, I’m simply a typical college student making memories and eventually growing up.  I am a lot of things: a student at Gordon College (sophomore double majoring in Economics and French); attempting to read Foucault, Chomsky, and Bourdieu in my nonexistent free time; perpetually attempting to catch up on sleep; and a pseudo-connoisseur of tea, music, and films. I also identify as pansexual. A term with which many people aren’t familiar, pansexual is typically defined as someone who is attracted to men, women, and people who identify as transgender, androgynous, and/or gender fluid.

It took me a while to come to terms with this side of me. From a young age, I knew I was attracted to women more often than to men. But for a long while, I shut out this side of me because I grew up in an environment where it would not be well received. Actually, much of my sexuality and sexual identity was repressed in an extremely unhealthy manner. Near the end of high school, I became friends with and heard the stories of a few gay/lesbian individuals. I realized that I really related to their stories, and   finally began to internally accept my attraction to women. However, when I came to Gordon, I felt a pressure to pretend to be straight in order to be accepted into my community I spent a while feeling uncomfortable and lonely, but ended up finding some comfort in counseling and in the campus same-sex attraction group.

As I grew more confident, I realized that I was comfortable explaining this part of my identity to others. There was just the not so minor dilemma of not knowing how to describe myself besides the vague label of ‘not straight’. Even though I had strong and frequent attractions to people of the female persuasion, I still was attracted to some males. So I wasn’t comfortable calling myself a lesbian. Yet ‘bisexual’ seemed a limiting descriptor as well. I realized that I was also attracted to gender queer people: those who describe their gender as outside the gender binary. The best way to describe my process of attraction is that gender didn’t/doesn’t seem that important to me. Yes, I have different preferences (anything from eye color, personality traits, life goals, clothing style, values, etc.) in men, women, trans, queer, etc. people. But I’ve found that I can connect romantically without having a fundamental focus on gender. Because of this, I guess the best description for my sexual identity would be pansexual.

Identifying as something other than straight at Gordon has been…weird. I have felt invisible or, if LGBTQ topics are acknowledged, mired in controversy and intense theological debates. I’ve chosen to start talking about LGBTQ issues on campus for a couple reasons. I often hear homosexuality talked about in abstract terms, and I think some people often forget that gay people are people. People with feelings, ideas, values, desires. So I want to be a part of sharing what it’s like to live a non-straight life in the context of an overwhelmingly heteronormative (heterosexuality is the only orientation) environment. I want people to know that gays exist. here. at Gordon. Queer people are a part of this community, but sometimes we don’t feel like it. I also wanted to support and write for the InQUEERy because I’m sick of the frustrated silence I’ve often seen. I’m not demanding or expecting agreement from people who read what others or I have said or will say, but I do want a conversation. I believe that Gordon students are capable of being mature and loving in controversial discussions, and think that valuable growth can happen through listening to and dialoguing about differing opinions, experiences, and ideas.