CW: homophobia, violence, bullying.

When I was fourteen, in 1996, I was badly bullied for being a lesbian. At the time, I was not really sexually attracted to anyone, and I remember denying the label. Even at the time I remember understanding that the thing people were picking up on was nothing to do with who I loved or slept with, and everything to do with my gender presentation.

I understood my gender easily and clearly as a younger child. I was a tom boy. A tom boy was a masculine person who other people thought was a girl, but who glowed every time people believed they were a boy. That model was there very visibly for me in lots of the books I read. It was only later that I realised I had no idea what tom boys grew up into.

As a teenager, the word given to my gender non-conformity was lesbian, and it came with violence. And I hated it because it didn't describe my sexuality at all. My first sexual experiences were actually with other boys. No one ever believed me when I said that. I remember that *I* knew that bisexuality existed, but everyone else seemed to discount it. In fact that matches a lot of my experiences under section 28. I knew, but other people somehow didn't.

Teachers would not step in when other children attacked me for being a lesbian. They wouldn't tell me that it was an ok thing to be. They wouldn't tell other children that it was not on to punish someone for it. I remember that vividly, because it was very different to how my other intersectional identities were treated when I was violently bullied over them. This one was not protected.

I got the word trans after I left school. Lots of other people tell that story that not having the words made them confused. I wasn't confused. I was always pretty clear. It was other people who seemed like they were confused. I don't know why I didn't internalise that shame, when so many of my queer peers did. But for me it just seemed wild that other people were confused and angered by these very basic parts of my identity.

Tags: Transgender, non-binary, lesbian, bisexual, queer, AFAB, White, second-generation migrant, disabled, neurodivergent, Jewish, middle class.

Three adults raised me. They never had the words for their set up, and so neither did I. I remember having to explain the details of my family life, repeatedly, and not being able to. This was in the 1980s. No one had words.

When I talk about the third adult who raised me as an adult, I describe her as my mother's queerplatonic lover. That's not the words that they used, or the framing that they used. But she lived with us, she shared out life, from before I was born until my mother's death this year.

My mother, in her seventies, identified as bisexual. Not any earlier than that. She came from a orthodox Jewish community, it wasn't at all in her conception of what was possible until after she had out children. But she had romantic although never sexual relationships with other women her whole life, alongside her fifty year marriage to my father. The third adult who raised me - I still don't have an easy word to describe her, she always rejected family metaphors like auntie - I would describe her sexuality as asexual. She always talked openly about not valuing sexual encounters as important in her life, but valuing deep, life long friendships.

No one knew what to do with this atypical situation when I was at school. The third adult who raised me would come to parents evenings and school pick ups, and over and over again would be questions about why she was there and who she was. Sometimes, having picked me up for weeks, there would be a sudden slamming down of barriers - she wasn't my parent and couldn't take me home today. Meanwhile everyone assumed that my dad - present, active, and engaged in these relationships - must be missing.

Tags: Bisexual, asexual, polyamorous, woman, heterosexual/straight, cisgender, White, British, second-generation migrant, Jewish, middle-class. 

From the age of 8, I was desperate to cut my hair short. I was not allowed, on the grounds that I needed to have my hair in a bun for dancing exams and shows. I hated dancing lessons (none of my 3 brothers had to go) and would have quit in a heartbeat, but this wasn't allowed either.

I would often switch between male and female parts in roleplaying games. I have a strong maternal streak, and love the glamourous potential of femininity. But playing as a man was satisfying in a way that was deep-down and hard to describe.

As a teenager I joked that I was 'a camp man' more than a girl. When I was finally allowed short hair, bullies would throw the word 'lesbian' at me. This was more annoying than hurtful - I have never identified that way. A couple of times random kids at school approached me and ask if I was a boy or a girl. These incidents did stick. I felt humiliated - maybe because they were closer to home.

When my first boyfriend told me 'I love it when you dress like a girl,' I felt wildly uncomfortable. Around the same time, I read about Daphne Du Maurier and her 'boy in the box'. This resonated deeply. I began questioning my gender shortly after, when I was 18. But there was so much to untangle, and my understanding was hopelessly binary.

A decade later, I don't think I have ever stopped questioning. But these days it's just the finer points that remain unclear.

Tags: Transgender, non-binary, AFAB, White, British, middle-class.