What have you learned from being LGBT?

• A lot of my early friends were actually crushes.
• Being bisexual is really weird.
• Finding friends who can relate is important.
• Telling everyone your sexuality is not important.
• You don’t have to label yourself. And you can always change that label down the road.
• Not all LGBT+ folks are accepting, and not all of them are great people.

More, because I’ve been mulling on this while crocheting:

• People attracted to exactly one gender are really weird to me.
• Sexuality doesn’t matter too much outside of dating, assuming you live in a somewhat liberal area.
• The person you date doesn’t define your sexuality, but many people will think it does. (See: Bisexual dating somebody of the opposite gender.)

I don’t think that realizing my sexuality changed me very much. I did try and date women, but they are really difficult to date. I’ve heard this from both cishet men and lesbian women. Getting women’s attention is a real crapshoot, so I can empathize with anybody trying to date them.

How homophobic I was before, and some pretty good hygiene and deep cleaning tips.

It's interesting to think about how to answer this without just repeating what others have said. I think that the biggest difference, for me, is that t4t and polyamory are inherently tied to my queerness. I'm trans, and I'm bisexual, and I'm t4t, and I'm polyam, and those are all just about equally important to the reason I call myself queer.

So, speaking of that:

• It's much easier dating other trans people. Getting to the third date with a cis lesbian only to find out that she thinks I'm a horrible disgusting worm because I had a little more testosterone than her growing up is, of course, no fun, but so is explaining how my periods work and reminding people that I have to dissolve my estrogen before we go to sleep. All that is hard too.
• It's much more joyful dating other trans people. My trans boyfriend and I taking our HRT together is a genuinely special experience. Transitioning together, watching each others' bodies change and mould themselves into shapes we both prefer, and learning to love each others' new touch and scent and movement and mannerisms over and over again, is a kind of closeness I'm not sure I could ever feel with a cis person.
• Transfems and transmascs don't mix enough. In the US, there are really two different trans cultures, with only a bit of intermixing, and it means we end up redoing the same work, reinventing the same ideas and community spaces, and splitting our force when we have to combat hateful policies and politicians.
• Nothing beats kitchen table polyamory. There is no feeling in this world like having Sunday brunch with my boyfriend, and my nonbinary partner, and my boyfriend's wife, and my nb partner's fiance, and all sit there together enjoying bacon and biscuits and talking about our lives. Hearing about the new guy my boyfriend met last night, and his Grindr adventures, and so forth is absolutely magical.
• The state absolutely cannot conceptualize polyamorous relationships as valid. I've been with my boyfriend for six years; he's been in a relationship with his wife for ten, though they only married recently. When my bf and his wife and I bought our house, it was a Huge Fucking Issue to even just get it as Tenancy In Common. I had to take out the loan myself because he didn't have enough income and we couldn't pool the two of ours (because we're not married) or all three of ours (because that's not an option). We can't file taxes as a household because we're not married or related. We pay more for insurance, both home and car. There's no malice behind this, but rather none of these systems have any concept of life partnerships that go beyond marriage.
• I don't feel safe travelling to Florida anymore. I'm going one last time for Thanksgiving, by car, but after that it's over.

So, we take the good with the bad. Overall, I'm happy with where we've ended up.

/u/autumn got most of the high points, but I’ll add my perspective:

• I was born 20 or 30 years too early. Living in a time when there is commonly accepted language to better describe people like me (intersex, non-binary), and communities for support, would have mitigated a great deal of psychological and physical harm.

• Whatever you may have been told, whatever you are or may become, there are others like you, you’re not alone.

• The definition of “normal” is a matter of tradition, custom, religion, politics, and commerce, not science.

• Lust and love know no reason - the heart wants what the heart wants.

• Smart and kind are 95% of sexy when you’re past the first flush of infatuation, regardless of gender.

• “Girls” are more complicated than “boys”, but also softer and more fun. That being said, I prefer the happy medium of other n-b people.

• Relationships are hard work. Throw in the exploratory phases of understanding your own sexuality and gender identity, and you’re likely to be struggling for years. Be kind to yourself and your partners - you will make mistakes, feelings will be hurt, hearts will be broken. It’s not because you’re defective or evil, it’s because we’re all doing the best we can with what we know. Straight/cis people have more clearly defined relationship expectations, but not necessarily better results.

• Everyone, LGBT+ or not, could stand to learn more self-acceptance. Having empathy for our own struggles is essential to treating other people well.

How what I’ve learned has changed me:

• For better or worse, my perception of sexual attractiveness in other people has broadened as I’ve learned more about accepting myself.

• Politically, I used to treat LGBT+ rights as just part of a suite of universal human rights worth fighting for. As I’ve developed more understanding from my community, I’ve learned to recognize that there’s a substantial countercurrent in modern right-wing politics which aims to deny the “human” part and must be opposed with specificity.

I've been thinking about this question for a while because there's so much to say and it's all so incredibly complicated, but it's also really simple things about everyday life so I have no idea where to even start.

For one thing, I learned that even if you completely ignore the existence of transgender and genderqueer people, the very concept of gender is a hugely convoluted mess of social expectations that have been made worse by the fact that they are reinforced by unfathomably long lines of history and tradition. And to be honest, the existence of transgender and genderqueer people is actually a lot easier to comprehend than the various gender hangups that humankind is lugging around.

The thing I still don't completely understand is how these gender hangups affect relationships between men and women specifically. Gay relationships generally don't appear to have nearly as many issues comparatively, so I have been through many "are the straights alright?" moments. There are a handful of social issues that seem to be specific to straight people; you don't often hear about gay incels, for instance (though I'm sure they probably also exist somewhere). I'm also sure I'm not the only person who seems to see people saying some variation of "Feminism has failed" in the seedier parts of the internet.

Those in turn have given me a unique appreciation to human nature when it comes to forming relationships. I've seen so many relationships made to work when it's clear that it doesn't actually work and that they are hurting eachother. In some cases partners can be both emotionally and physically abusive, and I'm always amazed to see that they still have a connection that draws them to eachother no matter how much pain they cause. I've seen people who have been married for many decades who appear to hate eachother, but there's no way in hell they would even think about leaving their relationship.

Finally, I have to say that I'm fairly certain that all people under the LGBTQ umbrella, even before the invention of social media, are painfully aware that society is full of closed-minded ignoramuses who are unwilling to understand the damages being done to us every day. But that's not specific to LGBTQ people; people in pretty much any minority group also know this experience.

I think it really is true that women seek stability while men seek novelty/risk. It's interesting to see gender behaviors get distilled and concentrated when gay men and women form their separate communities.

In San Francisco, there are lots of gay bars, a few gay sex clubs, several cruising spots including the gay nude beach (which is packed with thousands of gay men on hot days), and lots of gay circuit parties. In contrast, there is one dedicated lesbian bar, and then a few gay bars will host occasional lesbian nights. I haven't heard of any big lesbian circuit parties.

The gay men I know are party-hopping, having orgies, and trying new drugs. My lesbian friends and acquaintances, on the other hand, tend to settle into relationships fairly quickly and then spend weekend nights catching a movie at home with their partner.