Understanding queer 'firsts'–from crushes to Pride marches

In the journey of self-discovery in queerness, ‘firsts’ highlight the importance of affirming experiences and supportive communities in navigating and embracing one's identity

K (they/them) was 18 and attending college in the United States when they first met a woman who affirmed their queer identity. It began with a question from her: "Are you attracted to people besides cis-men?" When K confirmed, the woman responded, "That makes you bisexual." K was skeptical as the societal messaging they had received was that one must kiss a same-gendered partner to validate their bisexuality—a standard not applied to heterosexuals. This notion lingered within K, who until then identified as "bi-curious", a term they discovered while in high school in Kolkata.

K soon developed a crush on the woman and found themself hanging out with her often. A few weeks later, K and the woman were at the same party on campus. That was the night they kissed. K had held out until then as they were in a hetero-passing relationship with a man and was unsure of how to act on their feelings for her. “But when that relationship ended, I was in a more exploratory phase,” they share. "The kiss felt normal and underwhelming in a good way.” This experience affirmed K's bisexuality by showing them that queer attraction doesn't have to be an overwhelming awakening of sorts; it can be as ordinary as any other kiss. “In hindsight, I’m glad that I didn’t put too much weight on that experience, because what if it was a bad kiss? You can have bad first queer kisses as well!” says K, now in their late 20s.

A journey of self-discovery

Through the same experience, K also realised how their gender expression shifted with their partner's gender. With cis-men, K felt pressured to perform femininity. With that woman, however, K felt free to express a different aspect of themselves. “With her, I was physically the larger person, a bit taller and broader, and felt myself playing out what I used to think of as masculinity. With her, I wanted to take the lead, which is seen [in society] as a masculine energy,” they point out.

K's story illustrates the nuanced journey of self-discovery in queerness. It highlights the importance of affirming experiences and supportive communities in navigating and embracing one's identity.

Though mainstream movies often depict it as an aha! moment, most queer individuals experience their queerness as a gradual realisation that starts in childhood. Teya (she/her), a Gurgaon-based interior stylist, describes her journey as "slow at first, and then suddenly all at once." Growing up in the early 2000s, she credits the Internet for the queer-affirming messages that sparked her curiosity about her identity. Online, she found a world beyond the phobic mainstream media—blogs on Tumblr, art by queer artists, and make-up videos on YouTube. "Growing up it was like, if I was queer, I am bad or that trans people are scary. But online I saw the artistry of queerness, which helped reverse that initial hesitation in me," she adds.

K, too, recalls the challenges of their school years. Bullying and whispers about their queerness left K feeling queasy and hesitant to express themselves. "People would whisper about my queerness behind my back and not want to come in physical contact with me. If I accidentally touched someone, they would pretend to have the ick and run away. Those moments made me feel a lot of shame about who I was."

Teya reflects on the internalised queerphobia that many experience. "There is that little edgelord-y attitude that comes from internalised queerphobia."

"If anybody says you can’t do this or that, you end up using those parts to cut them," she explains. Teya credits her ability to express herself for who she truly is as an important piece of finding peace for herself. "I am a much kinder person since coming into my queerness." 

The stage proved to be an important space for Teya’s self-expression.  One of her earliest memories of performing was in class one, playing the mirror in a school adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. "The girl who was playing the evil queen was forgetting her lines, and I was whispering them to her. That’s who I am on stage! I love nothing more than to be performing."

After she medically transitioned, Teya's first performance post-surgery was a poem she was commissioned to write and perform for Women’s Day. "To get to perform poetry about womanhood while living and affirming my truth as a woman felt pretty neat! To get a reaction out of people, be gendered correctly, all of those things tie back to the good parts of life for me," she shares. While drag is often seen as a way to blur gender lines, many queer folks view the gender binary itself as a daily performance. "For so long, I had performed my idea of gender [in daily life, whether it was] my idea of femininity or masculinity. But on stage, all of it falls to the wayside. The stage is my safe space to cut through the bullshit and express the essence of who I am," explains Teya.

Finding and discarding labels

Historically, advertising has leveraged stereotypes and gendered performances of daily roles and people’s aspirations to conform to them as a means to sell products. Feminists worldwide have criticised razor brands, for example, for imposing the “pink tax” by pricing similar products for women higher than those marketed to men. This writer, who has developed the brand-messaging guidelines for a popular sexual wellness brand and edited product content for queer and disability sensitivity, questions why marketing lingo avoids naming the parts of our body that a device stimulates. Addressing this directly could open up conversations for a wider demographic in a nuanced and empathetic way, rather than clinging to outdated, gendered assumptions. After all, public expression of our queerness extends beyond how we present ourselves; it influences how we perceive the world.

For 35-year-old Oysh (they/them), a theatre-maker and arts-worker living between Goa and Mumbai, the first time they questioned their womanhood was during the making of a play. "It was a devised theatre production wherein we wove our personal stories into the larger script. I was sitting with the question of whether my rage is masculine or feminine." Mainstream culture often portrays rage as a masculine trait, as seen in Bollywood’s "angry young man” trope. However, Oysh grew up in West Bengal, where goddesses like Durga and Kali, who embody rage, are worshipped. "I grew up with images of Rudra Kali, where ‘rudra’ means angry and outraged. So while there may be an element of the woman in rage, maybe there isn’t femininity. But then again, I never really thought of myself as 'feminine' while growing up, though from time to time I did try to fit myself into the frames of femininity," they explain. They even founded an artists’ group called the Loose Women Collective, to reflect their experience of being on the fringes of womanhood. This discomfort with traditional womanhood resonates with many, especially in India, where womanhood is often tied to Brahminical ideals of propriety and submission, limiting expression of a range of emotions, body language, and career choices.

"Coming into my queer identity was a long and non-linear process that involved producing theatre and art. Through these processes, I was able to drop the ideals of womanhood, which I was unable to function within," shares Oysh. The journey of coming to terms with one’s queerness involves daily contentions with societal norms. "I still keep coming out to my parents," they add. Finding the right language and labels is part of this process of explaining our experiences to loved ones. As we explore our queerness, we adopt and discard labels based on how they fit us. "Finding the term ‘non-binary’ was helpful. It was also wide enough for me to explore and make it my own. Later, I found it difficult to define myself as something that I am not. Like I don’t call myself a ‘non-vegetarian’ but a ‘meat-eater’. Since then, I’ve moved on from calling myself non-binary to polygender," they explain.

Finding solidarity in community

What truly helps queer individuals embrace their identity is finding queer community. "My queerness allowed me to access a lot more freedom in how I express myself. It also helped me connect with a lot of queer folks. Accepting that I was queer also helped me access a community of like-minded individuals, which I don’t think I was able to find before I embodied my queerness," shares K, highlighting the joy of sharing queer experiences with affirming others.

"Having queer friends who used ‘they/them’ pronouns for themselves and for me felt really good. It felt like they held some bit of how I saw myself," adds Oysh. Growing up in a small town in India during the 1980s and 90s, they had mostly seen queer people expressing themselves openly only on screen. "Meeting queer women and non-binary folks for the first time in real life was life-changing for me. Someone who watched one of my online shows connected with me and introduced me to a newly-formed group in Goa called Queerly, which was then organising a meetup. It was a bunch of 5-6 lesbians and non-binary folks. I vividly remember watching queer people in the flesh, expressing their queer affections toward each other in real life,” they recollect of the experience. Considering how public displays of affection between queer folx are widely frowned upon, they found this experience safe and affirming.

This highlights the crucial role of queer-only parties, meetups, and city-specific Pride Marches in connecting queer individuals to a larger, affirming community and a broader world of queer expression. For people like Naveen Daniel (he/him), a 31-year-old disability justice activist from Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu, these spaces are also a means of reclaiming visibility after experiencing marginalisation. "I came into my identity as a demisexual person after learning about diverse human sexualities through posts on Instagram. That’s when I found the term 'demisexual,' which fit my personal experience. After about a year of identifying as demi in private, I began sharing it with others," he explains. Demisexual persons fall on the asexuality spectrum, which means that they experience sexual attraction only after forming a significant emotional bond, and rarely or never feel attraction towards strangers or even passing acquaintances. "Since I was a teen, I never felt sexually attracted to anyone simply by looking at them. Even though I found film stars and celebrities good-looking, they were never part of my sexual awakening," he reflects on his unique journey.

Before embracing his demisexual identity, Naveen confided in friends about his struggles with dating as a disabled person and his feelings of touch-starvation and sexual dissatisfaction. Friends often suggested solutions that were not aligned with Naveen’s identity or needs. "During a lonely period of my life, a couple of friends suggested that I enlist the services of a sex worker, thinking it would help me break the ice around having sex for the first time.” However, this was not the dating advice he was looking for. Naveen wished to court someone and get to know them better, before exploring sexual intimacy. To him, the concept of sexual intimacy with a stranger felt odd, and so he brushed off their suggestions. “Learning about demisexuality helped me connect the dots for myself," he says.

On 30 June this year, Naveen attended the Pride March in Chennai for the first time, carrying a placard that boldly proclaimed his identity: Dalit. Demi. Disabled. "People often struggle to understand me and my experiences in a way that feels affirming. Attending the Pride March was significant for me to represent myself; however, even there I didn't have much space to discuss demisexuality. Journalists asked broad questions, not specifically about demisexuality. Friends don't engage deeply with it either,” he says, throwing light on how certain queer identities become invisibilised in the larger conversation about the LGBTQIA+ community.

The ‘A’ in the acronym stands for asexuality. In a world that has normalised hook-up culture and expects compulsorily heterosexual marriages, asexual folx often find themselves alienated. “Last year, I posted about it on social media, and this year, I prominently identified myself as demisexual at Pride. I had to validate myself, even though it's rarely discussed with me—probably due to ignorance," shares Naveen.

Naveen’s story underscores that our queer-firsts don’t need to be perfect, movie-like productions. They can be subtle, nuanced, and bittersweet, yet they are essential. These moments help us feel affirmed and advocate assertively for ourselves, making them a worthwhile pursuit.

Queer-firsts are pivotal moments in the journey of self-discovery and identity affirmation.They challenge the societal norms that often make individuals doubt their desires and curiosities. Embracing these moments is crucial, not just for personal growth but for normalizing queerness in a world that tends to other it. In a world that often marginalizes and stigmatises queerness, it is essential to create spaces where people feel encouraged to explore and affirm their identities without fear of judgment or ostracisation. Queer firsts, whether they are subtle or profound, are moments of self-affirmation that contribute to a more inclusive and understanding society. By normalizing these experiences, we move closer to a world where queerness is not seen as an anomaly but as an integral part of the human experience.

Curated by Gaysi Family | Illustration by Anjali Nair

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