How to Break Up With Anyone

by Jamye Waxman

  EIGHT

  Breaking Up with Your Sexuality or Gender

  Sex is a loaded term. When you first hear it, you probably think of the activity—the one that involves inserting “Tab A” into “Slot B.” You may think of certain other acts too, or biological characteristics like hormones, reproductive organs, and genitalia. We are taught at an early age that men have penises and women have vulvas, and that, at puberty, different things happen to boys and girls.

  The majority culture says sex is best between a cisgendered man and cisgendered woman (the term cisgender refers to a person whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth), and these two people should be in a committed relationship, preferably marriage. But looking at sex in a binary way is too limiting for some people, and it ignores a large percentage of the population who are engaging in less vanilla sex acts with people of the same, different, or varying genders. It also leaves out people who like to have sex alone (masturbation), or they don’t like to have sex at all.

  Understanding Sexual Orientation

  Sexual orientation is how you see yourself in terms of who and what you are attracted to physically, emotionally, and romantically. It falls under the umbrella term sexual identity, whose other components are biological gender, gender identity, and gender role.1 Depending on your sexual orientation, you may explore relationships with a person of the same sex, opposite sex, or with a person who identifies on a sexual spectrum. You can also have no sexual attraction to anyone at all, an identity known as asexual.

  Whether you see yourself as gay, straight, pansexual, bi-curious, queer, asexual, or anything in between—your sexual orientation can shift, and if it does, your perception of yourself may shift with it.

  It can feel liberating, or isolating, to break up with a sexual identity. On the one hand, you are being true to yourself and following your heart. You are giving yourself the gift of making a decision based on what feels right to you. On the other hand, you may have held on to a strong identity for a while. You may really be attached to the privilege or pride that comes with your orientation. Letting go of who you thought you were can be challenging, but embracing who you are is what life is about.

  This entails taking a really deep look at how your orientation and identity impact your life. It may influence where you go to unwind based on the energy you want to be around. That doesn’t mean that gay people and straight people don’t mix—they do—but there is a chance you will spend more time hanging out in a place with the kinds of people who you prefer to see naked.

  A change in sexual orientation can also affect how you treat yourself. You may get down on yourself for not living up to your family’s, or society’s, expectations of who you should be. Or you may be loving to yourself for taking care of your needs. People you know and love may also treat you differently. You need to be prepared to navigate your feelings and the feelings of those closest to you.

  Understanding Gender Identity

  Gender refers to the social and cultural distinctions between the sexes. These include the roles we assign to the masculine and feminine, as well as the activities, actions, and attributes that play into these roles. Whether or not we consciously understand it, we feed into gender stereotypes all the time. For example, men are supposed to be big, strong providers, and women are supposed to be caregivers, lovers, and supporters. Now, think of athletes and nurses. What about the colors pink and blue? Are there certain gendered associations that are brought up for you?

  Gender identity is our own internal sense of who we are. That can be a man, woman, a combination of the two, or none of the above. Some of us even identify with animals, including wolves, tigers, cats, and dogs. While this can sometimes be a form of sex play, there are also people who consider this an inherent part of who they are.

  When it comes to gender identity, how we express ourselves externally—masculine, feminine, or other beastly—is called gender expression. It’s generally based on the name a person uses, the pronouns they answer to (he, she, they, ze, them), and their clothing, hair, voice, behavior, and mannerisms.

  A lot of people who transition from one gender identity to another know from an early age that they do not feel on the inside what they look like on the outside. Today, boys and girls as young as two and three are telling their parents, in no uncertain terms, that they are “not a boy” or “not a girl.” While not necessarily a trans kid, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s preference to be called John and be referred to as “he” is an example of a young kid breaking gender barriers.

  The Concept of Fluidity

  Before we begin to discuss the ways we may break up with our sexuality and gender, it can help to understand the concept of sexual and gender fluidity. The basic premise is, nothing about our sexuality or gender are written in stone, and therefore there is always the possibility that these things can change.

  It may be that we have always been bi-curious and we happen to fall in love with someone of the same gender when we have only dated opposite-sex partners before. Or, a man, who has always had an interest in women’s clothing, finally decides to slip into something more comfortable.

  IS SEXUAL FLUIDITY A FEMALE THING?

  University of Utah Psychology professor Lisa Diamond, in her 2008 book, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, explored this question in detail. She followed around a group of seventy women who identified as lesbian, bisexual, and “unlabeled” for ten years to see who they loved and made love with. She found more women joined the bisexual or “unlabeled” groups, despite the prevailing thought most would leave the terms bisexuality or unlabeled for the more concrete terms of heterosexual or gay. Her research revealed that when it came to sexual fluidity, women were more likely to go with the flow than to be stuck with a label that didn’t always fit.2

  Fluidity can be for environmental reasons. For example, a man who only had sex with women gets sent to an all-male prison, where he now engages in sex with other men, even though he still considers himself heterosexual. It can also be that you fall for a different type of guy than you once did.

  The Kinsey Scale is an often-used example of identifying sexual fluidity. The scale, created by famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, shows the variation of people’s sexual orientation, identity, and behavior. The numbers, ranging from zero to six, represent the spectrum of heterosexual to homosexual. A person who is exclusively heterosexual becomes a zero on the scale, and a person who is exclusively homosexual is known as a six. In his sex research, Kinsey found that most people were not exclusively at either end of the scale. The majority of people were placed somewhere in between, from a one (mostly heterosexual with potentially homosexual thoughts) to a three (a “true” bisexual) or a five (mostly homosexual with intermittent heterosexual thoughts).3

  What it all boils down to is human beings have changing views about many things, including gender and sexuality. We all break up with parts of ourselves that no longer feel like they belong to us. We are allowed to change everything else about ourselves, from our haircuts to our jobs; from our friends, family, and community to the town, state, or country in which we live; to how we vote, eat, and exercise, why shouldn’t we be permitted to do the same with our selves?

  Real-Life Break Ups

  “I knew something was up as early as ten or eleven. But I didn’t come out until I was in my late twenties. I identify as gender queer or non-binary transgender. It was a slow process that started with me getting piercings and tattoos. Tattoos represented me taking control of my body and doing things that were deliberate and permanent. The permanent aspects appealed to me because it was me asserting something that I couldn’t easily take back.

  I came out to my mom on the phone. I told her that I had something important to tell her and that I wanted to be able to talk. I asked her to let me talk for a while and then told her she could ask me any questions that she wanted afterwards. After I told her, her response was very her and very lawyerly (which she is). She said,
‘As long as you’re not cruel—with the exception of the times we’re all cruel—and as long as you don’t hurt people—with the exception of the times we all hurt people—I love you just the same.’ That was amazing!

  I asked her to tell my dad. At the time I couldn’t tell him, but my relationship with my dad has gotten so much better since coming out. I think it has to do with the fact that since I came out, I can be more honest with him, and he can be more honest with me. For example, last year on my birthday, I decided to quit grad school and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. I had this amazing conversation with my dad. He told me that he was proud of me just for the courage that I had to be myself, not for a job or for an achievement.

  I hope others can learn from me, and from seeing me. I wear dresses and have a ‘man’s’ face. I dress in bold colors. I stand out and I don’t outwardly display a binary gender. For so much of my life I felt shame and fear and self-hate around this. I think that’s because I didn’t talk to anyone about this. Honesty and truthfulness and openness are big parts of my life now, because keeping that secret all that time, I gave power to it. You don’t have to talk about it with people in your life, you can find an LBGT center or group to go to. These are safe spaces where people can talk about how they feel. And just being in a room with other people who understand what you’re going through, it makes you feel that you’re less alone. We all struggle. It’s not easy. A lot of times people say trans people are brave for coming out, but once you come out it stops being a bravery thing and starts to be a life thing.” —Wee Heavy

  Coming Out and Other Sex and Gender Break Ups

  When who you love or how you see yourself in terms of your gender identity or sexual identity changes, you experience a “coming out.” This coming out is a break up with the part of an identity that no longer serves you. It may also mean breaking up with other people who can no longer accept you for who you are.

  Breaking up with our sexuality and gender requires a lot of strength and self-care. Even though there are others who can help you on this journey, this is a journey that forces you to take the steps for yourself. The process can be slow. It can be agonizingly hard and harrowing. An internal break up with external implications forces you to dissect your values and shines a mirror on the values of others. It can leave you feeling alone and questioning why your life couldn’t “just be easy.” But when you get out the other side, you are likely going to feel very differently.

  If you decide that even though you were born male bodied, you most definitely are not a man, you are going to have to deal with your own psychological issues and accept or disconnect from your physical parts. You also have a lot of decisions to make. You need to consider how much time and money it takes to transition, if that’s what you choose to do, and factor in costs for medical appointments and surgery. You may also think about voice lessons, or lessons in how to walk in high heels, so that you can do more than “pass” in society. And you’ll want to think about legally changing your name on your driver’s license and birth certificate.

  Not only is self-acceptance huge, but getting to the place where you look and feel like yourself is a big deal. And then there is the consideration of how other people view you. Staying in a job and transitioning can be a huge challenge. There might be a lot of fear around coming out and losing your professional or social status.4 You have to think about your safety too—not just at work or school, but also when you’re out in public. You will have to deal with coworkers, family, and friends, even accepting ones, making mistakes about your pronouns. And then there’s the unwanted attention from both strangers and people you know. Will you be strong enough to handle the comments, snickers, or questions like, “What are you?”

  Bathrooms are another big deal. If there is no unisex bathroom, deciding which toilet to use can create huge anxiety for anyone who is transitioning.

  When you’re not sure if you are one gender or the other, you don’t necessarily have a clear picture of how to proceed. If you’re not strong enough to live your life without the acceptance of your family and friends, you may beat yourself up about who you are.

  When you are ready to announce this change to the world, you often start taking hormones to physically alter your appearance. Some trans people choose to have gender confirmation surgery. Gender confirmation surgery is a big step in a gender break up, and, while it’s not done by everyone, those who do it often see it as the last step to feeling affirmed and acknowledged in their identity. That could mean having breast augmentation or top surgery, which is the removal of breasts, to make a person feel more masculine. Or it could involve having genital surgery, like vaginoplasty, where a penis is removed and shaped into a vulva, or metoidioplasty, where a penis is surgically created via the extension of the clitoris.5 Transgender pioneers include Christine Jorgensen, Kate Bornstein, Thomas Beatie, and Buck Angel, as well as Hollywood folks like Matrix codirector Lana Wachowski, actress Lavenere Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, and Chaz Bono. If you want to understand more about the transitioning process, check out any of their stories, or watch Amazon.com’s TV show Transparent, which is an excellent example of the process of transitioning.

  Take comfort in knowing there are people who have paved the way for you to break up with your gender or sexuality, as well as people who are doing it along with you. You are not alone, and the freedom and power that comes from being able to be your true self is not only liberating, it’s also inspiring to others.

  Breaking Up with the Virgin

  The idea of breaking up with your sexual virginity can make any hymen shiver. Especially because many cultures try to instill in young girls’ minds that sex is a big deal, and losing one’s virginity will not only change your life, but will also change the way other people look at you. Virginity is such a loaded concept that losing it seems like it’s going to be the most earth-shattering event in our lives. Sometimes it is a big deal, and sometimes it’s not.

  “There is not, and never has been, any ‘official’ definition of virginity, nor is there any reliable way of knowing or diagnosing whether anyone is or isn’t a virgin. It all depends on what you think is going on,” says Hanne Blank, author of Virgin, the Untouched History. “There is no way that things automatically or necessarily have to be. There is not even any real reason to think of being sexually active with a partner for the first time as ‘losing’ anything, you can think of it as ‘gaining’ a new experience too and that’s just as true.”6

  Still, the message our society sends is that women and girls are worth more to other people when they are still virgins.

  Virginity is such a big deal that purity balls (which pledge no sexual activity of any kind including kissing) are held in forty-eight out of fifty states.7 At these father/daughter balls, daughters wear white and take a pledge to remain virgins until marriage, symbolically “giving” their virginity to their fathers—a sentence that even feels creepy to write.

  In some countries, not being a virgin when you get married can literally cost a woman her life. Honor killings happen for a number of reasons, even when a woman is raped. It’s usually because of the belief that a non-virgin brought shame or dishonor upon her family for violating the religious and cultural principle of not having sex outside of marriage, whether or not she was forced into the “violation.”

  These examples emphasize the idea that getting it on with a virgin is the gold standard of sexual intercourse. If you can say you’ve deflowered a virgin, then you’re the man. When a woman can give her partner the gift of an intact hymen (even though hymens break for all sorts of reasons before a woman loses her virginity, including bike and horseback riding or using a tampon), he has received the ultimate thank-you. It doesn’t have the same impact on the guy. In fact, men who are still virgins at the time of marriage are likely to be looked down upon for not getting it on. That’s the double standard of the sex stigma.

  This double standard can psychologically damage any woman, especially if and when s
he does lose her virginity, it doesn’t go as planned. And sometimes even if it goes as planned, it can be disappointing.

  Some people go as far as to become born-again virgins, so they can break up with their past promiscuity. They rejoice in their newfound purity and emphasize their relationship with God.

  You may have also had some big expectations around the sex you were going to have, and it didn’t quite turn out the way you had hoped. You will learn and grow. Blank says, “There is no truth to the idea that your first time sets the tone for the rest of your sexual life, which seems to be a common fear. And because there is no etched-in-stone definition for what ‘virginity’ is, if your first experience of sexuality with another person was really crappy or abusive or violent, it is totally okay to just say ‘you know what, that wasn’t sex, that was violence/abuse/bullshit’ and to just put that in a different category.”

  So how else can you relieve your anxiety about losing your virginity, even if you pledge to remain a virgin until marriage?

  One: Realize that virginity is a sexist concept. It doesn’t impact men and women the same way. It doesn’t impact lesbians and straight girls the same way. It has too many double standards and negative implications.

  Two: Realize that virginity places a value on you as a person. There are lots of ways to be judged for your values, but virginity need not be one of them. Be comfortable with your decision by reading up on your body and your sexuality.

  Three: If you’re still struggling, talk to other people about what is bothering you, but not the people who will make you feel worse about your decision. Talk to friends who can relate to what you’ve gone through. Talk to a peer counselor or sex educator if you are struggling with issues around your virginity or sexuality. Go online and find other people who had similar experiences to what you’re feeling. The goal is to find ways to feel less alone.