Fellow lgbtq’s: when did you realize you were queer?

I would say around 13 but I always sort of knew. I gravitated towards women who were "butch" for a lack of a better word. I always idolized them and felt excited every time I saw lesbians on TV. I dreamt about being with a woman when I grew up. Never men. Though I would say I am bisexual now, since I do have attraction to some men.

Elememtary school

I got a crush on a woman when I was 20. I had always been pretty lowkey homophobic towards lesbians (but not gay men, only lesbians) and that helped make me realize im probably bi because i'd even experienced blatant internalized homophobia. That was also when I realized i'd had a crush on this girl when I was like 14 that I was really fascinated by and couldnt take my eyes off whenever she was around. I thought at the time I just really badly wanted to be her friend but nah. Well I also had a crush on Bella in the Twilight movies when I was 14/15 lol, I didnt get it at the time though but I didnt care for neither Edward nor Jacob much only Bella. Questionable crush now... I mean Kristen Steward is attractive but Bella's pretty dependant and boring.

Yeah, 14
Even though I didn't accept it. But I had a huge crush on a gorgeous friend and couldn't deny it.

12 or 13

There was probably some baseline level of potential for liking women there from pre-puberty, at least in part because I craved female affection because my relationship with my mum was distant and I didn't feel completely secure with her as a kid.

But I think I became bisexual by training my tastes to like women more and more. A childhood background of lack of maternal affection, curiosity, imagination, an indulgent and self-indulgent character plus one or two other inherited traits, and not having developed the norms and boundaries as a child that one develops by adulthood, took me on from there, probably. I was able to accept in myself that that was what I had made myself around 2015. I spent a while wondering if I was bisexual in the same way as people are different races and I considered the 'born this way' narrative for a while, but it didn't quite 'fit' my experiences unless I forced myself to swallow it - in the same way as the theology of one or two early churches I attended didn't quite fit what seemed to be true from my own studies or experiences, either.

I don't accept the LGBTQIA+/queer identity politics narrative or certain theological narratives from certain churches I have known. I feel more free as a person for the fact that I am not screwing my eyes and ears shut and forcing myself to believe a collective party line when I don't really believe it. I feel even more free for the fact that I am not capitulating to pressure to tell the story of 'who I am' in the way that any movement wants me to, and to define my fundamental identity in the terms the movement requires, even though I'm not sure I agree with the content of those terms, and far less want to make them my fundamental identity.

If 'queer' is a thing (in the terms that Queer Theory, Critical Theory and social justice movements prescribe), it's something I developed in myself. It's not something I am, and it's not something I always definitely was from birth or before birth and had to 'realise' that I was, like someone taking a paternity test and realising who their biological father is.

Also, do you know that you stand to offend certain groups by using 'queer' and 'LGBTQIA+' interchangeably? Unless my knowledge is out-of-date and they have mellowed or made peace with each other, 'queer theorists' fashioned themselves as a group that shunned the categories and determinism that the LGBTQIA+ group seemed to be obsessed with. A bit like the difference between Protestant and Catholic or Conformist and Non-Conformist, in short.