I’ve seen a lot of videos on YouTube where people talk about childhood signs they were gay or trans or non-binary or what-have-you, so today that’s what I’m going to share with you!

Now. I will say this is a bit different from other experiences and sexualities. The first is because little kids don’t experience sexual attraction (duh). So for the sake of this post, most of these statements are things I felt or thought about from the age of twelve (ish) onward. Additionally, there weren’t a ton of signs I liked girls as a kid because I genuinely did like boys, and my lack of sexual attraction definitely played a role in that. And of course none of these things made me asexual or queer. A lot of people could probably relate to some of these in some aspect, but for me they ended up connecting to my queerness. 

Nevertheless, here are some childhood signs I was asexual: 

1. I wanted to adopt kids. 

Ever since the fifth or sixth grade I have wanted to adopt kids, and it was always a big if. Now, I’m not that interested in having kids, but if I did, I would still want to adopt. This is a personal preference but also in connection to my asexuality that you…uh… have to have sex to get pregnant, and somewhere in my inner subconscious I knew I would never do that. And in relation to this point we move onto our next one…

2. I didn’t want to be pregnant. 

Getting pregnant…not for me. I have a distinct memory of being in the sixth grade and thinking I didn’t want to be pregnant because I would have to try to get pregnant and that was gross. I thought that was just me being an immature kid and I wouldn’t think that later but eight years later here we are. 

Side rant, I think it has been way too normalized for straight couples to go on and on about how they’re trying for kids (given they’re trying to conceive “naturally”). Like, okay Jennifer, we get it, your husband is going down on you every night. I do not need that imagery. Time and place. Plus, Jennifer would go out of her way to say something weird about queer couples adopting or going through IVF. The hypocrisy is crazy. 

3. I wanted to keep my last name. 

I’ve definitely talked about this before but I have another distinct memory of being in the fifth grade and thinking I would only take my husband’s last name if it was really cool. I still agree with this but with a wife or partner. And I mostly just want to hyphenate my name with my partner’s if it sounds good. And if it doesn’t, no biggy, I’ll just keep mine and not have to go through the legal loopholes. 

4. I never had a lot of crushes.

I never had a lot of crushes growing up and part of it made me feel mature because I wasn’t boy crazy. Even now, I still don’t crush on people very often. I thought a lot of the boys around me were gross and not up to my standards, and I still think that! However, now I know my asexuality plays a huge role in that. I don’t get crushes on people because I feel sexually attracted to them. I have to think they’re pretty aesthetically attractive or I know something about them that makes me see them as a good partner. 

5. In middle school I had a friend I thought was so pretty and cool. 

In the sixth grade I was friends with this girl who was in my orchestra class and she had dyed hair and I thought it was so cool. I remember thinking she was so pretty and I wanted to hang out with her. Now, I’m all for intimate female friendships and appreciating your friends’ beauty, but this sounds pretty gay. Looking back this was definitely the first crush I had on a girl, and Little Jadey didn’t even know! In her defense, the crushes I have on people do feel like a pretty intimate friendship, because I don’t have any sexual thoughts, so Little Jadey couldn’t have dug into it that much. 

6. I thought I was a late bloomer (of sorts). 

Now I wasn’t actually a super late bloomer. I wasn’t the first in any capacity, but I wasn’t the last. I didn’t have my first real crush until the seventh grade, and that was pretty late compared to my peers. Because of this, I figured I wasn’t interested in sex due to that, and in a few years, by the time I reached college, I would be interested. Now as an almost twenty year old college student I still don’t want sex. Wow! All these feelings I thought would arrive when I was a teenager never came. 

7. I was fascinated by gay people.

One time in the eighth grade a woman came in as a guest speaker. She was with this other guy, and honestly I have no idea what they were even talking about. Probably about their job and college and giving us inspiration for what we could do or be in the future. Anyway, that’s not important. The important thing is that I just knew she was gay. The way she looked and the way she acted, and at the time I didn’t even know that much about the queer community. I just knew, and the whole time I waited for her to drop a hint about her wife or something, and she never did. And the sorta sad thing is, I still feel this way now. When I’m out and about I still get secretly excited to see other queer people. I don’t feel this way at school or with people around my age, because there are just queer people because it’s more accepted in my generation. However with adults I get excited because it’s pretty rare to see an older queer person. I hardly ever see trans adults who are grown up and happy, or gay men who are fathers or grandfathers. And unfortunately that’s due to a high suicide rate and the AIDS crisis. 

All in all these things are memories and feelings I look back on and can see how they relate to my life now. It’s crazy to think about me as a little kid and know that Little Jadey has been queer all along, and she has so much to find out and love about herself. 

• Asexuality