Returning Home Identity Research Paper

It was the weekend of April 13, 2018 that I spontaneously decided to return home to visit my family. Usually when I return home it is over a planned break so I have time to debrief and code which into my home identity. Which is the responsible older brother, who is omniscient, does not make mistakes, and acts as a role model for his younger siblings. Which is a bit different from my school personality where I am more more flamboyant, expressive, but also laid back and spontaneous. These two identities have never overlapped until my mother’s birthday weekend.
When I was in middle school one of my close friends a the time explained to me what it means to be gay. I explained to her that I do not really know if I like guys or not, but I definitely

like girls. She not only told me that I had to make up my mind and choose one, but also told me that I also had to accept the gender that came with the sexuality. (She did not say those words exactly, but that was the gist of her rant). In her mind, being gay meant that I had to be feminine and being straight meant that I had to be masculine. Not once did she mention that there was a capacity to be masculine and feminine, nor did she tell me that there were more sexaulityes than gay or straight. (Maybe at this point I should have realized that it was not the best idea to go to a middle school girl to define my identity for me, and that it was best to define myself who I was).
Since then I lived my life thinking that I had to separate my masculine and feminine identities into two separate characters. They could never overlap because that would go against the binary and there would not be a sexuality for me to identify with.