I’m less of a “born this way” person and more of a “became this way” person.

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I have felt like an active participant in the building of my life and self, simultaneously creating and uncovering a self and a purpose. These two experiences—one being the making of the self and the other being the discovery of an essential self that was always there—may seem incompatible, and perhaps they are from a logical standpoint, and yet they coexist.

But when it comes to sexuality and gender, and even Lady Gaga, we repeatedly hear, “I was born this way.” That’s a totally legitimate experience and a totally legitimate narrative—I’m certainly not interested in trying to argue with anyone who feels aligned with it. It simply has not been mine.

Perhaps I was born with a proclivity towards fluidity, or a certain nebulousness, like my edges aren’t quite firm or fixed and easily mutable. That feels true to some degree. What also feels true is that I found and followed a particular line of questioning, and allowed myself to explore freely in the realm of sexuality and gender. I picked apart my behavior, preferences, and desires and interrogated the media and experiences that shaped them. I sought out the nuggets of self that were inherent, and examined the ones that were learned. Some I kept for my own, and some I tried to unlearn, to varying degrees of success. I found play at the bounds of gender roles and sexual orientation, reclaiming the now near-forbidden term ‘preference’ because I do in fact experience much of my sexual choices as preferences and, in fact, as choices. I prefer and I choose queer sex with other queer people. I prefer and I choose to embrace and indulge the parts of me that don’t feel like a woman, and play with gender like a set of paints or musical notes that change moment to moment, day to day, and over months or years, or even relative to who I’m with at any given time.

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Ana Mendieta