when i was a very tiny human, i was attracted to color and shiny things (as i think most kids are?). i mean, i still am, and it started from birth. i've also been told i liked wearing my mom's heels as a toddler. my parents asked our very close family friends (aka gay uncles) if i was gay. they said no: kids just like color and shiny things.
fast forward to now, aaaand i'm queer. you know how it is. pansexual, queer, something else—not straight. who knows. i'm flexible. but before i realized (or accepted?) this, i liked painting my nails and wearing color. i strongly dislike wearing all black (or bland colors in general), in tension with my liking techno.
now, typically straight men don't paint their nails; if they do, it's probably black, and it's probably on their pinky. but that's not because they don't like color (even though you'll mostly see them wearing white, black, gray, and blue). presumably brandishing colorful nails would be too feminine, which may signal to others that they're gay, which would be undesirable.
but i don't feel like i started painting my nails as a signal. i'm extremely aware that it sends a signal, and of course i know how others may interpret it, but that's not why i wanted to do it, and i used to feel conflicted knowing it transmits potentially incorrect information. i was afraid that those i'm interested in would think, even for a second, that i'm sexually oriented away from them. ideally no one reads into it beyond some vague awareness that i'm different from the apparent masculine. this really isn't very big of a deal, because anyone that gets to know me pretty quickly discovers my preferences, and if i'm interested in someone, i be flirting. while it could prevent someone from approaching me, likely it will encourage the right people to approach me, so, again, not a big deal.
now, i'm quite comfortable living in the ambiguous. it feels much more genuine—human—than pretending binaries or extremes are real. the thing is: it's apparent to me that my liking colors and having a flexible sexual orientation are simultaneously related and unrelated. it's my freedom to express those qualities that seems deeply related. it really feels to me that i like painting my nails because (1) they're boring as skin color, (2) i experience aesthetic joy when looking at a color that i like and goes well with my skin or clothes, and (3) it's a societally accepted place to put color on the body.
conveniently, being queer offers me additional freedom. if i still believed i were straight, i might not paint my nails, or i might deal with a lot more internal conflict around sending the wrong signals to those around me. i didn't paint my nails before my queer realizations, likely to fit in with men, and only once i stopped caring about fitting in with "men" (whoever they are) did i end up painting my nails. i hadn't yet adopted any queer labels until after i started painting my nails, but i did feel weird identifying as straight for a while, and it was all part of the same transitory period. so my queerness feels less about not being straight (because i am a man still mostly attracted to femme-leaning individuals, though that can look like many different things, and i am attracted to masc-leaning individuals in different ways) and more about rejecting the limits applied by heterosexual masculinity. i feel like a man, i guess. biologically, definitely. spiritually, it's pretty irrelevant. and i'm inclined to think the true essence of me is my energy—my life force that i connect with when i meditate—not my body. of course my body and life force are connected, and all is one, but still: there's a pretty big difference between the energy that powers my being and my penis.
notably, i'm also quite uncomfortable in very straight-dominated spaces—think bars with a lot of finance bros. not because i feel unsafe, luckily—i just feel out of place and mostly uninterested in engaging.
what does all this mean?
it feels like i'm allowed to express my allegedly feminine traits because i'm comfortable identifying as queer.
it also seems that queerness is not restricted to having a "divergent" sexual orientation nor gender identity. i mean, i still feel that male is an accurate term, even though i have always had the fluidity and feminine traits that i have now. and it feels very possible that i will never experience much romantic interest in men (sexual interest is a different story), without diminishing how far i diverge from the restrictive notion of masculinity we've been given.
i don't want to attempt a general definition of queer, and i don't want to co-opt it. there's a lot of history and suffering that feels wrong for me to claim affiliation with, even if i connect with the people—i was born privileged, in a progressive state, with a supportive family, who has never struggled for acceptance. i identify as queer, because i am, but i take some issue with the notion that queerness is restricted to those who diverge in gender identity and sexuality.
to me the core of queerness is simply rejecting externally-imposed norms/scripts/expectations and building your own from scratch, like relationship anarchy. though honestly that's probably too flexible when building an actual community, since being overly permissive can result in vibe misalignment and undesirable energies—a problem that inclusive communities tend to run into. to be blunt, there always has to be some level of social pruning, trust relationships, and exclusion, or else it's hard to keep a safe space... safe. in practice queerness is more complicated and specific, which causes its own problems, though they may be necessary, "good" problems to have.
so like, i think i understand why queerness is specific to gender and sex. or at least i can justify it to myself well enough. the logical part of my brain wants to make everything make sense; the emotional part understands that it doesn't really need to.
just do and be whatever you want, without harming yourself or others! good luck!