For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Georgia, I work in the Sustainability & ESG team at Hillhouse. I was born in Blackpool Victoria Hospital in the early 1990’s and have always lived within a 30-minute vicinity of the Hillhouse site. I’m passionate about food (street food to fine-dining and everything in between), art, wellbeing, fitness, travelling to new places, gardening, and animals. I have a fantastic partner, Kieran, whom many of you will know from when he worked here at Victrex.

I also identify as pansexual (no, I don’t love pans, I’ll explain shortly, don’t worry).

Being pansexual is a part of who I am, but it by no means forms my personality or my interests, it just puts into context who I might fall in love with.

What is Pansexuality?

"Pansexuality, or omnisexuality, is the sexual, romantic or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others. Pansexuality may be considered a sexual orientation in its own right or a branch of bisexuality, to indicate an alternative sexual identity. Because pansexual people are open to relationships with people who do not identify as strictly men or women, and pansexuality therefore rejects the gender binary, it is often considered a more inclusive term than bisexual. To what extent the term bisexual is inclusive when compared with the term pansexual is debated within the LGBT community, especially the bisexual community." [1]

How did I know?

I think I always did, but the vocabulary didn’t exist at the time, looking back, probably around 12 years old, I realised that I felt different, but I didn’t feel ‘othered’, this is likely because I didn’t speak about it, I just went with the flow. Growing up in a small town, there are typically more conservative views, gender-based expectations, and social assimilation. Nobody talked about being anything other than ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ and the latter was typically only associated with men. This was a time when the word ‘gay’ was used frequently in slang, meaning something was ‘bad/stupid’, and so to the one boy (one of my friends) in my school year who shared their identity as gay, with pride and firm confidence, I commend him for taking the step and making it easier for others to come to terms with their sexuality at the tender age of 13 years old.

At about age 14, a family member asked me “Are you a lesbian”? A small shred of doubt popped in mind before I confidently said “No”. I knew that I didn’t identify with being a lesbian. (Although it was a bit out of the blue, please be assured that she didn’t ask me in a disapproving way, just in a curious way because I didn’t have a boyfriend and some of my friends did ha-ha).

With a small LGBTQ+ community in my local area, and again, the conservative nature of the area, I never really thought dating anyone besides a cisgender male was an option. I didn’t have a desire to date any other gender specifically as I don’t identify as lesbian, or bisexual, so I dated cisgender men here and there and at age 20, I met Kieran, and our personalities gelled quickly.

Then, at age 27, a survey asked me “How do you identify”? with a list of options below including Heterosexual, Gay, Lesbian, Other, Prefer Not to Say etc. I hovered over Heterosexual, and went to click it, but it felt wrong. I’d recently heard the term pansexual, and its definition had stuck in my mind for some weeks. I typed it into the ‘Other’ field in the survey. It instantly felt right, it felt like a relief, to have a word that put how I feel into context. Loving personalities not necessarily the bodies that they are in. I felt like I instantly understood myself more. It was cathartic. 

Coming Out

I’m still me, still Georgia, I was worried people might look at me differently. Also, how do you ‘come out’ when you’re in your late 20’s. Would it look like I was attention-seeking? I was also worried about the impact it would have on my partner, and if people without understanding, they might assume we were not getting married or that we were separating, so I mostly kept it to myself. Over time, I told Kieran, then close friends, some colleagues, a couple of family members, and that’s about it. Fortunately, everyone has been fine about the news. Especially Kieran, who said, “well I didn’t know that word, but I never thought of you as a ‘straight’ person”.

So now I’m coming out to all of you, in the hopes that my experience might help you in some small way. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, an ally, or someone who is simply open to listening.