Love Curiously: A Special OZY Series

OZY captures the many ways in which humans love and leave each other.

Welcome to OZY’s Love Curiously series, bringing you extraordinary stories of love and relationships against the odds. Love is a many-splendored thing, and these stories reveal relationships with every degree of joy, comedy, frustration and grief.

If you’ve found yourself in an unconventional or intriguing romantic situation, email us at lovecuriously@ozy.com.

Post-millennials are challenging the gender binary when it comes to looking for love.

When Alyssa was growing up and trying to figure out her sexuality, she was never comfortable calling herself bisexual “for whatever reason,” she says. It was only when the woman she was dating came out as trans that Alyssa started learning about pansexuality. “I immediately felt like, ‘So this is what I am,’” the 23-year-old says.

When singer and actor Janelle Monáe came out as pansexual in April of last year, “pansexual” became the most searched word of the day on Merriam-Webster.com, with an 11,000 percent increase in lookups. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Asia Kate Dillon and others have brought the word into the mainstream, and forums like Tumblr and Reddit are full of discussions on pansexuality.

But this openness to sexual experiences outside of traditional gay or straight norms is generational … and it could indicate a future where, for more and more people, gender isn’t a factor in their decision about whom to date. The proportion of U.S. young adults identifying as something other than entirely gay or straight went up 17 percent between 2015 and 2018.

“I carry this sorrow in my heart. I lost the only love of my life.”

I was born in Berhampur in Ganjam district in Odisha, a small, dusty town about 100 miles from Bhubaneswar, the capital city. In childhood, I was bullied by everyone in my neighborhood because of the way I walked and talked. The neighborhood boys made fun of me. I hated growing up there. I knew I was different. And my family, who were poor and conservative, were ashamed of me.

I was born with both male and female genitalia. In India, the Supreme Court has recognized people like me as a third gender, known as kinnars: We are neither male nor female. I was taunted and humiliated for being myself. I was about 14 when I decided to leave home and find my own community.