Lawmaker: I'm Not a Lesbian, I'm Pansexual

Mary Gonzalez, the first openly LGBT official headed toward the Texas House of Representatives, said she wanted to clarify that she is pansexual. Initial reports said that she identified as a lesbian, but a more recent interview with Gonzalez of El Paso reveals that she truly identifies as pansexual.

Originally, Gonzalez came out as bisexual at the age of 21 to her family. During her Democratic primary campaign, which she won in June, she accepted classifications as lesbian. It was only after winning the primary—with no Republican opposition in the general election—that Gonzalez felt comfortable enough to share her identity as pansexual.

Gonzalez told the Dallas Voice that she doesn’t believe in a gender binary and prefers the term pansexual, which embraces the spectrum of sexuality. “Gender identity isn’t the defining part of my attraction,” she said.

“As I started to recognize the gender spectrum and dated along the gender spectrum, I was searching for words that connected to that reality, for words that embraced the spectrum,” she said. “At the time I didn’t feel as if the term bisexual was encompassing of a gender spectrum that I was dating and attracted to.”