A recent Reddit thread posed the question to queer blind users of the website: How did you know you were gay?
Reddit contributor Barbhara asked the online community for answers after she watched the Brazilian film The Way He Looks—an adolescent romance about a blind gay teenager.
“I watched it the other day and was curious about the experiences of others and if they were able to relate,” she wrote.
Her questions sparked thousands of responses on the website with people describing the many ways you can form an attraction to someone when you can’t see them.
"I've been blind since birth and extremely gay,” wrote hank_scorpio_123
“You know when you see someone and are attracted to them? It's kind of like that but I can't see.”
RedzandBluez said: “When I was 11 or 12, I didn’t really understand the difference between boys and girls. To me, they were the same except that men turned me on and women didn’t.”
“I did not know about body parts (breasts, vagina, penis, etc.) and yet, I was attracted to my same sex. Because of my unique situation, I can tell you that being gay is not a choice.
“When I meet someone, what I go by is their voice, their smell, their kindness, and their willingness to help me when needed.”
Commanderzilyana agreed that the sound of someone’s voice was a powerful indicator of attraction.
“I hear the voices of guys and it just sounds attractive to me,” he writes.
“Even though I can’t ‘see’ them physically mentally I can picture how they look.”
AllHarlowsEve, who identifies as pansexual, described it like this: “Honestly, it’s not all that different from how sighted people know they’re gay.
"When they think about kissing someone, say around second grade or so, they know if they want to kiss boys or girls.”
