Personally, I was a pretty late bloomer. Throughout my teen years I didn't have any interest in perusing girls. Nada. I also didn't really fancy guys at my school either. So throughout that time, I just considered myself ace.
Now, I knew I liked furry characters/petting zoo people/kemono, what have you. No idea why, I just thought they were so cool. Didn't really consider it a sexual thing. But when I was of age, I'd start spending some good "alone time" with some of these pictures. Pictures of female furs. A teen learning about unfamiliar feelings through a familiar medium (developing sexuality through drawings I thought were cool), nothing new there. And it felt good.
But it just didn't quite feel like 100%. I still wasn't interested in girls outside the drawings. Every once in awhile, I'd see a picture of a male fur that I kind of liked. In my head, it didn't seem sexual. Felt like I was just admiring some good art. Didn't get me up so to speak. But at the same time, something was captivating me. I felt like I could look at those pictures for hours, and never get bored. I tried doing sessions to these pictures, but my mind kept telling me "No, this is wrong" and "I'm not gay". So I could never really finish to them.
But one day, I stopped and said to myself, "Well Kriger7, you STILL don't like girls and you're 19 years old. Your voice is deeper than a lot of other guys', so there's no way you missed puberty. What if you actually ARE gay?" NO. STOP. I won't have it! But my inner voice had a point. So I gradually started allowing myself to try some sessions with those pictures. Once I was able to get the inner voices to shut up, things changed.
And my god, it felt amazing. Better than it did when I was looking at female pics. Over time, I gradually started looking at more male stuff, and less female stuff, until I pretty much was only looking at male stuff. I felt like I'd discovered what I really liked. But it still wasn't real to me. They were just drawings. And they weren't even human. I felt like something was wrong with me. I continued to call myself ace. I wrote it off as some weird fetish, and locked it away along with myself for a couple years.
I changed jobs and started working somewhere else. And as if out of a movie, I met a guy that was different. A guy that made me feel these weird feelings that I've never felt before. He looked just like the guys in the pictures. Only you know, human. It felt weird having my first crush at 21 years old, and God was it awkward. Every single trope there is about some nervous high school boy trying to get with some chick, I went through. Suddenly it all made sense. I got anxious around him. My heart would speed up around him. My hands would sweat. And by god, I was TERRIFIED of him! Now, all of a sudden, I finally understood what all the songs I'd heard about women were about. Cause now I actually knew what love and attraction felt like.
Equally long story short, it went pretty badly. He was straight, of course, and wanted nothing to do with me. Not even as friends, which oh God I still tried for. I did everything wrong. As anyone does when pursuing for the first time. And although it could've went worse, it still left me feeling lower than I could remember ever feeling. And that's the true determinator right there: The crazy highs and horrific lows I felt trying to win him over and get him to like me; I couldn't imagine ever feeling that for a woman. On that day I knew, for sure, that I was gay.
Fast forward to today, I'm 24 and feel quite comfortable with my sexuality. I'm out to pretty much anybody that asks (not to family, though, that'll be another time), I don't hold it against myself at all, and I'm finding all the little ways it even enriches my life and the people I've met and experiences I've gotten to share with others as well. I have to say I'm lucky to have been exposed to gay stuff and people within the furry fandom since I was young. They almost always show a positive portrayal of gay people/characters and show great acceptance/tolerance within the community. A welcome contrast from what the public can sometimes say about us. I really think it helped me through the process and I'm thankful for it to this day.
Tldr didn't suspect until I was 19, didn't really know until I was 21. And I'm a guy.