Community Rainbow Waves

Bisexual

To be honest, I think that in my entire life I’ve been attracted to boys and girls but I didn’t knew that was a thing, I even thought that was normal. While growing up I was forcing myself to only like boys because “that’s what normal girls do” but for me it didn’t feel right. In 2018 I started to like a girl in my class, I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help it, then I confessed myself to her and she didn’t feel the same but she was supporting me. Then I came out in social media and that’s how my mom found out that I was bisexual. She was mad at me, she thought that I was confused but in reality I’m not because I really like girls and boys and that’s who I am. Now in 2020 my mom still thinks I’m confused but my friends accept me as a bisexual girl. And that’s my story. I am OUT

Lesbian girl, 18

I won’t say that I always knew, but the feeling was always there. A feeling sometimes so hard to explain but so beautiful. I was “sure” around the age of 12/13 when all my girl- friends started to talk about boys and stuff. For a what it felt like a long time I didn’t have the courage to accept myself and who I was, for who I am. Sadly I was afraid of what others would think and how they would react. Reading things on the news, hearing about how people in the LGBTQIA+ community were/are being treated I didn’t want that for myself.
One day after reading stuff a guy in a parallel class in my school had written on his snap story about his thoughts on gay people and the LGBTQIA+ community, I was determined to beat the shit out of him. Me a 15 year old closet girl beat a 16 year old boy. I came to school that day with so much anger so much rage. I was crying in anger, than I thought to myself I don’t want to be like him, if I do something to him I’ll be on his level. I decided to talk to someone I trusted, a teacher who was always there for me. I ended up coming out to her without even noticing that I did, the words just came out so easy I didn’t even have time to process them. After some seconds I came to realize what i had said her reaction was so pure she gave me the warmest and biggest smile of all and a hug, it fell like I had just dropped so much weight off of my shoulders every insecurity that I had every fear were just gone while she hugged me. She was the first and only person that knew me for who I was for who I am for the first time I was myself without fear. Two months after that I came out to some classmates and friends and I started dating girls I was out but not fully.
I hadn’t talked to my family yet, it took sometime before I had the courage to. My family are mostly catholic, I knew that not everyone would take it that well. I was 17 on plane from Norway where I live to Spain, it was just me and my mom. We where talking about a friend of hers who everybody suspected was a lesbian. I thought to myself the worst thing that can happen right here is she opening that plane door and throwing me out while talking a just threw in a “and what about my girlfriend can I take take her home for diner one day?” We looked at each other she was silenced for a while than she laughed and said you know what I always knew than she asked me if I was sure and told me that for her it was no problem. For the first time I could fully feel like I was being myself. My mom gave good support she asked me if she could tell more people about it and I said ok. My dad took it in well and oh god he’s awkward when we talk about stuff he’s also very supportive I was lucky I feel lucky my friends and family all are there for me and support me. Yeah my uncle said it was a phase so did some other people but now I’m 18 I’ve suffered some comments and people have discriminated me for looking like a boy when I’m a girl and for kissing the human that I love in public but i tell them to burn in heaven cause if I’m going to hell I’ll have enough and and I won’t need that negativity there too. I’ve learned to love myself accept who I am and be free the road was scary and difficult and confusing but I’m glad that I am who I am I wouldn’t trade loving like I love and loving who I love and being myself for anything.

Non-Binary

I’ve always known I was different. I grew up being a “tomboy”, playing sports, playing in the dirt. I also grew up doing dance and loving makeup. I came out as a lesbian at 16. Navigating that world was a tremendous journey. I still didn’t feel like that’s where I belonged. Fast forward 10 years and I discovered what it meant to be non-binary. Nothing has ever felt like it fit more than when I heard that for the first time. I came out as non-binary at 26. This opened an entirely different world to me. I met some really incredible people and actually felt like I finally belonged. Fast forward 2 more years and I’m now 28 and I’m out as a non-binary trans human who identifies as queer. I truly believe love can solve anything. Being part of the queer community opened my eyes to so many things and I truly believe I’m a better human because of it.

Fer

My first attraction to a woman was when I was 11 years old (2015) I didn’t really understand what was going on since I had heard something about that in my life since what my family believes and the way I was raised is that it is always a man and a woman so I thought that I had some flaw inside that made me feel very strong emotions towards someone that was not right. When I entered high school (2016) I had already heard and researched more things about the subject, on the one hand my family told me that the behavior of these people was unnatural and on the other hand the social networks began to ask for acceptance with the phrase ¨love is Love¨ which confused me more and more but one day on the program ¨supergirl’ Alex Danvers came out of the closet and I wished I was in his place, At that time I identified myself as a young bisexual woman, I began to watch programs like Wynonna Earp which is also one of the programs that has most marked my life from the way Waverly begins to accept her sexuality to her commitment to Nicole.
The first person I proposed to was my best friend and his reaction was better than I expected since he only told me that he supported me and then proceeded to ask me about her as if she was the most normal thing in the world and I loved that.
At my school I liked to talk to my classmates about it because sometimes my perspective and theirs helped us empathize with each other’s situations.
I hope that in a future there is no more the phrase ¨come from closet¨ and that all this is taken as something completely natural.

GAY / LESBIAN

I realised that I was different when I was 14 years old. I grew up in a pretty strict christian family, so I was scared. I believe in god myself and that’s why I prayed every day for two years for my “problem” to go away, to “turn” straight. But at one point something was telling me that nothing was wrong with me. That I was born this way and that I should be proud of myself for what I am and what I’ve been through.
I started to tell some friends that I’m into girls and for most of them it wasn’t even a big surprise. After that I told my family. First my mother, after that my brother. The last one was my father. He was homophobic in the past so I was really afraid of telling him. But he told me that he loved me anyway und our father-daughter-relationship has never been better. He is really proud of me and of who I am today. Together, we even talk about how “complicated” women are, haha.
One day, not long after telling him that I was gay, I called him on the phone. He was driving home from work and it was the first time I told him about a girl. He said to me “I wish you could see me right now. I have tears in my eyes. I’m so happy for you and so proud.”

People can change. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes people won’t understand. But, YOU are precious and worthy, remember that! Be good to yourself. You’re not alone. We’re all in this together. It will get better!

Shows like Wynonna Earp that have LGBTQ+ characters in it really helped me getting through the rough times.
So thank you for that!

Now I’m 22 years old and still waiting for the love of my life. But I’m optimistic that I’ll find her one day.
Greetings from Germany,
Livia

Embracing my rainbow

My secondary school was single-sex, so I was constantly surrounded by girls. 8am-3pm Monday to Friday, the only people in my life were girls and women. It wasn’t until I was in either year 10 or 11 that I realised I had a crush on a girl in my school. She was so intelligent, beautiful and funny, and she was one of the only people who really saw me and bothered to speak or listen to me. I tried to ignore it for so long, putting the feelings down to wanting to be her friends or he like her. It wasn’t until year 12 when I got my first boyfriend that I realised it was more than that. I loved my boyfriend but I felt more when I looked at or thought about girls. Our relationship went downhill fast and within only a few months I was single again.
Since then I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know myself – who I am, what I want from life/a partner, and it’s been okay. When I first properly realised my attraction to girls I gave myself the label of bisexual and came out to one of my best friends who I’d met through tumblr. She came out to me at the same time and it was the best feeling knowing that I had someone in exactly the same position as me who I could talk to. When I started university we both began questioning our identity again and it was with her support that I was able to start identifying as gay.
There’s alway been that voice in the back of my head saying “you’re not gay. You’re faking. You’re bi. You’re straight. Stop lying to yourself” and everyday I’m learning how to fight it. It’s now been 3 years since I started identifying as gay and I’m out to all of my friends, as well as my parents who I told last weekend (something which I didn’t think would happen and which was completely accidental).
I’m still terrified of fully being myself and embracing my rainbow. Keeping this part of me hidden for so long has felt like I was being suffocated but it feels amazing to finally be free.

I’m me.
I’m free.
I’m gay.
I’m not going to hide it away.

I’m embracing my rainbow and letting my flag fly high.

Carol S

I realized that I was different since I was little, when I fell in love with my roommate at age 7. Of course, I didn’t understand what that meant, but I knew I had something different. I grew up and my look to my friends was different from the look to my friends. When I got to the age to understand what was happening I repressed all this feeling. I started kissing the boys, buying posters of beautiful actors, talking about boys, trying to make me believe that I was not a lesbian. Because for the society in my time (today I am 37 years old), I was much more prejudiced, and still had my family, especially my mother, religious and very attached to children. I was afraid of hurting her.
At 15 I had my first homosexual experience. I kissed a girl. It was so strange, confusing but, at the same time, great. At that moment I realized that what I felt was for real! However, I still didn’t have the courage to take on myself or others! It was then that I plunged into religion! I participated in celebrations, prayer groups, youth groups, retreats, etc., to try to hide, oppress what I felt. It was a very big internal conflict, I suffered a lot at that time. Then I started to date a boy. It was only 6 months, then a girl appeared with whom I fell madly in love. I couldn’t resist! I stopped fighting a war that was already lost but I didn’t want to lose. I ended my relationship and we got involved. It was 4 wonderful years. Not so much with my mother! One day I went out to find my girlfriend and my mother went after me. I got a huge scare. She asked me if I liked women, I didn’t have the courage to say yes and said no. Until one day she asked me again and my heart filled with courage and I said yes. She said that I had not chosen to be a lesbian, that I simply felt attracted to women. That I did not want and never wanted to make her suffer.
At first it was very difficult, but little by little she realized how happy I was, how happy I am. I earned her and everyone in my family’s respect with great honor, dignity, wisdom and character. I love who I am and I don’t give up being happy to the detriment of anyone else!

Difficult

I realized I was into girls about three years ago, I was fifteen at the time and I didn’t really understand. With that being said I did the most dreadful thing ever I fell in love with my best friend. She didn’t understand why nor did she feel the same way and this really crushed me. I didn’t tell anyone other than her about my feelings I didn’t even tell her I thought I was into girls. She simply told me it was a faze and I even convinced myself that all it was, simply a faze. Months had passed and my friends would talk about how they thought being gay was wrong. This only made me push those same sex feelings even further down. Here I am three years later, eighteen and I know I like girls 100%. I am too scared to come out and I don’t know what to do. I know my family wouldn’t accept it. Please help me.

Bisexual

To be honest, I think that in my entire life I’ve been attracted to boys and girls but I didn’t knew that was a thing, I even thought that was normal. While growing up I was forcing myself to only like boys because “that’s what normal girls do” but for me it didn’t feel right. In 2018 I started to like a girl in my class, I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help it, then I confessed myself to her and she didn’t feel the same but she was supporting me. Then I came out in social media and that’s how my mom found out that I was bisexual. She was mad at me, she thought that I was confused but in reality I’m not because I really like girls and boys and that’s who I am. Now in 2020 my mom still thinks I’m confused but my friends accept me as a bisexual girl. And that’s my story. I am OUT.

Hoping to help others 1 tweet at a time LGBTQ or str8lzzzz?

I knew I was gay in 5th grade. Now my story is twisted with antiquated thinking by others and trying to be myself. The town I grew up in has a total of 368 ppl today..so very small not even a stop light. There was 0 representation back in 1990 when I graduated so I am old l had no clue where to find another lesbian. No clue there were bars for my own kind. It did feel lonely. Hard to believe I found an ad in the back of a Rolling Stone magazine and that is how I met my first gf. We lived 4.5 hrs apart and lots of road trips. Back then we had to write real letters and put them thru the mail lol. Well one weekend we were out on a date and when I got home I got stormed by my mother. She said “how long has this affair been going on?” Now me and I will say I am a complete a$$hat I turn to her and said “she’s not married so its not an affair” She didn’t think it was funny. My mother went into my room, dug through my dresser drawers found all my letters, plus told my whole family I was gay before I could come out. I was kicked out of the house with nowhere to go luckily my sister let me stay with her but I had to deal with my parents being ashamed of me and my sister being paranoid of my gf. My mother still reminds me I am going to hell and it makes me mad to no end. I thought I had real love gonna settle down marry when it was legal kinda thing but after 11 yrs she said she didn’t love me. I came out to a few ppl after my mother outed me and it was exhilarating. A weight off my shoulders. I felt free. Thru the years I’ve had to push my way thru head high never back down made fun of by family but I keep going never apologizing for who I am. After gf number 3 and my being with a str8 girl, I am alone. At my age sometimes its good to just be nothing. I don’t feel like a girl I don’t feel like a guy. My self esteem gets in my way of looking for another woman. I spare you a lot of details that were unpleasant plus I feel I’ve taken up too much room. My Twitter is WickedEyes22 to check out some if my earlier content but its full of plus that. It has gotten better for the younger generation now but ppl like me have been pushing against the world for quite awhile. The fight for equality is constantly changing. Someday it wont matter who you bring home for the holidays..