Community Rainbow Waves

I identify as Queer and/or Bisexual

I think I kinda always knew, the signs were all there, but I just never really realized until December of 2017 (at that year I was 16 years old) that’s when it hit me that I may be Bisexual.

Every since then I’ve been trying to understand and learn more about the LGBTQ+ Community also I have been watching way more gay movies and TV shows, and I’m pretty sure my parents knows that I’m “hiding” something from them – I haven’t come out…. yet – I plan on doing it when I feel comfortable and when it is the right time to do it.

On November of 2018 I had my first kiss with a woman at a friend’s party, now I understand what they say about “woman’s lips being incredible soft and once you tasted it you will definitely get addicted”, because that’s exactly how I feel.

If I’m being completely honest I’m a firm believer that sexuality is fluid. Meaning that right now I identify as bisexual but in a few months or even years that can change and I’ll be whatever sexual orientation it feels right for me at the moment – doesn’t matter if it is lesbian, pansexual, demisexual, assexual, etc.

#OutIsTheNewIn

Queer

I think I’ve always known I was part different, but growing up in a very small town I did not grow up with anyone in the queer community around me, or at least they were not open.

When I was in grade 8, my mom moved us to the next town over which was slightly bigger. There I fell in with a bunch of misfits, some of which were exploring their sexualities.
At the time, I was still dating guys, although I was tossing them aside before anything could become real.

In grade nine, I finally worked up the courage to tell one of my then bisexual friends that I thought I might also be bisexual. She then went on to dismiss me and said, and I quote “you’re our straight friend”. As you might have guessed this pushed me even further back into the closet, when I stayed until after I graduated.

It wasn’t until I moved across the province to the big city of Vancouver for school, that I actually allowed myself to start to come out to my new school mates. There I met this older Brazilian girl, who was my first relationship with a girl….and wow, eye opener.

Since then I have been dating women, identifying as queer as gay/lesbian/bi/pan feel too restrictive for me. I am pretty open with my friends that I have made since college and new people I have met, I am still not out to my family and a lot of my childhood friends back home.

I’m pretty sure my parents know, I mean I basically dressed and acted like a boy from the ages of 5-11. But I became rather famine during high school. One moment I feel ready to tell them and think they will be fine, and the next I remember and old comment they made or something they said recently that makes me hold back.

I’m 26, and I’m still a bit of a hot mess when it comes to relationships. But working on it.

I am a Skatebording Bronx NY Musician

Sometimes being a wild musician has repercussions.
I had known for a while that I had lesbian tendencies. Women are beautiful creatures, truly. Being a pretty boisterous musician on stage, I also like to keep my private life separate.
A few girls had come and gone, under the radar of most of my friends and family…
Until I was lowkey dating this cute little troublemaker of a girl in my mid 20’s. We got uhm…into things in my old bedroom – an artsy basement turned music studio where my band mates and I tackled each other one night and somehow flew into the bedroom door, knocking it clear off its hinges (mind you, I fell backwards with it) and laziness prevented me from fixing it. After all, I had moved out a while back, so no need…right?

As things heated up, I wasnt paying attention to my surroundings and my father somehow found his way into the basement to ask me about dinner. Low and behold, he pokes his head thru the blanket aka makeshift door, and BOOM. Caught. Red. freaking. handed. (How embarassing!)
I’ve never seen him dart back upstairs so fast lol.
AND Woah! Instant cold shower. For both of us. I didnt know what to do! She kinda paniced! I hadda think fast.
So I quickly threw myself together, and went upstairs.
My poor dad. ‘I am not sure what I just saw…uhm’
I put my hands into my sweatpants pockets and kinda squeeked out
‘Well……I am gay? And that was my beautiful girlfriend downstairs and uhhhh here lemme go get her and introduce you.’ He was shocked, but totally fine with it. Everyone was! What a relief. I got lots of support and I should have said something sooner. But Talk about being outright caught. We still laugh about it to this day.

Young rainbow happily out and proud

I have two coming out storys, one from coming out to my family and the onther to my mom.
My coming out story to my family is kind of funny, but for me to explain it, i have to go a little back in time to my childhood.
Since i was a kid i have always known i liked boys and girls, it was not a big deal for me at all. When i became a teen i realized that the world doesn’t gave the same view as me, so i started to hide myself and try not to be “as gay”.
To be honest, i have no idea why i did that, because since small my parents were always really accepting and had a lot of gay and trans friends ( literally the suns and daughters of the two best friends of my father are openly gay).
Till today i think of why i hide my queerness from my parents. I came to the possible conclusion that it was because i didn’t have any good representation to confirm that i was a queer ( all of the midia representations were from people completely diferent than me) and i didn’t want to tell then i was a lesbian because i was not, i am a bisexual/queer.
On a day in july when i was 15 years old i was having a existential crisis because i had a big crush on a girl and just had to tell someon that i was gay, so i decided to call my cousing ( a bit of info about this cousin: she is 9 years older than me, she is my only cousing and im her only cousin. She is really open minded and its basically an older sister to me).
I called her and heard a music in the background so i asked her to turn it down, she asked someone to turn it down (i tought she was on her room and the other person on another room) and i started talking to her. First i asked her to not say that to anyone and then i told her that i liked a girl and i was gay and started crying really hard.
After that she YELLED “YOU ARE GAY?!?!?!? WHAT!!??”
i kept talking to her and explaining and asking what she thinked of it. She was completely fine with it but seemed stressed, so i turned off the call and went crying because i tought i losted my only cousing.
About 30 min later, one of my aunts called me. ( a bit about my family: i have a really small family, we are 10 in total and we are really close. They are really open minded too and since i can remember they always had gay friends and loved the gay community. Again i dont know why i didnt say anything to then).
My aunt was really quiet and talking slow asking me to go to my grandmas house, which was really weird for her because she is loud as fuck. I stopped crying and went there.
When i got to her house i realized that i forgot that the family was having an “festa junina” ( a traditional party from when i am) and everyone was there. From the moment i got there everyone was weird and looking at me and it was weird.
I went inside and was trying to find my aunt when she came to me and yelled ” HOW THE FUCK YOU ARE GAY AND IM NOT THE FIRST ONE TO KNOW?!”. at that moment i stoped and my heart started beating really fast. On that moment my cousin got in with a sorry face and then i realized that she YELLED “YOU ARE GAY” TO THE ENTIRE FAMILY AFTER SAYING I WAS ON THE PHONE CALLING HER.
My entire plan of coming out one by one went down and i wasn’t prepared to that, so i ran to the bathroom to cry without saying anything. When i got to the bathroom i saw a giant pile of rainbow ballons on the floor of the bathroom and then the YMCA song started on the living room ( thats their lgbt song basically), i opened the door and my aunt, cousing and grandma were ate the door smiling to me and with open arms to hug.
They told me that this doesnt mean anything to then and they love me.
After that i realised that i didnt like the girl and life went on. I have always been really shy and have never dated, so the subject of beeing gay didnt came out anymore. Until i was 19 years old and fell completely in love with a girl.
We started dating and i realized that i had to tell my mom about that but i didnt know how. (A bit about my mom: she is really loud, really stubborn and really funny. We used to fight a lot because im really activist about stuff and she didn’t care at all. After i came out i we realized that we were fighting because i was not in a happy place crushing down feelings and that made me really stressed and basically a really easy target to a fight) .
I had no idea what to do and was desperate. So to my surprise and luck the movie “love,simon” went to the theaters and we went to watch (we went to the cinema every week). In the middle of the movie, simon came out the his parents ( spilers lol) and after that i told my mom that i was like simon and she said ” its ok, i love you, i dont care if you like girls or boys”. I started smiling really hard and went to a giant hug. The lady behind me started clapping really loud and i looked at her,she was smiling really hard and asked me in a low voice if she could say it, i didnt understood what she meant but i said yes, just because i was really happy. She stand up and said really loud ” this girl just came out to her mom and she suports her, lets clap to this please!! And after that the entire movie theater started clapping. I think it couldn’t be better than this.
My family is really close to my girlfriend, we even went to pride last year and my family was matching colorsto make a rainbow. My coming out story is so surreal even to me that i sometimes think im dreaming all of it. I wish everyone could have a coming out story like this too.

Under The Same Sky

Salaam from your kazah nomadic wanderer, who finally has found her place in Turkey.

Please do not blame me for my pretentious greeting, it is only a slight whiff of those feelings and sensations that live in my heart (in positive tone, of course 🙂

The overemotional part of me, having overcome the thorny path of finding myself, looking back, can say with a big smile on my lips that it was a long way back and really hard.

There is no greater happiness than being yourself. To be able to breathe freely and not be afraid to confess your feelings to someone who excites your soul so much that your heart skips a beat every time you catch a familiar face on the rearview mirror of your car.

You can deceive everyone around you for an endless time, and sometimes play this role so convincingly that you begin to believe it yourself.

But even so, no one has the right to judge you. Because no one else knows what you went through or are still going through. Only you decide how to live: rise up and fly high in the sky freely, like a bird, or sit in a dusty closet, where it is dark and damp. This is your choice. There are different circumstances and everyone has their own reasons.

I am 33 years old, I am from Kazakhstan and I am a lesbian.

I have always known about my orientation since kindergarten. But even when I grew up and went to elementary and then high school, even after I entered the adolescent phase, I never spoke openly about myself. Never to anyone. At University, there was a moment when I told my friend about my orientation and she stopped communicating with me. Then I decided to just not stand out from the crowd and be like everyone else. Just like the others.

We live among people who are so used to putting labels on everyone and everything that if someone doesn’t live up to their expectations or does not meet their ideas of “normality”, they immediately turn into outcasts.

We live in an environment where society sets the rules and dictates what is “normal” and what is”abnormal”.

We live in a World where money and status have become more important than the mental health. Where real life and colors of nature are erased in the glossy pages of social network. Where the individuality and uniqueness of individuals are distorted under the forced images of imaginary saints.

This is how we live. I lived in such an environment, socialized with such people and tried so hard to match their scale of normality that I began to lose myself. After a while, I didn’t know where I really was, and I couldn’t tell my real self from the image I had created for the public.

Yes, I had a cool job with a high salary. Yes, I had “friends” with whom I spent time, had fun and talked about abstruse topics. Yes, guys were interested in me, asked me out on dates and even confessed their love. Hoy, but I wasn’t interested. So yeah, I really thought I was asexual 🙂 And I didn’t have the most important thing – happiness.

I was just a pale reflection of other people’s emotions and feelings, and deep down I was always alone. Loneliness and I became best friends. During the day I put on my loneliness like a shirt, and during the long cold nights it wrapped me like a plaid. When my circle was celebrating holidays and having fun to the fullest, there were none of those faces who knew the real me. Nobody. The saddest thing is to feel completely alone when you are surrounded by people. This is the price of your obedience.

I was unhappy. How can you be happy if the light of your soul is muted, and there are no colors in the palette that you would like to paint the canvas of your life with?

Until I met Her. An unexpected meeting on a sunny autumn day that turned my whole world upside down. Our friends thought we were just colleagues. Our families thought we were just friends. I don’t know what I was to Her, but to me, She is my favorite topic of conversation with the Heavens for all eternity. No, I am not religious. I just believe in miracles, in the rainbow unicorn and in Sailor Moon 🙂

For the first time, I felt what it was like to be truly happy. And then I didn’t want to and couldn’t live the way I had before I met Her.

I found wings to soar above the images of public opinion about “normality.” I got my voice back to say: “Hey, I’ve had enough of this shit! (pardon my French). Now, I will be myself”. I found the will to change my life and live in full colors. I accepted myself and found freedom. Yup, the number of acquaintances and friends has decreased. But the PLUS is that the atmosphere has become friendly.

Maybe your feelings will be one-sided or vice versa, you will be among the lucky ones who reciprocated (woohoo, congratulations dude!). Or maybe you haven’t met your soulmate yet and you’re not in a relationship right now. It is all right, sooner or later you will catch your wave 🙂

After all, to be able to openly talk about your feelings, about yourself and your dream means to have equal rights.

Equal rights to be yourself, to love and not to be afraid that you will come under the pressure of public hatred for WHO YOU ARE.

Someone will understand you and support you, someone will turn away and stop communicating with you. It is OK, everything will be fine. You are not alone! Here WE are, your rainbow soulmates 🙂

I am not asking for special treatment. I am just asking for equal treatment. To live. To be who I am. To love..

Sometimes words just aren’t enough to describe all your love. Sometimes a smile just isn’t enough to express that love. Hiding my feelings in a veil of lies, I don’t understand what is real and what is fiction. I choose to live under the same sky and enjoy a sunny day, speak openly, smile in front of everyone and hug when it snows or walk next to my loved one in the rain.. Always in this way.

When you are really happy, your soul shines so brightly that your heart becomes so warm. It is like you can embrace the whole World!

Na’vi from the planet Pandora greet each other with “I See You”, which means “I see the real you, not what you seem” (thank you, James Cameron). I see into you. And I understand you. Guys, I SEE YOU! Let’s be kind to each other. Let’s make a better World for you, for me, for ALL of US!

One meeting can change your life. One voice can change the World. One good thing can change Everything.

Be yourself. Be free. Be happy.

Much love and “may the Force be with you”!

#underthesamesky

BeKindNomad – Jude

While this might be a little lengthy I assure you, it’s the truncated version of the story. I’m always open to speaking further about my life and experiences for anyone interested and especially if it may help someone else.

Let’s do a little travel back in time. Before Ellen’s famous coming out “Puppy” episodes in 1997. Before AOL went unlimited and allowed the first wave of people to surf the web and access information in a whole new way. Let’s go back to the 1980s where a young girl so desperately wanted to hang with the boys. A young girl who played with He-Man instead of Barbie. A young girl who felt like her skin was crawling every time she was forced to wear a dress. It was a “dark ages” because there was no information about anything LGBT+ anywhere around. Fast forward a little and the only time a gay or “trans” person was seen on the screen was a prostitute, druggie, or some other evil or mentally deranged type of character. But I kept finding myself drawn to girls and even those a little older than me but I didn’t know what this “draw” was because I had no vocabulary for it.
I wasn’t overly religious but I was asked to be a godmother to my cousin who was born in 1991 so I had to get confirmed and that meant I had to do confession as part of the final “classes.” I told the priest I was confused and didn’t know what was going on but that I was finding I was attracted to other girls. The priest turned to me and asked how I thought I’d look black and blue and unless I wanted to find out I should leave the confessional. I was surprised but as I wasn’t overly religious to begin with I didn’t feel “betrayed by my faith” as many others might have felt.
I was constantly tormented and teased in school as the “weirdo” and the black sheep in general. There was a small, dark phone booth in my middle school that I would often hide in to avoid the tormentors. In the tiny room were a little bench built into the wall and a little rack where a little newspaper-type booklet was placed in the slats. I would flip through it often just to have something to read and noticed a section for gay and lesbian. What are these words? What do they mean? I wasn’t entirely sure but, at the same time, I felt like these were incredibly important words. There was a listing for a local support group for youth. When squirreled the booklet away but was too nervous to call.
I was distracted by constantly being beaten up at school, beaten up at home by my father, and feeling like I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I fell in love with the Phantom of the Opera in middle school because I felt a kinship with Erik (Phantom). I felt like my attraction to the same gender was like his deformity. I felt grotesque and shunned by the world and so I started to turn away from the world in kind. I retreated to my mind and turned to writing. I’d write all kinds of stories but the recurring theme was a female “hero” always rescuing some female “damsel” – really likely the same old stories everyone else told except same-sex based. When I discovered that my parents were breaking into my writings I felt everything and anything I did was violated – I had nothing! No one to speak to, no one to trust, and I couldn’t even “speak to myself” through my writing. I retreated even further into my mind – opting now to just keep my thoughts to myself and never write anything anymore because even that was being violated. The more I retreated into myself the more I became “odder” to others and the more I was tortured and beaten up by my classmates and at home.
I spent the summer before I entered High School as a freshman just riding my bike. I’d get out of the house first thing in the morning and would ride anywhere and everywhere all day so I wouldn’t have to be home and deal with my father. High school started and I went to classes and joined the drama club because I always had a passion for theater thanks to my grandmother (who passed back in 1992) and the love I had for Phantom of the Opera was still strong because it was “my story” too. He was deformed on the outside and I was deformed on the inside because I liked girls. There was a boy in drama that was gay and said I should check out a support group. I remembered that booklet and eventually called and spoke to a lovely young woman (who I believe was about 18 or so) who told me all about the group and “coming out” and told me when the next meeting was going to be. I felt that maybe I wasn’t crazy or disgusting and maybe it was okay to like girls. I told a senior girl I was crushing on at the time that I liked her…
…Apparently, I was wrong…
She told the school principal and before I knew it I was being kicked out of school and being mandated into a mental hospital for “observation” for a month. It was true! Something was very wrong with me. I was a filthy disgusting creature just like I always knew I was! In the hospital was a girl and a boy, both around my age (maybe a year or two older) and they were lesbian and gay – the girl was discharged within the first few days of my being there but the boy was very friendly and told me about this local support group that I should check out when I got released. It turns out that it was the same group I called about and planned to attend a meeting before I got tossed in the loony bin. We got out around the same time and he agreed to meet me at the next meeting so I wouldn’t have to go alone.
When I got there it was a small, dark room with just a couple of chairs. There were a couple of older kids (18 or so) who ran the group and then a couple of others around my age and so. I was instantly attracted to one of the girls there and so I reached out and we went on a date. We wound up dating (in secret – I didn’t come out to anyone yet) for a little while when her mother kicked her out so my parents said she could stay with us. My sister and I were hanging out on her bed while she was in the shower and I fell asleep so my sister left to go to her room and my girlfriend just crawled into bed next to me. The next morning my mother walked in and saw us sharing the bed, both sound asleep, and started screaming. She grabbed me and pulled me out of the bed and started beating on me and screaming for my girlfriend to get the F— out of the house. My mother then proceeded to out me to my entire family and, thankfully, most of them said they weren’t too surprised and didn’t have much issue with it overall.
Unfortunately, that girl wound up cheating on me with someone I was on a volunteer ambulance squad with and that was the end of my first same-sex/lesbian relationship and I was thrust out of the closet. From then on I decided I would beat everyone to the punch and just introduced myself as “Hi, I’m the lesbian…” and while it startled people it also took away the power many would have over me. Most of my relationships wound up ending because I was cheated on. Around 2005/2006 I was working in an animal shelter and a woman (6 years older) saw my MySpace and we started chatting. We agreed to lunch and hit it off instantly. We were together for 4 years and my family was very accepting at this point. I started to talk to her about feeling like I was in the wrong body. For a long time I thought maybe I was just a butch lesbian but – once again – I had no vocabulary to understand what I was feeling – only that I was feeling something wasn’t right with how I saw myself in my head versus what I saw in the mirror. So, I stopped looking in the mirror. Despite her being married to a man previously and my telling her I think she’s bi versus lesbian she was adamant that she was lesbian – to the point where she told me if she wanted to be with a guy she would have stayed with her ex and that she didn’t want me to keep talking about this “wrong body” nonsense. I proposed to her, she accepted, and at one point a bunch of friends of mine planned to gather in the city (NYC) for dinner. I was excited to have everyone meet her and so we went. I introduced her to one guy and his live-in girlfriend and several other friends. Not long after I found out she went out to hang out with the two friends and they wound up kissing – before we knew it – she and I were breaking up and the guy kicked his girlfriend and her kid out of his house and now my fiancé and he were suddenly dating. I started online dating almost immediately after and hooked up with a girl from TN so I hopped on my motorcycle with everything I could manage to fit into bags strapped all over it and rode for 22 hours straight until I reached Nashville. She told me about Drag Kings and that I might be interested in that since I kept feeling like I was in the wrong body. We went to the gay clubs in Nashville where I saw Drag Kings for the first time and learned about transitioning for the first time. A month later we moved to Raleigh, NC where I started to do my own drag (dressing up as a male) and thought maybe I’m a “male-identifying lesbian.” I still didn’t have a grasp of what being transgender was or even that was what I wanted to do. I was clueless.
When I talked about “doing drag full time” as my mind understood it, my new girlfriend gave me the same old story. “If I wanted to be with a guy, I’d be straight and I’m not.” Okay, I will put the relationship ahead of my fulfillment. I wasn’t even sure what to do so why risk a long-term relationship on a “who knows what?” When I found out that she was cheating on me for some time (including one of them being with a GUY!!!!) I was done putting others ahead of my happiness. We split and I immediately went into full research mode about transitioning and March 22, 2014, I started my first shot of testosterone. But… my sister was getting married in August and I very quickly grew facial hair and my voice dropped – I needed to come out to my family quickly.
I spoke with a couple of cousins (I’m an Italian New Yorker, I have a lot of cousins) who I knew would be supportive and they said the same thing – “we’re not really surprised.” With support of some form, I told my family and they were confused but also gave me the “not really surprised” kind of response. Oh, but could you still shave and wear the dress for the wedding? I once again suppressed myself and did it so that my sister’s special day would go off without a hitch.
I’ve not dated since 2014 for a variety of reasons. I’m tired of being with people who would physically beat on me, who kept repressing me, and constantly being cheated on. I have been treated so badly by so many, including so many who claimed to love me that I didn’t believe that there were any people with genuine kindness or love in them. I got so tired of being told someone loves me “in spite of” this or that quality of mine. I have since been split from my family and have found myself to be incredibly alone and heartbroken but, at the same time, I feel like I’ve been stripped down to the barest form of myself so that I can rebuild myself better and stronger than ever. To be honest, I still wonder if there is any genuine kindness in people but having come across Dominique who seems to exude this incredible light of beautiful kindness from deep inside her soul I find it gives me a little touch of hope that there are beings out there with true love in their heart. That someone out there will be willing to be patient with me as I cleanse my scars and love me BECAUSE of who I am instead of the dreadful “in spite of.” I know that I have so much to give as a person, as a human, and surely there must be someone out there for me. It’s just very hard because I’m “too female” (ugh) for straight woman and “too male” for lesbians – or so I’ve been told multiple times. Finding someone who seeks to love me for my soul is perhaps the hardest journey of my life but I’m open to the universe guiding me and that person together. In the meantime, I continue to learn about myself and grow and learn. I may have “come out” twice – first as a lesbian and then again as a trans man – but I find that life is constantly about growing into yourself and all the many ways we come to embrace and express ourselves. So, until the person who will love my soul comes along I will keep on living and learning.

Living My Truth Paved The Way To Acceptance

Growing up in England I was abused by my grandma and mum. I don’t remember a time in my early childhood when I wasn’t looking outside the family for a “mother figure”. Growing up my dad told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, just not gay.

I came to America at 20 and went through 9.5 years of counselling to free myself from my past. For a long time I had wondered if I was gay or still just looking for a mother figure like I had in childhood. At the end of years of counselling and with my past behind me, I was able to say definitively: I am gay!

Then I had to tell my homophobic dad…he and my step-mum were stopping in LA for a few days on their way back to the UK from NZ. I went to my dad’s hotel and asked if I could speak to him alone. My heart was racing and I felt sick to my stomach. I had rehearsed what I was going to say to him for days. I looked him straight in the eye and told him I was very, very, VERY happily gay, then gave the biggest smile I could muster. He stared at me and started crying. I told him everything would be okay. He drank 5 PINTS of gin and tonic at the bar that night, and the next night.

He returned to England and I didn’t hear from him for 6 weeks. Then I got a 9 page, hand written letter in the mail from him. He wrote that I had crushed his dreams of me marrying a strapping American man who I would have kids with that would grow up to play rugby for England. My 3 1/2 year old nephew had died earlier that year and my dad compared me coming out to the death of his only grandson. It was devastating beyond words.

That was 12 years ago. 7 years ago I started watching “The Fosters” and 4 years ago I started watching “Wynonna Earp”. Both had positive queer representation with no strings attached. I realised through watching these shows that any lingering elements of self hatred were not mine, they were imposed feelings from others that I had taken on as my own.

I knew then that I could only be responsible for my personal truth and living my life in the most authentic way, no matter what. I would lead by example, I had NOTHING to be ashamed of.

I boldly introduced my dad to my then-girlfriend and he was amazingly accepting and positive. He could finally see how happy I was and after all I went through growing up, he knew I deserved happiness.

Today my dad has come full circle. Not only does he embrace who I am and is so proud of me for fighting so hard for the life I have, he also told me at my sister’s wedding that when the time comes, he would want to walk me down the aisle too.

Coming out wasn’t easy, but not being true to who I am was a WHOLE lot harder. I am happier with who I am now more than at any other time in my life!

I am QUEER

I was always attracted to both men and women and deep down I knew that I like both men and women as I don’t look them as genders I look them as beautiful heart. I am from India and I never got the courage to share this with my family that for me love is love but hopefully soon I will let them know that I am QUEER !!

Someone who falls in love with another person, just for who they are inside.

I think I’ve always known I was queer since a young age, but growing up in a very conservative area, and being told a “man and a woman are supposed to be together” really made me squash any feelings that were perceived “not right”. I’ve always felt scared and ashamed to be my true self because growing up I was bullied severely in high school relating nothing to my sexual orientation. For things like looks, and interests. I never felt safe enough, even within my own household. I still haven’t officially come out to anyone because being completely honest I squashed this part of me for so long that it took hearing Dom’s coming out story to make me finally connect that piece Id been missing for so much of my life. I’ve always loved the idea of just two people in love, regardless of gender, and love is love. My name is Haley and I am into all people. Thank you for giving me this platform to finally say this out loud.

In a Cocoon

I’m torn about telling my story. i hardly know what my story is because I’m still trying to find my truth but i know that there’s power within a community. In finding people who are like you, who understand you, and who accept you. I also know that by telling our stories, we affect change in greater ways than any of us can imagine.
So I want to be a part of that change and I want to give my voice in this growing wave of transformation.
I hope it’s heard.

The first time I thought I was gay, I couldn’t stop smiling.
I just walked around the house all day with an ear-splitting grin plastered to my face and thinking over and over again that “I like girls.”
I wanted to shout it out from the rooftops and tell everyone I knew and loved that I’d finally found a part of myself that was hidden for so long. I wanted to let them know that I’d regained a love for myself and rediscovered a love for others that I never knew existed. And that I felt complete.
I couldn’t contain it any longer than a couple days so i told my twin sister, and she rejoiced with me. We confided in each other about our own individual experiences with our sexualities and for so long she was the only one who knew. She was the only one who I’d trade jokes and secret knowing glances with when my aunts and uncles asked about a boyfriend. She was my rock when I’d have crushes and couldn’t help but gush about them; she was my safe space.
She was there for the joy in the beginning and she’s here for the heartbreak in the now. Even though we’re separated and hundreds of miles apart, she’s still here.

It’s been 43 days since I’ve come out and 42 since I’ve been kicked out of the house. When my mom found out, she said that she didn’t want a homosexual daughter and that love is sanctified between a man and a woman. To feel anything different is unnatural, unholy, and wicked.
The sad thing is, I used to believe that for the longest time about myself too, but it wasn’t until all of this that now i can confidently say that the way i love is beautiful. I’ve never felt anything more natural than loving women and i love it.
So through all of my couch-surfing, car-living, night-crying days, I can’t help but feel the weight lifted from my shoulders. I feel like i can finally breathe after all this time, and I’ve never felt more….liberated. By being able to live authentically, I’ve learned to not only love people in greater ways, but myself as well.
So I still don’t know where I’ll sleep tonight, or if i’ll be able to go home anytime soon, but one thing I know for certain is that I’m finally able to start living my truth.