Community Rainbow Waves

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..

That Tall Redhead – CONTENT WARNING: This coming out story contains description and/or discussion about self-harming behaviour and suicide.

Oh boy oh boy what an adventure it has been. My story is not yet over, unlike many of my companions I have met along the way. So, I would like to tell their stories too.

Beautiful humans they were, always the ones that made me smile and forget my own plights even if just for a second.

My first queer friend I had was a girl I met in grade school. She was so full of colour and life, the teachers always commented on her smile. She was my best friend and trouble makers we were. Year after year though, I witnessed her colour fade and her smile become forced. I never even knew she was queer until rumors began dancing around school. It was a small minded town, with small minded tendencies. And I too, fell into its trap. Different was bad, the whole Adam and Eve schmuck. My parents told me to stay away from her, but why? I couldn’t figure out. I was told to be mean to her because she wasn’t right, but I couldn’t do that. She had been my best friend for years. So very quickly the girl that could make everyone smile made everyone turn away in disgust, oh the irony of just wanting to love. I followed my parents orders when I knew I should not have, but at the time I was more terrified of them than losing a friend. Blood is thicker than water after all. She confronted me in the restroom one day, begging me to not go and leave her like everyone else had. My heart was breaking for her, my best friend. I still did not understand really what the problem was, I just knew that everyone else was not okay with it. I remember very vividly looking at her in that moment. She looked so scared and frightened, but also… resolved. I said nothing to her, I did not know what to say. And the next day, her parents found her body with deep slashes across her wrists. I had lost my best friend due to the ignorance of others. I often wonder if I had said something to her in the restroom that would have changed her mind. The most disturbing thing about it all is, thugs went back to “normal” after her funeral. Her parents took her younger brother and moved across the country. Where there were no whispers of a gay little girl that committed suicide. To everyone else, those were two of the largest sins to be committed. For me, I just missed my friend.

Riley was a light, a beacon that shone brighter than anyone else I’ve ever met. And it’s a tragic tale that her light was snuffed out. Now, years down the line I still remember her face. Sometimes it haunts me, other times she makes me smile. But overall, I feel the resolve too. Not the resolve to end life but the resolve to make it better. No one should go through what she went through.

At the ripe age of 16 I met a boy that was as smart and brilliant as they come. I was not as close to him as I was Riley, but he was a companion none the less. Instead of knowing him for years however, I only had the pleasure of knowing him for 5 months. Because that summer, he came out to his parents as gay and the cycle that began 4 years prior with Riley started all over again. The whispers, the shunning. The whole mess of it. I saw his brilliant mind become clouded with darkness after that and I went to him. Begging him not to do it because there was so much out there outside of that hellhole town. I thought I got through to him, I really did. I did not want to lose another friend. But two weeks later I still did. And the world lost another bright light. He could’ve found the cure to cancer, or found a eco friendly renewable energy source. He had the smarts for it. But like the fate of many others, we will never know.

I have known many that I will never know again and that no one else will ever meet. Too many. This world seems to be shrouded by hatred and darkness. No one is willing to just help each other. I used to think that, and sometime I still do when I’m in a bad place.

When I was 16, the winter after losing him, I began to feel things that I had always suppressed. It was terrifying. If anyone had found out then no doubt I would succumb to the same fate as my friends. So I told no one what I thought, I lied to my family and friends and even to myself. My whole community. I was depressed for years because I was constantly suppressing myself. University though, that was a godsend. At 18 I left my small little town and went to the city. Still though, I never said anything. That is until my lab partner began freely expressing his interest in men. It was quite the shock, to actually witness it. I began to feel somewhat…. safe. Not accepted, seeing as I myself had not yet vocalized anything. But safe nonetheless, nothing bad had happened to him and there he was freely expressing himself. I began doing my research. To figure what I really was and maybe help explain why I was feeling what I was feeling. I had never been able to do that when I was younger thanks to my parents consistant monitoring. But with public university computers, well, anything is possible. I learned more about the queer community in that single semester than I had about anything else. It made me feel… light, and airy.

I was having a conversation with my roommate and some friends during my second semester about sports. We were out at lunch when I was asked if I played any when I was younger. I told them I played a lot of different sports, but softball was my longest running one fo 14 years until an injury took me out. It seemed like a normal conversation, I thought nothing of it. Until I heard “Oh wow, are you a lesbian then?” My head jerked up from my turkey sub and against my own consent I became very nervous and shaky. I stumbled out the question “what do you mean?” To which I was then provided with the answer that it was stereotypical that lesbians played softball and nothing was meant by it other than a joke. But that joke rang in my head like a bell for weeks. Was I a lesbian? I had never really admitted anything to myself before. Did I have to?

Years after, I came to understand that I didn’t. No label is necessary to be happy, some people go by them and others don’t. Half of one, dozen of another really. I found happiness within myself because I realized that as long as I knew who I was then everything would be okay. More than anything, I wish I could go back and express this to those that I have lost. Perhaps then my friend Riley would still be here. But I cannot change the past, just the future. It’s all we can really do. I do not want to place any more flowers or premature headstones and I doubt anyone else does either.

So, my friends, if you are in a troublesome place where you do not know what to do or say- just breathe. Everything will be okay. Keep your head up, this is only the beginning. And for the sake of my lost comrades and many others that no longer shine with us, do not give up. For the fight has only begun. We are all human and we all deserve the right to love and be happy, regardless of what we identify as. Do not be afraid.

Best regards,

That Tall Redhead <3

Oh, and remember- the actual saying is “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” 🙂

It’s only when I saw and accepted who I was that I could really love myself

One important thing about me is that I’ve always loved stories. Novels, movies, series, any story. From a very young age I’ve felt the need of finding inspiration and role models in fiction. When I was a kid, I deeply wished for two things: being a heroine living many crazy adventures (as a mermaid if possible) and finding true love. True love, from what I had seen mostly in Disney movies seemed like the most extraordinary thing in the world. And it was between a man and a woman. At that time, I didn’t know any queer people. I probably knew gay couples existed but I would have never thought of it as a possibility for myself. It was like this abstract thing that was very far from my world.

When I became a teenager, I remember that at a very young age I wanted a boyfriend who would love me. I was still watching Disney, but also teen movies and Romcoms. I remember that I was looking for a guy in my class whom I could have a crush on. And every year or so I would find a guy I would fall for, and secretly admire, wishing for this perfect movie ending.
It was also in these years that I really discovered that lesbian love was actually a thing. First by a Russian band called Tatu (that you may or may not know). This band was formed by two girls who were a couple and it was a huge hit at that time. I loved there songs but I was mostly very curious about their relationship. I became very attached to it, I was buying magazines about them. I remember once I bought one, and there was a poster in it where they were kissing. My parents said they thought it vulgar. I’ll come back to my parents a bit later.

Of course, it was revealed that apparently the couple of this band was totally fake. At that time, I felt betrayed (teenagers can be dramatic, what can I say). But I feel like my admiration for them opened a door that never really closed. I was thirteen when I realized I had feeling with my best friend. I don’t know if it was because of our friendship, or because I actually felt an attraction. In the girls magazine I was reading, they were saying that it’s normal as a teenager to question yourself, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gay. So maybe it was just that, I was confused.

I feel like I was living a sort of double life the following years: as I was still looking for my prince charming, I was at the same time watching and reading everything I could that was including a lesbian relationship. The problem was most of these characters where ending awfully: getting killed, committing suicide, being miserable in any way, or back to straight.

As I told you before, fiction has always been very important for me, to inspire me for what I wanted, for my dreams. I think at an unconscious level I got persuaded that if I was not ending in a relationship with a man, I would be miserable. I realized that everything would have probably been better if I had talked about this to someone. It didn’t even cross my mind, probably because I wouldn’t have known who to talk to anyway.

So for most of my teen and adult life, I lived as a straight woman, in straight relationships. Do I need to specify that it was a disaster ?

I started physical relationships at university mostly. And without realizing it, I developed a pattern: I was always attracted to men I couldn’t have, or didn’t try to have. And I was never attracted to men who were attracted to me, at least not at first. To be honest, I wouldn’t have looked at any of the men I ever dated in my life if they hadn’t show interest in me in the first place. And then I felt so lucky that they even considered to look at me (Hello low self-esteem). And then we were dating, and I was making me falling for them, and I was playing the perfect girlfriend. These relationships all ended in the same way: at some point the guy was losing interest in me and breaking up.

The thing is, even I if I felt heartbroken and bad every time, I couldn’t help but feel some kind of relief at the same time. Like suddenly I got my time, my energy and myself back.

And yes, I kept wanting to have a boyfriend, or THE boyfriend. I felt jealousy towards my friends who were dating these awesome guys who loved them for so long. Why wasn’t anyone loving me? Wasn’t I able to be loved?

In all my early and mid twenties I avoided thinking about my own sexual orientation. But when I was 23 or 24 I met a woman (let’s call her Marie) who was openly gay. We became friends, and she invited me one weekend at her and her girlfriend’s place. As we were watching movies and talking, she said that it was so strange that I was only attracted to men, because even here other straight friends all had at least on same-gender crush (mostly celebrities). I didn’t know what to respond to that. Obviously, I couldn’t be gay or even bi if for Marie I was the straightest of all her straight friends. Since she was gay, she obviously knew better than me.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say that no, no one know who you are, who you love or attracted to better than yourself.

To go back to my parents, when I told them that Marie was gay, my mom answered me with a laugh « as long as you don’t become like that. » It was a joke for her.
That’s the thing with my parents: they are not what you could call obviously homophobic. They don’t insult queer people, they think they should have rights, they have no problem watching movies about gay people (as long as it’s tasteful according to my mom. I don’t know what it means either) and being moved by gay love stories. But they always made me feel like being something else than straight wasn’t right for me. I know that my mom have always pictured me with a handsome guy (and is probably very desperate because it’s still not happening) and I can feel the heavy weight of her expectations. It is probably why even if I’m 31 my parents still don’t know who I really am. I don’t know I’m ever gonna be able to tell them (if anyone has tips^^) or iff they suspect something.

But this story has a happy twist. After a burn out at work, I started a big work on myself, and after my last relationship with a man, I realized that it would be indeed probably the last one. At 28 I was finally ready to admit that I was attracted to women, and guess what, fiction helped again. This is where I want to talk about Wynonna Earp, and Waverly. I saw a lot of myself in her and her relationship with Nicole became very soon my couple goal. It was such a help and inspiration to me, so really, thank you.

At that time, I thought of me as bisexual, but still questioning. I didn’t talk to anyone about it, but once I felt that I wanted to date again, I subscribed to an online dating app for the first time in my life. And I felt SO AWKWARD. I didn’t know how to start a conversation or what to do to keep one active. But this is where I met the woman I fell in love with and still dating today. For the first time in my life, I deeply love the person I’m dating and our relationship. Even if we don’t live in the same country and haven’t been able to see each other for a while because of what’s happening in the world, I couldn’t feel more happy, safe and excited at the same time.

I realized that I was identifying as gay or lesbian (but I still prefer queer), but that my sexuality will stay fluid: I can be attracted to men, but I don’t want to date them or have sex with them. The spectrum is so much wider than I thought before and I’m so happy to be part of this community.

But no matter how I call myself, it’s only when I saw and accepted who I was that I could really love myself and express my true identity. Thank you Dom for giving us this space of expression <3

On my way, hoping to get there soon…

I guess I always knew way back when I was a kid, but I had no idea what it was and why I felt that way. I just wasn’t what was deemed “normal”. I started acknowledging it for myself as I was going through adolescence and all throughout college and then sort of embraced it after graduation. But to be honest, I still don’t feel safe or free – as I wish I could be – to declare my truth. To some I am able to tell them, while to most I keep quiet… either way, I am never without fear of being rejected or seen differently, like I become a different person from the one they’ve come to know as soon as I confirm what they probably already thought. I still fear that I will never be taken seriously professionally or deserving of the same respect as a person just because of who I am. I am still afraid but I am also hopeful that one day, I’d get there – where I am free to just be me and no longer afraid.

YJT, Taiwan

I’d love to start with the reflection on Dom’s inspiring story. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate … I just want to say that Dom has almost expressed what I had in my mind in the past few years ever since I started dating girls. I come from a family that seems “democratic,” as my parents always put it, but to me, in some way, my family is quite conservative. I don’t blame them. Actually, at first, I blame myself because I’ve tried to live up to my parents’ expectations through my life. I don’t want them to see me differently, ’cause I’m too afraid to look into those eyes, as if telling me that I did something wrong or trying to show me that I just lost myself, got bad friends… you’ll find a better life after you pull yourself back to the “normal” part of the world…something like that. Also, my parents care so much about their reputation and afraid that if there’s “rumors,” our life might be affected in a way they don’t expect. And I can’t bear to see their hurtful expressions. So I just couldn’t…
Nonetheless, after reading Dom’s story, I suddenly felt energized by courage and hopes. The positive values Dom’ shared were mostly what I tried to share with people in my everyday life. And I couldn’t be happier to see people sharing the same positive values, causing positive ripples, since positivity is one of my core values.
So here I am to share my story… even though I haven’t come out to my parents, but I know some day I will…

To most of my friends, I’m the kind of person who brings them joy and be there when they need someone to talk to or rely on. I love to see people smile, laugh, their happy faces, even though I might not be the reason. But anyway, I truly enjoy the moment bringing happiness to others and sharing positivity.
I’m the kind of person who reflects on myself almost anytime, anywhere, especially on the emotional and mental part since I’m kind of a good observer in people’s emotions. I tend to observe people’s expression, gestures, and emotions, whether stranger or not. Then I would start to wonder what caused the emotion. Maybe out of curiosity, or maybe it’s just for the reminder for me to be a better self.
About more than half a year ago, I ended a four-year unhealthy relationship with a woman. Along the way in the relationship, I kept reflecting on the life we lived and the values we shared. It turned out that it just couldn’t work out. But it’s okay. Every argument, every breakdown has led me to see what matters most to me. Even though it’s kind of the hardest moment in my life so far, I’m still working hard to gather myself together while at the same time enjoying bring joys to people around me, for happiness is my motivation to move forward.
After the end of the relationship, the sudden emptiness struck me, which gave me plenty of time on introspection. So I started to contemplate the life I lived in the almost past 30 years (yeah I’m about to turn 30 in April), if I could remember. In the past, like Dom said in her story, I focused on boys, without realizing I’m also attracted to girls. I know I enjoy being close friends with them, but what I didn’t know is that they did attract me. I remembered clearly when my high school classmate, a boy I think I adore at that time, asked me if I was into some girl in our class; I denied firmly and felt hurt. I was so afraid to be labeled as weirdo or someone that doesn’t fit into the mainstream and also afraid of not going to get a boyfriend on the thought of people might think I’m into women. I didn’t know what I really like or want back then.
Now I know, I just want to be someone that can love freely, whether boys or girls, what matters most is I’m true to myself, to my heart. I just want to enjoy my everyday life, make my life as colorful as possible, for I don’t want to have regrets.
I enjoy being myself, no matter when, especially the sincerity people feel in me when we get along. I enjoy helping others, not to expect anything in return, but a happy smile on their face can make my day. 🙂 I enjoy living a colorful life and cherish every happy moment. As Dom said, “When we’re happy, we shine.” I’d like to shine as brightly as I can and bring happiness and share positivity to those I meet. Let’s shine together!

Lola

Hey, I’m a 14 year old girl and to start off let’s just say I’m very confused, I’m trying to figure out what I am and who I like but its difficult at my age especially when no one likes you back. When I was younger I remember never having crushes on female celebrity’s but I wanted to be them, one of my first crushes was harry styles and still is, and as for girls it was never celebs I was interested in, but my friends. I never knew whether I liked them, wanted to be best friends with them, or wanted to be them, since I had never felt that way to a girl before. Was I that one not normal kid who watched the girl in kissing scenes? made my barbie dolls wife and wife? And took quizzes to see if I was gay? (Which I still do to this day)

My first big real girl crush was someone in my year, and at the time it was almost a trend to be bisexual so most people said they were, apart from me, a part of me thinks that was because I knew deep down I was different and maybe bi and internalised homophobia wouldnt let me admit that, and still wont now, which is why I am so confused, but this girl, I was attracted to her personality more than anything, but it felt different to liking a boy, she was easy to talk to, I didnt have to act cool, so I thought “maybe I just wanna be friends with her it doesnt mean I like her right?” But this crush continued on and off to where I am now. Which is that I dont think I like anyone at the moment apart from the obvious celebs I adore of course.

It’s difficult to explain how I feel as I couldn’t imagine myself marrying a woman but is that just what society has drilled into my head? Is it internalised homophobia? I dont know. And I might not for a couple of years, and as frustrating as that is, it’s ok. I dont have to label myself right now, harry styles doesnt, hes confident right? Maybe I will never label myself and that’s still ok.

Theresa

Well i guess i could say i knew i liked girls when i was 15 years old in school. Everyone had boyfriends and i wasn’t interested in boys, but i had a massive crush on a girl in my class. And i knew then it made me different from everyone else in my school so i tried to ignore it and forget about it.

I did that for the rest of my school years, while everyone in my classes were hanging out with there boyfriends and girlfriends i decided i would stay at home or the library and do my school work as i was too afraid if i spent too much time with them they would see that i was different.

I buried these feelings deep inside me for many years. I went through college just concentrating on my courses. I still made friends but no one ever questioned why i didn’t have a boyfriend or want one.

When i was 20 i made some new friends and started going out to bars drinking and ended up in a gay bar with an openly gay male friend of mine who at the time didn’t know about my feelings for women.
But eventually after a few nights out i met someone. She was so confident and so sure of who she was and what she wanted and i just remember feeling that i wish i could be brave like her and admit i was attracted to women.
And eventually i was brave and we dated for a few months secretly without telling my family or friends.

Then one day many months after i decided it was time to tell my family what i was going through as it was eating me up inside and i hated that feeling more than the fear of them rejecting me.
My sister was the first person i told and she told me she already knew but she was waiting for me to tell her.
Telling my parents was a lot harder. I was so scared to tell my mum, she always dreamed of me getting married to a man and having kids. And i feared that telling her this her dreams would be shattered and she wouldn’t understand.
So i sat my parents down in their front room and i told them i had something to tell them but for some reason the words didn’t come out and i froze and just broke down crying with fear they would hate me.
So my mum told me it was okay, that if i needed to say something maybe i could write it down on a bit of paper for her if i couldn’t find the words. So i did i wrote down ‘i am gay’. And then i ran out of the house.
Eventually i came back to the house to see my mum and she hugged me and told me it was okay and she wasn’t disappointed and she loved me for who i am and that it didn’t matter if i liked men or women.

I felt such a huge relief that day as i could finally be the person i always was but i also felt scared as that was the first time i truly admitted to myself i was gay. And it made me have this overwhelming feeling of loneliness. I lived in a small town and back then there wasn’t many other lgbt+ people around and i didn’t want to be alone.
And for a while i was but then i eventually met some people like me and people who accepted me for who i was and it was the best feeling. And some of those people are still with me now more than 15 years later and i am so grateful for them every day even if i don’t see them much.

So thats how i came out sorry it is so long.
The thing is now many years later if someone was to ask me my sexuality i am not sure i could put myself in one of those boxes.
Yeah maybe some people would say i am a lesbian as i have only ever had female partners. And when i was younger i would of put myself in that box too, but now i don’t feel thats who i am. Yes i am mostly attracted to women but i feel i am also open to love in any shape or form that may take.
I turned 40 this year and one thing i realised over the years is this saying is so true that ‘it really doesn’t matter who we love it only matters that we love’.
And thats me i am just open to love

FtM Trans Guy

When I was 5 I started realising I didn’t really fit in with the girls who I was forced into groups with. I was more interested in playing football than dancing and I had a significant amount more friends who were boys than friends who were girls. The boys saw me as one of them and if someone said that I couldn’t do anything because I’m “a girl” they would defend me and say that I’m different. They were right, I am different.

I’m different but my differences make me unique. My gender dysphoria went unnoticed to me until I was 10, around the same time I started puberty. I started hating the body I was in and wished I could be more like the boys who I played football with. My gender dysphoria was manageable until I was 15.

As soon as I turned 15 I had reached my breaking point. I began researching what this awful feeling of hatred I had towards my body was and almost every article I read and every video I watched told me it was the same thing: gender dysphoria. After that I did more research and discovered what it means to be transgender. I came to the conclusion that I’m trans and that I should probably create a list of names for myself to try out.

By January 2017 I decided to tell my friends about my identity and my new name. At that point, I was identifying as non-binary. One friend knew about what it means to be non-binary so was incredibly supportive and the rest of my friends just wanted what was best for me. They used my new name and my preferred pronouns and it was going really well until a few months later when I realised that I’m actually FtM (female to male) transgender.

After I told people I was changing my preferred name again and was using new pronouns some people stopped talking to me which made me feel even more hatred towards myself. I soon discovered that coming out as trans in a Catholic school was a terrible idea (well for me at least). Someone who had stopped talking to me because of my new identity told one of my bullies about my identity and it caused his bullying to escalate. I soon began regretting coming out.

One day during our biology lesson we were talking about reproduction and my bully asked how same sex couples reproduce. I answered him in a clear and concise way that same sex couples can use IVF or surrogacy in order to reproduce. At this point he turned around and said “oh, is that how you trans freaks do it to?” before pushing a desk towards me causing me to be trapped between two desks. My teacher ran over to help and asked him to leave the classroom immediately. I was ushered off with some of my friends to go sit in an empty art classroom whilst we were waiting for the school nurse to come and check me over. Luckily I was only bruised and nothing worse had happened. He was suspended for two weeks for bullying and inappropriate conduct (apparently it would have been much longer if I’d have actually admitted to being trans but at that point I was too scared to come out to teachers).

Flash forward to now (September 2020) and I’m about to start my second year of university. I still haven’t come out to my parents but I’m getting there. My online friends help a lot with reassuring me that I’ve always got a chosen family and that I look masculine enough. I’m now at ease with my labels of transgender and pansexual (an identity discovery I made only a few months ago).

I identify myself as a loving human being.

I knew from a very young age, maybe 5 or 6 that I was attracted to women in the most innocent of ways but drawn to women nonetheless. I was different than most girls that had surrounded me, all I was able to comprehend was that I was different. Even at such a young age, I felt that that was a part of me that needed to be masked.
I carried on with life slowly realizing and coming to terms with my sexuality. Yet still, suppressing a part of me that got harder and harder to suppress.
I was 21 when I came out to family and the few people I am closest to. I am grateful every single day for them, being as lovely as they were and are about it.
It’s beautiful to realize that you’re beautiful too.
I just know now that this story never really ends, it’s just gets easier to tell.

14, Louisiana, United States

I’m fourteen and not fully out to my family. I’m gay and I live in a small town in southern Louisiana where church is everything. There’s not much I can do physically in my community, so I help out through the internet. I use the internet to educate myself and learn strategies to fight against prejudice and cruelty against the community. I love to write so I write stories of inclusion and happy endings for LGBTQ+ people especially when I enter writing contests. I use my artistic abilities to depict non stereotypical people of the community. I try hard to unify and support others when I come across them on the internet. I support and reach out to other, especially younger, people in the lgbtq+ community. I’ve had several people come out to me because I was the only gay person they knew. I tried my absolute best to reassure and to give hope to them and point them in the right direction. Being that person, the person who others feel comfortable to come to with such an important part of themselves, is one of the highlights of my life. A lot of the time I feel alone, but helping others makes me realize that I don’t want others to feel that way, I want to be the person that changes that for them. I’m proud of the person I am and the people I’m helping others become. The internet can be a scary and cruel place, but I hope to make it a little bit better one step at a time.