Community Rainbow Waves

Being brave: a longlife lesson I’m still on my journey to learn…

All of my life I’ve known I like girls, even since I was just a little kid. But it didn’t matter to me that much because, as a kid I didn’t realize what that exactly meant. But then I got older… and as many other people must identify with (specially in latin countries): struggling with the fact that I come from a “macho culture” country as Guatemala, growing in an evangelical family, religious closed-minded-violent society, being the daugther of a respectable Doctor known by a lot of people, and belonging to a respectable family… and so on… those things over the years made me just (as Dominique wrote) suppress it, to the point that, for many years I tried to convince myself that it was absolutely not acceptable and I had to change and hopefully someday God would have enough mercy on me to change me, and if it didn’t happen, then I must just stay single for the rest of my life instead of having a homosexual relationship. Because it was not a good thing for my family, it was not a good thing in God’s eyes, because it is just wrong… and still at the eve of my 36’s I struggle so hard with those thoughts (that I know are not okay)… because that’s what I was taught.

Too many years have passed and.. yeap, I still like women, more than ever, and I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I definitely don’t have the same perception of life that I had 10, 15 or 20 years ago. And it makes me so sad to think that I have wasted so many years of my life where I could have just enjoyed and lived my sexuality freely without caring of what others would say, or think, but I’m working on it now, I think it’s never too late.

My coming out story though is not a happy one, back in 2009 I met a beautiful lady at work (we knew each other by sight only, from church and because our families also were old acquaintances… just imagine that). We started dating and we fell in love so deeply, we were together for almost 5 years, but of course we kept it secret for obvious reasons, even when we were not that young anymore (she was 28 and I 26) we were still so scared, we shared the same background, so at least, being with someone who understood the situation so well was kind of a comfort. Anyways, one day her brother (a total a.h.) saw us kissing and told their parents, and their parents talked to my parents, and as if we were children, they met to decide what they were going to do about it… that was the breaking point to our relationship, we tried to stay together but it got just so hard to confront them (not to mention, she had a daughter and it made it so much difficult)… well… just not to extend on this, we finally broke up. Didn’t speak for years… she got married last year and I’m still single.

I’m about to turn 36 and even when I came out to my friends a long time ago, and all of them were very supportive… the situation with my family injured my heart and soul, so deep, and since we were never that open with each other, my parents and I never talked about the subject after that incident. So it felt like it never happened, and if it made them feel calmed, that was enough for me. My two sisters, thank God have been such a bleesing, they’ve been my supporting point, otherwise I would’ve gone crazy.

And well… why now? Why am I deciding to write this down? I’ve never talked to anyone about all this… and so many things have happened in the last years, that I just feel overwhelmed, but the breaking point to me was on last december, when I lost my mom due to cancer, since then, I’ve been having so many regrets, because back in those days when they found out I was a lesbian, she was so hurt that she didn’t talk to me for a couple of weeks, and I tried to understand and not being angry at her, and she wrote me a letter (that I still keep with me) asking me to open up to her and talk to her about my feelings… and I never did, because I felt so guilty and bad, and I just didn’t want to hurt her more, I mean, I mistakenly thought she had more important things to worry about, I was a grown up girl after all so I just decided to deal with it on my own… and now I realize I should have done it… maybe I wouldn’t have felt so alone. Maybe, having done it many years earlier, I wouldn’t have to go through that painful stage of my life where I just found comfort in alcohol and trying to stay away from home… I mean, it wasn’t their fault after all.

And here I stand, trying to take babysteps on being brave enough to embrace my true self, and living my life the way it makes me happy… trying to get rid of the religious ideas implanted on me, trying to find that confidence to open up to my dad (who is and has always been a good man and a good father… but old fashioned)… and I don’t know how long it’s gonna take me, but I finally decided, it’s time to stop suppressing, it’s time to start being myself around my people… I’m still so so scared of hurting my father and dissappointing him, but I just can’t keep living like this anymore. So I’m doing this for me.

I apologyze if I’m not so eloquent in my writing, but I just took this space as a liberating point of all the things I carry with me, don’t even know if someone’s going to read it, but I just needed to get it out of my head for a change.

Blessings to everyone.

Kaleen’s Journey

Your personal journey to finding yourself¬–whether you’re queer or not¬–is a universal thing we all experience. As unique and individual those journeys may be, the feelings and emotions are something we all share, and I find that to be so beautiful!

Love is love, hurt is hurt, heavy is heavy, hard is hard, joy is joy. Remember we all experience these things together and no one should judge anyone’s story and compete over struggles, but rather find connections and how much we all share as people. Let’s all continue to grow, love and support each other and continue this wave of self-love and discovery!

So that said, I would love to share my experience publicly for the first time, in the hopes it helps someone else find their truth. <3

I’m Kaleen and I identify as lesbian, queer and gay. I am 28 years old and I’m an art director and actress in San Francisco. For me, and I’m sure many of you, finding myself and accepting myself are two very different things and came at very different times in my life. Next week, I proudly celebrate my 4 year wedding anniversary with my amazing wife (we’ve been together for over 8 years) so my story has a very happy ending! But it definitely didn’t start that way.

For most of my life, I did not realize I was gay. I didn’t even consider it as an option. I grew up in a religious household with a mother who I believe after years of therapy to have Borderline personality disorder (BPD). It was not a healthy or emotionally safe environment for me. I truly believed that I was just an amazing Christian who was waiting till marriage (for you know)… but waiting was super easy for me because I had ZERO desire to be intimate with a man. Even when I had boyfriends and would kiss them, I would find myself counting down the seconds till it was over. I truly thought everyone felt this way and it was something I would learn to like and we all just have to get over that hurdle of disgust. I would see my friends falling head over heels for their boyfriends and wonder how they got over that hurdle, and think I’ll get there soon too… that day didn’t come for me.

Knowing myself now and looking back, there were so many “clues” that I was gay, but it still did not cross my mind. I remember watching the show House and there was an episode when Olivia Wilde’s character, Thirteen, came out as bisexual. The scene where she kissed another woman, I remember rewinding and watching it a few times. This was one of the first times I’d seen this on T.V. and it was the start of my eyes opening into what is possible. This is why representation is SO important!

Fast forward to college. This is when my life flipped on its head! I found myself in a relationship with a man and we got engaged (for his privacy, I will call him John). He was a wonderful human, and I truly thought I was “in” love. I did love him, but just not the way he deserved to be loved, and not the way I deserved to experience it. At this time, I also built a wonderful friendship with a girl and we became best friends. When I got engaged to John, something in me snapped because my mind knew that eventually I will have to have sex with this person. This tossed me into a deep depression and in doing so, also opened my eyes to a past I had bolted shut. I realized all in one moment, that I was gay, in love with my best friend, and I also had PTSD with memories of being sexually abused by a family member for half my childhood flooding my mind, all while going to school full time and holding a job to pay rent. It was a lot to discover all at one time and I felt completely overwhelmed and alone. The only person I felt comfortable sharing all these pieces of myself with was my best friend Kay. Little by little I had to confront and try to accept all these things happening in my life.

At this time, I asked John to give me space. He understood that I was having trouble with my PTSD and needed to distance myself from him. We were fully separated for over 3 months with no communication as I worked to find myself again and heal from my past.

Kay was patient and helped me heal, and through all this we became unbelievably close. At this time, she was not out as gay either. Funny enough, we did not even realize that our relationship was different than other girl/girl relationships because it felt so natural to the point we didn’t stop and ask ourselves if this was “normal”. Needless to say, we figured it out together. At this point, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to allow myself to live an authentic life because I knew in doing this, I would lose family. Before I said yes or no, I gave myself one day to openly (in the privacy of my home) love Kay and acknowledge how we felt for one another. We spent the day just holding each other, laughing, and enjoying how we felt. As the clock drew near to midnight, our hearts began to sink as we knew we only had this moment. To this day, I can’t watch All Dogs Go To Heaven because that was on in the background. We shared one last amazing kiss and then walked into separate rooms. Oh, did I not mention we were also roommates! Yeah… that made things even harder!

Days turned into weeks of me pretending like I could live without her, till I just couldn’t take it anymore. I decided I would let myself be gay if, and only if, my sister could be ok with it. Lucky for me, she was open to trying to understand. It was at this point I officially ended my engagement with John. I returned the ring and we had a wonderful moment of thanking each other for all the good times and wished nothing but happiness and healing to one another. A few months after this, I began my first true relationship with Kay.

I came out to my family and my father and stepmom were amazingly supportive and even helped pay for my therapy during all this, but my mother would not accept my truth. She said to me “I would rather you be unhappy in this lifetime, but forever happy in the kingdom of god” and asked me to deny myself love and live alone. I gave myself the best gift I could and will ever give and decided to fully embrace my love for Kay regardless of what this person thought. It was hard, it’s still hard to think about, but it’s what was best for me. Years later when we became engaged, my mom officially removed herself from my life and we haven’t seen or spoken since.

Like I said in the beginning of the story, Kay and I have now been together for over 8 years and we are about to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary on April 2nd. She is my absolute best friend and I don’t have words for how much I love her. She is the first time I have experienced unconditional love, and I value her with everything I am. Deciding to accept myself and live an openly gay life is the best decision I’ve made for myself and it’s a privilege I will never take for granted.

I wish everyone who reads this love and acceptance within themselves. You are love, you are here and you stay. Xoxo

Funny

I always knew I was a little different. I was the off athlete, the friend left out, the person who could always make everyone else laugh and happy however it was the biggest mission to get me to laugh, enjoy what I was doing. I found an environment at work where I just become friends with people because I felt alright to be around. Than one year, one day, one person came and joined our work. Straight away we were the same!, same interests, same think a like, same almost everything, It was just someone I felt it was not hard to talk to. We instantly became friends time passed and we were best friends but little things started to change. I’d want to tell her everything, I wanted her oppion, we couldn’t not talk to each everyday, I wanted to be around her. Small part of the good thing we had developed started to explode from types of family matters. But we chose to stick around for each other. This lead to a moment that I can never forgot. This girl kissed me, she’s kissed me. And from than on we’ve had family issues on her side, But my families accepted us together and she is part of my family. But we always stick together. we have had each other for almost 4ish year. Been Together for 2years. But it’s made me realise when you find 1 person who your able to be vulnerable, happy, sad, angry, loved, in 1 person than it doesn’t matter what’s stated on a birth certificate what matters is what they are to you. So at the age of 21 – I am out.

Just a girl who likes girls

I think I’ve known I liked girls since I was 14 but I kind of ignored it, if that makes sense?? I sort of pushed those feelings and ideas away, and tried to be attracted to boys. It’s fair to say that it didn’t work ! I came out to few people at a time, people I could trust but I only told my parents and extented family when I had my first girlfriend. I was 22, so I’m a late bloomer!
And telling my pare nts was hard because I knew they wouldn’t understand and it made them sad ; sad that I wouldn’t live the life they imagined for me and scared I would be seen as “different”. Some people rather blend in and not make waves, but maybe different is cool you know ? It opens up people’s mind and if they make the effort then they can see life from someone’s point of view and sort of grow. In that way representation matters, especially on TV where people how normal queer people are. We are only different from the societal norm but maybe we can just change that norm? How hard could it be to simply accept and embrace our differences ?
This place allows us to be simply ourselves, so thank you for this!
xxx

Lesbian

Hi my name is Belen and I struggled with finding my sexuality and who i was all throughout middle school and the beginning of high school. I am 16 years old and i came out to my mom at 15 on November 11th 2019 and then came out to my dad in February of 2020. It took me a while to come to terms with me liking girls and hated myself for a while because of it. It was a big struggle that i had to overcome and i am very proud of myself for finally being able to be my true self and be proud of who i am and how far i have come.

I identify myself as female

I think around the age of 8 or 9 when the girls of my classroom started liking the boys and talk about them I had the thought that the boys were so childish and stupid and still girls liked them. After that when I knew that existed gay and queer people I already accepted them even though I never had think about it. Some years later I was talking to my best friend and I said that I really liked girls and apparently some guys but I didn’t know exactly what I was and she accepted me and open up about herself too. I still don’t have a defined sexuality and that’s ok since I know what I like.

Anonymous – Pansexual

I knew I was part of the community when I was 7 because I had crushes on both genders but I was scared to tell anyone and specifically my family. And I am still scared to tell my family to this day. Unfortunately, because of this barrier / secret I have, I became emotionally distant from them since I was around 13. I told a couple of my close friends when I was 15-16 and they were all accepting of it. Luckily I lived in a diverse city but my immediate family / community are very close minded. Growing up, although my friends knew, I didn’t really have a community I can rely on. So, I’m so glad to have found Wynonna Earp because Earpers and the community helped me discover and accept who I am. I was scared to even say the phrase “I am queer” to anyone before Earpers. Now, I say it quite often and hopefully one day I will have the courage to say it to my family. So, thank you Earpers and Wynonna Earp for the community.

I’m bisexual

I am bisexual but when I came out of the closet with my parents they didn’t accept it so I had to tell them to “change” but luckily I have people who love me and who support me no matter who I am and encourage me to never stop being who I am.

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

25 years to mature and bloom…like a good wine.

My journey of finding my true self started at the age of 14, I knew that the way I felt about one of my friends at school was slightly different and couldn’t quite grasp why I seem to connect so well with other girls. As this was the mid 1980’s there was no way I could even explore this as an option so I decided not do anything about it. I drifted through my teens and early 20s not even entertaining a relationship with anyone much less a woman. It was around the age of 28 when I was under pressure from people around me that I should really get married and settle down to have a family. In my heart I knew what I wanted but my head over ruled it so I met my husband and had a beautiful baby boy and was living the life others wanted for me. For six years I lived my life day to day doing all I could for my husband and son working hard and just getting on with life. I had always been close to my dad and out of the blue he rang to say let’s meet for lunch we need to talk which was very out of character as it’s not what we did. At lunch he asked me out of the blue………Sue why don’t you do something that will make you truly happy in your heart and make you the happy girl you grew up as. It will be scary but so worth it. I kept going over in my head what my dad had said…………….10 days after our lunch meeting my dad died in an accident at work but what he had said had woken something in me that I thought I had buried so deep I’d never find it again. Within in 3 months of his death I had sat my husband down and told him that I could not
be with him as I was lying to myself. I explained how I’d felt and been feeling most of my life and as much as it hurt he did understand. I wanted to be honest with him and my son as I didn’t want to go behind their back and live a double life. I didn’t rush into relationships but I knew now what I wanted. This was the first time in my life that the weight of the world had been lifted, I could breath and for that reason I bloomed…………..I was out shopping with my son and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen walked past me and I thought to myself I’m going to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m happy to say that 10 years later I live with this lady, my soul mate, my best friend and the love of my life. It wasn’t all plain sailing as I had to wait for her for 5 years as she was married……………but it was worth the wait. I have a beautiful 16 year old son who is caring and incredibly grounded, I had always been honest and open with him and he knows that whatever path he takes in life I will back him 100% as he did me from a very young age. I guess I didn’t really come out I just told my family this is who I love and I am very proud of loving this beautiful woman.

Be true to yourself and the rest will take care of itself x