Community Rainbow Waves

Feel free to exhale homosexuality

For me, understanding my sexuality has meant going through several mental chaos. Before understanding my sexual identity, I had to first understand my sexuality. In my adolescence, while everyone was talking about girls, boys, sex or kissing, I only thought about playing sports and going to the movies. I was not attracted to anyone, neither boys nor girls. And that made me feel like a freak, because everyone was already having a partner or, at least, a taste for someone, except me. I went out with a couple of guys and those have been (until now, 10 years later) the most boring dates of my life.
Also, before discovering my homosexuality I discovered sexual pleasure through masturbation. The first times I felt guilty about doing it because everybody knows that men masturbate, but what a horror if a girl does it. And so, for a couple more years, I was still not attracted to anyone, and did not need to have anyone.
It wasn’t until I entered college that I met the love of my life. This girl stirred up each and every one of my hormones that, until that moment, seemed dead. Unfortunately, it was an unrequited love, because she was suffering for a boy who did not pay as much attention to her as I was suffering for her.
The first person I told about my possible homosexuality was my best friend. His words of comfort (because yes, for him that confession was comforting) were “Relax, you’re not gay, you’re just confused. Let me tell you, there is nothing more confusing than when you are told you are confused. His consolation created a (other) mental chaos for me: how do I know if what I’m feeling is real or if I’m making it up? How do I know if I’m one hundred percent sure of something or if I’m confused and haven’t noticed? Furthermore, what does it mean that I am confused?
With those doubts in my head I entered my first relationship. The first month was a mental chaos because it was my first time (in every way), and it was with a girl. Because of the macho and conservative country I live in (Peru), being gay was seen as something negative. (Level: the same police officers assaulted both gays and lesbians) So, for someone like me, who has always tried to do the right thing and be a better person in every way, the idea of being gay made me ashamed. I mean, I knew it wasn’t a bad thing per se, but I was embarrassed that I wasn’t “normal. I was embarrassed to be something that was seen in a bad light. That’s why I didn’t tell my parents about it. However, as the days went by the mental chaos became more acute, so I thought it would be best to talk about it, maybe I could lean on them to understand me…. The reaction they had was shocking. You definitely don’t really know your family until you come out of the closet. From my mother I expected some rejection for being Catholic, but there was only silence. Not a single word for several days. Until she came over one night and told me to be careful because I could get AIDS. Yes, AIDS. It was the middle of the 21st century and I still believed that you get AIDS just by coming out of the closet.
On the other hand, my father is half relaxed, to the point of letting my brother smoke marijuana in the house. But it seems that drugs are not as serious as homosexuality. As soon as I finished telling him that I thought he was gay, my father started crying. There is nothing more ridiculous than seeing a big, loud person cry because his daughter is a lesbian. He started crying because it turns out that homosexuality is a disease. It turns out that homosexuality is a product of some childhood trauma. It turns out that homosexuality is an impediment to marrying and giving birth to grandchildren. And, in between cries, she began to apologize for whatever she did to make me believe it was “it”.
So far, when I think about that scene, I am aware that my departure was not tragic, it was just disappointing. At that moment I realized that I was alone in all that mental chaos. And I accepted it. You’re not always going to have someone to lean on, so I decided to raise myself to be my own source of support. But, of course, going through that chaos alone is not easy. It took me several more years before I could stop feeling ashamed of myself, and feel truly comfortable in my own skin. And it is only now, at 28, that I feel free to breathe out my homosexuality.
Now, because I’m half antisocial, my story hasn’t inspired anyone (because I don’t talk to anyone), but, if anyone keeps reading this far, what I can tell you is that, it’s not about forcing someone to accept you, it’s about how, as long as you love yourself, little by little things and people around you are going to shape up to you. And, one more thing, Respect. Even if someone lowers himself to the level of disrespect or seeks to harm you, as long as you hold your head up high, little by little you will be the one who wins.
Thank you very much for reading this will. Much love.
Ariana.

I am a queer non-binary individual that believe in love!

I knew that i liked more than one gender when I was 12, but i had no concept of sexuality and even gender at that time. Now, as a 15 year old, I am still figuring out who i am and who i want to be in this world. Sexuality and gender and fluid and beautiful things that anyone should be able to freely express. I am so glad to be a part of this community, and I hope that I grow more and more.

A shy baby bi girl who has no idea what she’s doing, but is glad she is here

I’ve known since a young age that I was attracted to girls. I kissed my babysitters niece when we were 8 or 9, a few years later I found my dad’s playboy magazines – and I wasn’t trying to read the articles, I was lucky enough to have a computer in my room when I was in 6-8th grade and I found wlw fanfics online and I remember the one time I took a 1 megapixel video recording of two (2) girls kissing from a TV show on my flip phone when I was in the 9th grade (of which a friend saw and I’ve never panicked more than I have then, but someone got them to drop it and move on). The point is I’ve always known, I just always felt like that part of me had to stay hidden, even though I later became a very outspoken ally of the LGBTQ2IA+ community. I even sat with several friends as we cried together while they came out to me and I loved and supported all of them, but yet I felt that I couldn’t do the same. Maybe it was just my body insecurities, or whatever but I felt, and I guess still do to an extent, that I didn’t belong. That I didn’t physically look or dress and certain way so I couldn’t be anything but straight.

Even though I supported and had friends in the community I felt that I still needed to hide that part of myself, like it was ok for everyone else but it was wrong that I felt that way. I kept that part of me isolated to my apartment, my second tumblr account, etc. I let others make their own assumptions and just ran with it. That felt a lot easier to me than actually saying those words out loud.

I also struggled as the years went on with my age (I’m 28) I started thinking that I was “too old to come out” and what if I come out as this but later figured out that I’m that or none of those. Would people take me seriously? Would that perpetuate the bisexual stereotype of just being confused? Thinking about coming out is stressful enough but add those questions on top of that with no one to ask or have provide some kind of reassurance that everything I was feeling and thinking was normal and valid and all I had to focus on was me was torture.

And then one day I was scrolling through Tumblr and saw gifs of WayHaught and I read the comments and found out about Wynonna Earp (Funny side story: I didn’t watch the series immediately so I was just going off comments and tags and I thought Nicole was Wynonna for the longest time and was a bit confused when I first started watching the show lol) Watching Waverly grow to understand and accept herself and how brave and sure she was of her feelings for Nicole really hit me. I knew it was just a TV show but her journey was so authentic that if helped me be a bit more comfortable with what I was feeling. As soon as I started the show I also sent out my #EarperGreet tweet and was floored by how friendly and accepting the fandom was. Everything combined made me feel like I had a safe place to be myself. I started getting bolder on what I posted or liked on my main twitter and eventually got the chance to hang out with other Earpers from my city. Being able to hang out with other queer people naturally made me feel more comfortable and confident to be myself. It would be another 7 months after meeting my fellow Earpers in person, of subtle hints and whatnot online before I finally came out on twitter, on national coming out day no less. I came out as Bi and I couldn’t be happier. I’m still a bit shy in person talking about it, but I think that’s just my normal introverted, awkward self. It sounds silly, or maybe it doesn’t, but Wynonna Earp, WayHaught and Earpers as a whole really helped in making it possible for me to be me. If I hadn’t found wearp I honestly think I would have continued to be a closeted ally. So thank you.

Disclamer: I am not a writer by any means and have major scatter brain when I try to write so this probably reads as a word vomit salad so I hope it makes sense.

I am whatever I say I am

June 13, 2020 9:35 p.m. “I’m gay”. I came out to half of my family in a text. I don’t believe there is or ever was a god but I do believe people can be cruel and unfair. I live in a pretty small town in Illinois mostly everyone is religious. But if there is a higher power then how come we don’t get a say in how we want to live our lives. Or if you are gay you go to hell but you get to chose who you love. Then how come you don’t get to tell them you love them. I say people are cruel because I am a thirteen year old female and I fear that people wouldn’t understand me because of who I chose to love. When I was 11 years old I panicked because I liked one of the girls in my class. I still get butterflies when I talk to her. She makes me laugh and she challenges me which I love.To quote a movie” Love is messy and horrible and selfish… and bold. It’s not finding your perfect half. It’s the trying and reaching and failing.” Life sucks but when we find someone who makes it suck just 0.0000000000000001 % less why can’t we decide to love them whoever they are or however they present themselves. You should not have to lie to make other people happy. You should be able to tell whomever you want whenever you want whatever. So, this is my story, well the true beginning anyways, so what’s your. And if you want you can share it. I am gay. I am bisexual. I am pan sexual. I am what ever I say I am. Nobody gets to say differently.

Queer woman who tip toed out 20 years ago

The summer before my freshman year of college I lifeguarded at a hotel pool in MD. One night, I was working late because my boyfriend’s band had a show out of town. Toward the end of the night this women’s basketball team from Boston came down to hang out in the hot tub and we all ended up chatting bc they were all around the same age as me. We ended up getting along really well, especially this one girl, Vicki.
Long story short, the team went back to Boston and Vicki and I kept in constant contact over the next several months. We both moved into school and decided we wanted to see each other again, so I booked a flight to go visit her in November. Even though I had a boyfriend, I thought maybe I started to develop feelings for her. I was confused, but I figured my trip would clarify things. By the time I got there, she ended up having a girlfriend so I got no answers.
When I got back to school in Pittsburgh, I felt worse than before I left for Boston. I went through a very deep depression. I stopped eating, I never slept, I felt like I was just going through the motions bc my head was always consumed by what was happening in my heart. I still was very attracted to men and didn’t know anyone like me bc this was 2000 and things were A LOT different 20 years ago. All I could think about was “why am I different” and “what did I do to deserve this”. Finally, my cousin who worked at my school, saw how badly I was struggling and she addressed me about it one night by coming out to me. It was the first person I knew who was actually gay. It was a kind of solace, but I still didn’t know who I was or what I was.
Fast forward a couple months and I had grown close to one of my cousin’s friends but she was in a relationship. One night I was staying at my cousin’s house she had a “surprise” for me and turned out that this girl had feelings for me, broke up with her gf, and was on her way here. We ended up kissing the night (my first time kissing a woman) and it was like fireworks. I knew at that point, I was going to have to address these feelings.
After that, I met and started dating a woman and slowly started telling my teammates and close friends. At school in Pittsburgh I felt free to be myself, but when I went back to MD that summer to be with my family, I got sucked right back into the closet. I wasn’t comfortable talking to my Catholic family about it bc I knew they wouldn’t understand.
One day, my mom walked in on my “laying” down with a woman and she flipped out. My mom was eventually “ok” but didn’t want me telling anyone else.
It took quite a while but now, I am 38 years old, married to a woman and have 3 children. I am fully out, confident in my queerness, and happy!

Queer

I knew from a young age I was attracted to boys and girls. I actually had a Backstreet Boys poster and a Brittany Spears poster up in my bedroom and I thought both were cute. I was living in the Midwest at the time and that was a huge no no in the 90’s. Plus I had gotten teased a ton about my mom and stepdad practicing Tibetan Buddhism. I just went along with the other girls gushing about boys, guy celebrities, and such. I had crushes on boys and girls through school, but I felt I wasn’t gay. The only queer women I had been exposed to were very masculine and I didn’t identify in that way. I left home when I was 16 to move to California. I had met my fathers family for the first time and wanted to get to know them. I got involved in their religion, and while I saw the good, I saw so much of what didn’t align with my true self. I struggled for a few more years. I had a few friends come out to me and I was so happy for them. I knew at this point I was queer, I just couldn’t muster up the strength to come out myself.
I eventually moved to Orange County to reunite with my sister and my mom in 2014. I was 23. My mom always knew and kept trying to practically pull me out of the closet, fear had kept me in and so resistant. Eventually my anxiety for not being myself grew unbearable and I had to change that. So I came out at 23. My family was over the moon. Things started shifting for me. My dads family didn’t talk to me for a long time. Things have changed now, we communicate here and there. After my first serious relationship I have found myself in Massachusetts. While my partner and I went our separate ways for personal growth I find myself drawn to help others in situations like me. Be a light in dark times. That along with a spiritual awakening has held me steadfast my efforts and so inline with myself. I genuinely have love and compassion for others and I’m happy to be me. It’s also motivated me to become vegan and environmentally conscious.
So coming out started this beautiful chain reaction for me and I hope to support and encourage others to do the same.
You all are beautiful beings. Let your light shine bright, you are worth it and you never know when that light shines for others in the dark.

HUMAN (Human Experience)

At the age of 12, (I’ll start with something that marked my life) in school I was beginning to notice discrimination from children my age. It was the age when everything around me began to affect me emotionally, shyness consumed me, I was silent for a long time, in the face of what I saw and what I heard (This was also because I grew up in a family with economic problems, communication problems, problems of home stability, (problems that exist in many families) this did not allow me to have friends, not for long).
In school, I began to experience this nervousness when someone who was attracted to you (boys and girls) would come up to you and point their finger at me (mostly because of the girls), talk behind my back. Children can be very cruel sometimes and I let that get to me.
I grew up having a different view of human beings, I grew up knowing my older brother’s sexual orientation (to label him would be gay). In my small family of my maternal grandparents, my mother, my younger sister, my older brother and I, his orientation was only a topic for my grandmother, something she found difficult to accept. This was the second thing that marked my life. My mother always saw it as something natural, it was never a subject for her. What I remember most is that she told us that we had to be who we wanted to be, and she would support us. Going back to my grandmother, what terrified me the most were her comments and her look I can’t forget, her look of disgust and rejection, I didn’t want them to look at me like that, and that’s why I decided to keep silent. And just go with the flow that was driving society. To be “normal”. But I always wondered what that meant.
Since I can remember, 4 years, I always felt different, I was very attentive to what was happening around me, but I did not remember that people were so cruel until I was 12 years old. I just felt like a little human being, living in a place that didn’t fit but I was trying hard to understand and learn.
At the age of 16 I confessed to my mother about my taste in both men and women, she looked at me, smiled at me, kissed me on the forehead and hugged me. And she told me that everything was fine. I remember walking with my sister on the way to a supermarket and we were talking about the freedom of tastes by different genders, and we are both very open-minded, we never confess or label ourselves personally.
But 3 or 4 months ago I don’t know exactly, my sister confesses to us that it is part of the non-binary genre, I already intuited it, but I never asked her because I think that it shouldn’t be a subject, I think that in all of us we should be free.

In my last years I have learned to observe and analyze more the behavior of the human being. And I don’t justify anyone’s bad behavior, but I think there are many people who live in fear and that’s their behavior.
In short, in order not to do this so long, today at 26 years of age, since this pandemic began I have rethought many things about my life and the society in which we live. And I have decided to RECONSTRUCTION myself emotionally, mentally and in many other things. RECONSTRUCTION and ACCEPTANCE. Some time ago I started with meditation and yoga and I discovered many things about myself, I realized that everything that happened in my past had to be like that, it took me to make the person I am today. I constantly have conversations with myself that give me the answers I need. I have never been emotionally dependent on anyone and I have moved away from the attachment of those emotional things that don’t allow you to evolve.
I have a core of friends who are wonderful in many ways, they are few, but, they are the kind of people that you need to have in your life, that show you how different we are in many things but you can learn from it and it would be a bit boring if we were all the same and with them I can express myself freely without getting a strange look back.
With them (my friends) and my family, I can express myself freely regardless of a person’s gender or sexuality. And so it should be. Hopefully, at some point mankind will realize that, we would all be better off as a society.
I would like to share much more, but I think that’s enough, the message is understood.
Tomorrow, September 4th, I’m having a birthday party and I decided it was already a good time to free myself. I mean, I’ve been here for a long time, but I wanted to share it.

Yesterday an acquaintance told me that Love does not exist, and I answered him with a “how can it not exist” and there you realize how damaged we are as a society. My life was also somewhat stormy but I never let myself fall, I always understood that this was only a human experience and that I had to accept it or fix it, personally.
I’m not going to label myself with respect to my tastes, I just leave it as a human experience. I didn’t know how pleasant it was to write, I wouldn’t give it up. But I have to keep going, right now I am sitting looking at my beautiful Andean mountain range while drinking an herbal tea.
It was a pleasure to share a little bit of myself. Most likely you have forgotten something.
(Sorry for the length of my story)

-Katherine, Chile.

Queer

Hello!

I’m Brenn and I realized that I was part of the LGBTIQ+ community at the age of 12 when a girl at school started liking me but I also liked children. For the next 8 years or so it wasn’t a conflict that I liked women, the conflict was that there were stages where I only liked men other times only women, sometimes both and other times no one.

I did not understand what was happening to me, until those stages were over and as I educated myself about the diversity that exists I discovered that being Queer was the closest thing to what I feel and how I identify myself.

When I was 21 years old I came out of the closet with my boyfriend at that time as a bisexual because it was the sexual orientation I knew even though I didn’t feel like I belonged there.

Then I came out at 27 with my parents and brother in a situation that I would not have liked to have happened but it brought my nuclear family to know and they understood the whole situation. Plus they were understanding and took it very well.

So I told my friends, some took it well and others walked away.

In general I always felt that I didn’t fit in anywhere but that also helped me to do a lot of introspection and work on myself, which has made me feel happy with who I am and how that projects on others. It’s true that all those years go by in rather dark episodes but the colors came and now they don’t stop shining and they do more and more.

I live in Mexico in a society in which there is more visibility of the LGBTIQ+ community but there is no education about it, so we have a long way to go but with the hope that we are making a change.

Thank you for everything!

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I’m a unicorn

When I was 12 I met a girl, she eventually became my best friend. We spent a lot of time together. She liked to hold my hand and hug me constantly. I noticed that my feelings for her were getting stronger, suddenly I realized that I wanted to kiss her, that something had changed, that I was jealous if I saw her with a boy, but I refused to accept what was happening to me, how could I like my best friend? It was very hard for me to accept myself, to realize that I liked men, but also women. I was never able to tell my best friend that I was in love with her, I’m still afraid to tell some people who I really am, and it’s killing me.

Love who YOU are and be who YOU are meant to be.

This is going to be a long story. Sorry in advance. This is my story and this is who I am.

Growing up in a small (3 stoplight kind of small) town in Southern California wasn’t always the easiest. This was the kind of town where everyone knew someone, who knew you. Everyone ended up knowing your business whether you wanted them to know or not.

As a kid and preteen, I always knew I was different. While other girls were concentrated on boys and learning how to put on makeup, here I was more concerned about not having enough daylight to climb rocks, ride bikes, or play outside. The only thing I wanted from a boy was to have someone to play catch with. I was always shy around girls, which is probably why the majority of my friends were boys.

As the years passed, this blonde haired, blue eyed, knobby knees kid didn’t really change.

Come high school (1999-2003 in case anyone was curious), I was still the athletic girl who hung out with all the boys. At age 16 I had my first kiss. My first kiss was with my best friend (he and I are still friends to this day). Nothing ever really ever came from that kiss. It wasn’t long after senior year started did I find out my old neighbor had a crush on me. Apparently he had a crush on me since 6th grade. We had many classes together that year. We would even walk to class together. I always saw us as just friends. One day he asked me to one of the dances at school. I had always wanted to go to the dances at school, but never thought I would have someone to take me. I agreed to go with him as long as he understood we were going as friends. The big night came and went. All the fun was had that evening and after that, life went back to normal. I was still shy and quiet.

Fast forward six months. MYSPACE and Yahoo! Messenger came into my life.
My eyes were opened to a whole new world. It was life changing!

I met so many new people outside of my tiny country town. I never really asked myself why I never wanted to date anyone. The time came when I met this girl online, we’ll just call her Mary, from the other side of my state. We would chat EVERY SINGLE DAY. Some days were just in a chat room and other days on video chat. I had NEVER spent this much time talking to anyone before. I was completely head over heels and didn’t even realize it. One day, one of my sisters asked me why I was spending so much time talking to this girl. She straight up asked me if I was a lesbian. I was scared and didn’t quite know how to answer her at the time partly because I myself didn’t really know. I ended up telling her NO. Going back to Mary, neither one of us ever told the other how we obviously felt about one another. We both graduated and moved on with the next chapter in our lives.

Summer after high school, I had already started taking summer classes for college. I was over at a friends house and he was chatting with his buddy who lived out of state. This buddy had recently gone through a rough divorce and needed a friend to talk to. My friend introduced us and we started becoming friends. That’s all we were for a while. The more we talked the more we liked each other. Long story short, I moved up to AK. We got married, this unfortunately didn’t last very long. I realized it wasn’t fair to either one of us for me to stay and try to work things out if I couldn’t be 100% honest with myself. I still felt like something was missing. Looking back I realize that I was running away when I moved to AK. Running away because I was scared of how my family, my friends, and my community would react to me telling them I was queer. I told my family I was moving back to CA. I told them I was queer. My parents are very open minded and love all of us no matter what. But with that being said, it took some time for my mom to warm up to the idea.

Not quite ready to look everyone face to face, I moved back to CA but not to the part where I grew up. I moved in with a friend I had known for a while. We went out to the Gayborhood fairly often and I really learned who I was and who I’ve always been. This friend of mine and I ended up dating for almost 3 years. I owe her the world for helping me at that time. Due to many differences this relationship wasn’t meant to be. I finally moved back “home” to be close to family.

It took 5 years of me being gone to realize home was where I was meant to be. I was able to get close to my family again. You know what, it was the best decision I ever made. I absolutely love my family and I’m very lucky to have them. They welcomed me back with open arms. I was able to reconnect with old friends and make some new friends. One of those new friends became my wife about 7 years ago. We have been together for almost 12 years now. Although we are no longer living in CA, we have made a home and are now a family of .

No matter what life throws at you, you will rise back up and shine. come at the end of a storm.

For the curious minds out there, “Mary” and I are still great friends. We have been there for each other through all of the ups and downs life has thrown at us over the years.