Community Rainbow Waves

Always questioning Bisexual

I realized I wasn’t straight in the 8th grade. It was Saturday and I had just woken up. I had seen a dream that I was dating one of my friends who also was a girl. It had been a really nice dream. In it we had done some things like straight couples in my school, e.x kissing in the stairs and walking hand in hand.
Then when I was playing there on my bed it dawned on me, I wasn’t straight. I panicked a little because I didn’t want to be gay or anything else. My parents were(and still are) homophobic, but in few weeks I was completely fine with my sexuality ( even tho I still am questioning if I’m actually just gay and not bisexual).
I “came out” kinda differently then my other friends. When I went to high school I just openly said what I was and stopped hiding it.

I’m a bleeding heart snowflake, a sinning homosexual, and beautifully in love with another woman.

I don’t think there was ever a specific moment that made me realize I was gay. I’ve always known, whether it came to my childhood crush on Mulan, my adolescent obsession with Kristen Stewart, or my teenage love for my best friend. I came out to my friends my freshman year of high school, my mother about one year later, and am yet to come out to my father several more years later. He’s in his mid sixties and dead set in his ways, though I suspect he knows. Being gay is something that hides in the shadows if it isn’t directly addressed when you’re growing up. You can have your parents never speak out against the LGBT+ community, and still feel as if you’re living a lie. I’ve been called snowflake, baby, sweetheart, sinner, and many more by people who know no more about me other than the way I held the hand of the girl I loved. The world is changing, and we can hope it changes for the better, but hope means nothing without action. I live my life fighting in public for the rights of people like me, marching the streets, signing petitions, and I in fear at family dinners, too scared to introduce my own father into the world I’m a part of. The world is changing, and we’d better hope that we can keep up with it.

Androgynous

First, Excuse my english. It’s not my mother’s tongue.

It was a long time ago (the 80’s).
I realized I was lesbian at 16 (and tried to shut it down right away too because evreybody around me was -in the best scenario- mocking homosexuals).

It took me to go to University for a year (five years later) to understand that the desire for girls was too hard to fight and finally accept it.
I reconnected with the best friend I had between 9 and 11. It turns out she was gay too!
I think the first person I told it – few month after I quit Uni- was one of my cousins. I told her that on Sundays, I was going to this “famous” gay nightclub about 1h of road from our hometown and that the reason was because it felt home to me. Because I prefer girls.. She didn’t care AT ALL. 🙂 Her first words? ” I’m not surprised. Do you have a girlfriend?”…
Then, a short time after, I told it to the highschool friend I’ve been in Uni with and the 2 others girls we befriended there. I said: “Humm.., guys? I have to tell you something… Well, I’ve been in this gay nightclub a lot lately and…I have a flirt…..with a girl… And I’m gay”. No problem with them neither.
Basically, they said: “It’s your life, you do what you want to. It’s not important for us.”

But I stopped coming-out after that because there was only my family left to tell. I remained silent for many many years. (But it doesn’t mean I pretended being straight! It was not even an idea for me. And it would have made coming-out worse).
So, at almost 40, I had a little breakdown and send a email to those I had the address, knowing they would talk about it to their sister/brother I couldn’t reach out. I have been really less diplomat than you but I was really down:

“Ok, here it is, I can’t anymore, it has to get out or I’m gonna blow a casquet…

I don’t care if it doesn’t please someone but I’m not gonna play a role to satisfy anyone.
Let things be clear for everybody: I’m homo.
I haven’t change, I’ve always been.
I’m open to any question/discussion.

Here, it’s done.”

It turns out that, with all those years passed by, my family had evolved on the “homosexuality topic”… and that they love me for who I am.
It was just support and love. I was right to wait…

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.

Just me

I always knew I was different from a young age but thought it was just retaliation to my upbringing. I never really addressed it and choose to just keep pushing it away until my early teens hit and I coped using alcohol as a defence, and continued to date boys/men (most of my partners were older than me).
When I was around in my early teens, I can’t quite remember the exact age, I told my mum at a party I was gay….the result was not great as now it was gossip and my father who I had just recently met came and told me I was not gay. For fear of acceptance, which is all I ever wanted, I recanted my declaration and continued to live my life as “normal”. Gossip was always abound and I wanted to protect my family from it.
Life went on with its usual trials and tribulations until I made the decision to move away, I was in my mid 30s. Being away from my small home town gave me a sense of freedom that I’d always wanted but I had suppressed so much of my life already that it was still difficult to admit my true feelings.
I am now a couple of months from turning 40 and in the last five years I have met so many people from all walks of life and I have realised that I can be who I want to be!
Even though the subject is still kind of brushed under the carpet back home I am proud to say that my family continue to be my rock and reason for doing all that I do now. I want to teach my nieces and nephew especially that you don’t have to fear anything in life no matter what it is, a fear of flying or whatever.
I have followed Dom for about a year now just purely because she is so pure and true and that really is an inspiration to know that everyone is different and can still conquer the world.
Thank you
I would like to end by saying that I am far from perfect but I am me and that is that.
I love my and friends unconditionally,
This is the first time my story is going beyond them.
Peace out peeps

Abnormal, proudly queer, free to love who my heart desires.

My coming out story isn’t it the happiest, but it’s mine and it’s real. I was raised very conservatively and extremely invested in the church. My father was a pastor and so was my grandfather, my father side of the family were strict Christians for many generations. My mother was born into a wild family, she became a born again Christian after meeting my father. My family almost never spoke about homosexuality and when they did it was usually about how my gay uncle died of aids or my cousin was killed for being gay. At a very young age I had it sewed into me that being gay was a bad thing and resulted in terrible consequences. This affected my ability to understand my feelings when I fell in love with my best friend which made it all that much more confusing. After a good amount of denial and self hate, I was able to find peace and comfort in the stories of other people going through what I was going through. I eventually told my sister and then my mom, they didn’t approve and that made it hard for me to love myself, I was sent to missionary school and after being told I had to choose God or homosexuality I was torn, how do I choose? Between what I’ve been raised to believe, and a part of me that I can’t control. It took time but I chose to love myself after all that’s the second most important commandment in the good book, ‘love your neighbor as you love yourself’. how can I love others well if I don’t love myself? My life is still complicated and my mother still doesn’t approve. I’ve chosen to love her despite our differences in opinion, and it’s made my life richer loving people despite there opinions of me. I’m strong because I’m not alone in my challenge and I believe love is to important to hide from, both for ourselves and the people we love.

Gay

I was never really attracted to anyone growing up, I never understood the whole thing. I just didn’t feel the ‘oh my God I like him so much’ thing that all my friends seemed to be experiencing. Until one day I saw a scene from the show ‘faking it’ where two girls kissed and I was immediately thinking, that looks right. I watched more episodes and I found myself drawn to the main couple and their trials and tribulations, I was never this invested in a relationship before. After I ran out of episodes I started looking online and turns out there was more than one show with a girl and girl relationship. I started to know the show by the scenes I saw on YouTube. I started realizing people in my life who I had always thought I just really wanted to be friends with them and realizing that that feeling was what a crush is. I had attractions to people for years I just never knew that those attractions being girls was an option so I suppressed those emotions and changed them subconsciously. My world changed around me. About a year later and I was up to date an all the wlw couples on TV and I decided to finally tell someone, my best friend. After school one day I sent her the link to a YouTube video of a coming out song. Her response ” hooray you’re gay!”. I was fully accepted by her and that was incredible. A feeling of freedom and openness. I started college and my new friends just kinda thought I wasn’t really into relationships and just let me off with that. Which would be great if that was the case. One day we all decided to make tinder accounts for each other for fun and when my flatmate gave me my phone back she had it set to see guys. She asked what I thought (meaning her choice of pictures) and I just said ‘ it’s great but I will change one thing’ and I switched it to see girls. None of them even reacted, my flatmate said okay fair enough and that was that. I still haven’t come out to any more friends from home, they seem like a bigger deal and it never seems to come up so it’s difficult. My parents are a different kettle of fish all together but we’ll get there soon enough.

Lesbian

I have known I was gay my entire life. I grew up with an accepting mom, but the rest of my family was not as accepting. I didn’t tell a soul until I was in middle school. I told one of my closest friends, and she was very accepting. This was helpful for me but unfortunately she left the school a few months after I told her. I felt more alone than ever. My mental health was horrible. My anxiety was out of control and I become quite depressed. I was ecxited for highschool as I thought it was going to be an opportunity to finally be myself. Unfortunately that ended up not being the case. I become friends with people who were not accepting of the LGBTQ community. This largely affected me as I started thinking I was wrong for liking girls. I tried really hard to like boys. I coundnt think about anything else, I started self harming. It was the lowest point in my life. I then met a girl who changed my life. She was in the same grade, and we become close friends. We spent all our time together. I realized I had feelings for her but was ashamed. One day she told me she had feelings for me. I was so happy that she felt the dame way. We started dating, and finally told my mom everything. I hit help for my mental health and made a decision to be myself no matter what. I git friends who accept me for me. I am now the happiest I have been in my life. I realized that I am me, and that j can change who I am. I also want to add in here that Dom has helped me greatly. I have looked up to you ever since I saw the first episode of wynnona earp. You are a truly beautiful person who is saving peoples lives. I hope my story can help someone as I wish I would have had someone to help me.

21 years to find her truth

I came out to my family and friends at age 21. I am 30 years old now, but I came out in college. I didn’t come to the realization that I was truly gay until then. Now looking back, so many things made a lot of sense and pointed to this truth long before I even knew myself. I always had intense emotional relationships with my guy friends, but I never wanted it to go any further. I was always attracted to women, but I think I pushed that down for quite a while. I thought that maybe I didn’t want to be with anyone if I didn’t want to be with a guy. I realize now that it just wasn’t the right fit for me to be with men. I have incredibly close friends who are guys, but I didn’t and don’t want the physical intimacy with the opposite sex. I met a girl in college who gave me the feelings that I always wished I had for guys. It just fit and felt so right, and I then realized what had been missing all along. I wasn’t waiting for the right guy after all… I was waiting for the right woman. The woman I met in college wasn’t the right woman, but it opened the doors for me to find love in its most true and authentic way someday. For that I am forever grateful.

I’m an elementary teacher now, and I encourage my students to be who they are. We talk a lot about loving ourselves for who we are and celebrating our uniqueness. I want to encourage them to be their own unique self and that they should be proud of who they are. Being kind to others is what matters. I want to help them see how incredible they are in hopes that they take that with them throughout their lives. If I believe in them, then maybe they will believe in themselves too.

Thank you, Dominique for inspiring me to continue live my truth. You are an incredible human.

I identify myself as a lesbian

Deep down I knew I liked girls at a very young age; but I didn’t know that it was a normal thing…that it had a name for it. I was probably in preschool about five or so when I had my first crush. It was on one of the ladies that worked at my preschool. I remember being on the swings and her pushing me. And I remember thinking Oh my what is this feeling? I really like this girl. My little five year old self just confused not knowing what it was just let it be. Now going through elementary I had “crush’s” on a few boys thinking yeah I like boys. But now looking back on it I just wanted to be them because it was normal for them to like girls. I wanted to be “normal” so yeah I tried to like boys. In the fourth or third grade I was playing outside at recess when my older sister came up to me and introduced me to her girlfriend. I was confused and asked her what she meant so she explained. After doing so I had so many questions wondering is this okay? Is this normal? Is it wrong? What are people gonna say? Knowing more information then I did before on sexuality’s I still didn’t think anything of me liking the lady from preschool. So I kept thinking for some darn reason I like boys that I was straight. I guess I was scared of people judging me and that no one would want to be my friend. Then middle school came I was doing great, back with my old friends after moving schools for the millionth time. A few months in and then again I was going to a new school. Yep the new kid yet again like always most of the boys came rushing towards me to ask me out. As always I said no because I wasn’t really ready for any of that. So I’m in the sixth grade and I’m with my new foster family watching Camp Rock in the living room and then I see Demi Lovato. Thinking wow she’s amazing I want to be just like her. I admired her so much that I start to watch camp rock like all the time. Finally I realized omg I have a crush on Demi Lovato. Still scared of what people would think I told no one. Seventh grade came around and I had a crush on one of my best friends now. We weren’t friends at the time but we shared a friend so we hung out together at recess. Me being the flirtatious person I am started to doing things that I guess got people questioning. One day I heard from our friend that we shared that she was starting rumors about me being about me being a lesbian. I was very upset and even though it was true I denied it. I cried that night and prayed to be straight because I was scared of what others thought of me. Now when the eighth grade came I only told a few of my closest friends that I liked girls. When they found out they were very supportive and I was glad. Later towards the middle of eighth grade I hinted to my siblings and foster family that I wasn’t into boys. They eventually figured it out and were supportive as well. During the summer I kissed that best friend and a lot of people found out about it. I was nervous and people asked about my sexuality and I just told them I didn’t feel comfortable telling them. But then later on freshman year I told people. Now a junior in high school I’m proudly out, I mean I’m still a little anxious of telling people but I’m happy to be me. To live life and love who I want to because I know that there are others who support me and love me for who I am.