Community Rainbow Waves

Fer

My first attraction to a woman was when I was 11 years old (2015) I didn’t really understand what was going on since I had heard something about that in my life since what my family believes and the way I was raised is that it is always a man and a woman so I thought that I had some flaw inside that made me feel very strong emotions towards someone that was not right. When I entered high school (2016) I had already heard and researched more things about the subject, on the one hand my family told me that the behavior of these people was unnatural and on the other hand the social networks began to ask for acceptance with the phrase ¨love is Love¨ which confused me more and more but one day on the program ¨supergirl’ Alex Danvers came out of the closet and I wished I was in his place, At that time I identified myself as a young bisexual woman, I began to watch programs like Wynonna Earp which is also one of the programs that has most marked my life from the way Waverly begins to accept her sexuality to her commitment to Nicole.
The first person I proposed to was my best friend and his reaction was better than I expected since he only told me that he supported me and then proceeded to ask me about her as if she was the most normal thing in the world and I loved that.
At my school I liked to talk to my classmates about it because sometimes my perspective and theirs helped us empathize with each other’s situations.
I hope that in a future there is no more the phrase ¨come from closet¨ and that all this is taken as something completely natural.

Queer

I’m a 30 year old female and I grew up in a small village in the north of Sweden and I can’t remember ever thinking I was straight so I guess I always knew I was into women.
I always knew who I was and I liked that I liked women and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
But the thought of anyone else knowing that would bring embarrassment to myself. As this was something that was made fun of by people around me.
Growing up I would have a couple of boyfriends but only so people wouldn’t suspect anything else.
I always knew if I came out to my family and friends they would be very supportive. But for some reason I just felt embarrassed to be gay and I grew up hoping no one would find out.
When I turned 19 years old I had met a woman and I fell in love and became a relationship. I knew it was time to come out.
I’ve never been so scared in my life, I was crying and shaking and finally told my mom, brother and sister I be fallen in love with a woman and I’m gay.
My mother responded with: why yes we know darling, we have always known.
My sister laughted as it was old news.
My brother just didn’t care what and who I did.
I went in to my room as my mother went outside and told my father and he came in and hugged me and said “I love you”. That’s all I needed.
My grandmother said “good! Men are arseholes”
My other grandmother said she wanted me to be happy and days after she had a necklace made with a heart that said” follow your heart”
Everyone else in my family were of course also accepting as well as my friends.
I was very lucky, not everyone are as lucky as I was.
I’m today a proud queer woman and there is no embarrassment left in me. Thanks to my beautiful friends and family. take care of each other!
Xoxo Carro

Cat

I can’t wait until we’re living in a world where it is safe for everyone to be who they truly are without fear of judgment or persecution. I was raised by two loving but homophobic parents; so while they’ve made me feel like I could be myself in most regards, there’s one place they’ve made me feel like I have to continue living a lie. But even if I have to stay closeted in my everyday life for the time being, I don’t wish to stay fully closeted anymore.

I am a bisexual woman; and honestly, I’m proud of that.

When I was in high school, I started questioning my sexuality. I found myself starting to feel attracted to girls at my school and not just guys. But because of the home I was raised in, I did everything in my power to push such feelings aside, telling myself they didn’t mean anything. I refused to acknowledge them. And eventually, I was able to convince myself they never existed in the first place… Fastforward to college; and the feelings came back again, this time stronger. I found myself attracted to other women; and I knew it was something I couldn’t fully deny. I think deep down I admitted to myself that I wasn’t entirely straight; but I wasn’t ready to admit what that meant.

Over the past year or so, I started discovering myself more and more. It actually started when a friend suggested I check out this show called Wynonna Earp. This friend knew I preferred supernatural sorts of shows with powerful female leads (like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost Girl, etc.); so of course I was fully on board with checking out this show. Little did I know, it would change my life for the better. Becoming an Earper, I now found myself part of one of the most accepting and supportive fandoms I’ve ever been a part of. Between that and being introduced to one of the most kickass casts ever, I started feeling more comfortable in my own skin with everything from my anxiety to my sexuality. Even though I still never admitted anything aloud, I started to feel more and more comfortable admitting to myself that I was, in fact, bisexual.

I hope to one day be able to share this fact with those closest to me, to one day feel as if I am safe enough and truly ready to do so. But for now, having a platform like this to announce who I truly am, it’s a blessing. Thank you to Dominique and everyone at Start the Wave for all the constant love and positivity. It means so much; and I am proud to be part of this community.

And one day, I will be proud to come back on here to say I am 100% out…

Lesbian- CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT BULLYING AND DEPRESSION.

When I was nine I had a crush on a girl in my class. I would get a sick fizzy feeling in my stomach everytime I saw her. I never liked boys and as I grew older and more sexually aware I knew I was different from everyone else. Unfortunately this put a target on me and I was bullied throughout high school. I became closed off and depressed because I wanted to be like everyone else, what society classed normal. I hid my sexually away from everyone until I was 23. Unlike me my little brother who is also gay wore his sexuality on his sleeve he never cared what anyone thought and gave me the courage to accept myself for who I really am. So i took a deep breath and told my mum i was gay and she smiled. She said she had known who I was since I was 4 and only wanted to kiss girls while playing kiss chase. Now as I near my 40th birthday I am out, i am married to the most beautiful woman in the world and i am happy.

Young rainbow happily out and proud

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

Lesbian

I knew I was a lesbian when I was 12 but coming from a big Irish catholic family. I felt that I had to hide that part of me from everyone for so long and as Dom said, it can cause other problems trying to fit into the “normal” way of life and suppressing those feeling and that was VERY VERY hard. I finally came out to all when I was 35 now I am married to a wonderful woman and we have been together 19 wonderful years. There is never a right or wrong time to come out. I wish I did it a lot earlier, it wasnt until my mum was dying of cancer that she said to me and my wife on a visit “Oh I always knew you were gay” That was my mum all over, I think mothers have a sixth sence with their children. Wanted to say that Dom is an inspiration to all young and older queer people. Her brave statement shows to people you are never alone and even if you are, you WILL find your place and be happy to just be you. Xx

I am a free loving,heart guarded, til the end friend

I knew I always liked woman a woman’s eyes the stories their lips tell I am just in awe of it. I am one of those old fashion people when I am with someone I am with them strong morals. Been through hell but got gonna give her hell life that is I am not ever gonna let my rainbow fade love all

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.

Bisexual

To be honest, I think that in my entire life I’ve been attracted to boys and girls but I didn’t knew that was a thing, I even thought that was normal. While growing up I was forcing myself to only like boys because “that’s what normal girls do” but for me it didn’t feel right. In 2018 I started to like a girl in my class, I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help it, then I confessed myself to her and she didn’t feel the same but she was supporting me. Then I came out in social media and that’s how my mom found out that I was bisexual. She was mad at me, she thought that I was confused but in reality I’m not because I really like girls and boys and that’s who I am. Now in 2020 my mom still thinks I’m confused but my friends accept me as a bisexual girl. And that’s my story. I am OUT.

Lesbian girl, 18

I won’t say that I always knew, but the feeling was always there. A feeling sometimes so hard to explain but so beautiful. I was “sure” around the age of 12/13 when all my girl- friends started to talk about boys and stuff. For a what it felt like a long time I didn’t have the courage to accept myself and who I was, for who I am. Sadly I was afraid of what others would think and how they would react. Reading things on the news, hearing about how people in the LGBTQIA+ community were/are being treated I didn’t want that for myself.
One day after reading stuff a guy in a parallel class in my school had written on his snap story about his thoughts on gay people and the LGBTQIA+ community, I was determined to beat the shit out of him. Me a 15 year old closet girl beat a 16 year old boy. I came to school that day with so much anger so much rage. I was crying in anger, than I thought to myself I don’t want to be like him, if I do something to him I’ll be on his level. I decided to talk to someone I trusted, a teacher who was always there for me. I ended up coming out to her without even noticing that I did, the words just came out so easy I didn’t even have time to process them. After some seconds I came to realize what i had said her reaction was so pure she gave me the warmest and biggest smile of all and a hug, it fell like I had just dropped so much weight off of my shoulders every insecurity that I had every fear were just gone while she hugged me. She was the first and only person that knew me for who I was for who I am for the first time I was myself without fear. Two months after that I came out to some classmates and friends and I started dating girls I was out but not fully.
I hadn’t talked to my family yet, it took sometime before I had the courage to. My family are mostly catholic, I knew that not everyone would take it that well. I was 17 on plane from Norway where I live to Spain, it was just me and my mom. We where talking about a friend of hers who everybody suspected was a lesbian. I thought to myself the worst thing that can happen right here is she opening that plane door and throwing me out while talking a just threw in a “and what about my girlfriend can I take take her home for diner one day?” We looked at each other she was silenced for a while than she laughed and said you know what I always knew than she asked me if I was sure and told me that for her it was no problem. For the first time I could fully feel like I was being myself. My mom gave good support she asked me if she could tell more people about it and I said ok. My dad took it in well and oh god he’s awkward when we talk about stuff he’s also very supportive I was lucky I feel lucky my friends and family all are there for me and support me. Yeah my uncle said it was a phase so did some other people but now I’m 18 I’ve suffered some comments and people have discriminated me for looking like a boy when I’m a girl and for kissing the human that I love in public but i tell them to burn in heaven cause if I’m going to hell I’ll have enough and and I won’t need that negativity there too. I’ve learned to love myself accept who I am and be free the road was scary and difficult and confusing but I’m glad that I am who I am I wouldn’t trade loving like I love and loving who I love and being myself for anything.