Community Rainbow Waves

H. E4L and forever grateful for the Earpers WayHaught

I kind of had an inkling I wasn’t straight back in late 2015. I was really into The 100 and I remember I was unreasonably attached to Lexa and Clarke. It was the first canon LGBT relationship I’d ever seen on TV and for some reason, that meant a lot to me. Then I started watching Wynonna Earp in 2016, because I’d heard about WayHaught and I got really excited that another show might have a canon couple (of course, I got totally hooked on WE within an episode.) And the whole time I’m watching Clexa and WayHaught especially I remember thinking “I wish I had that.” I started seriously thinking about my future and realised that, when I didn’t actively think “I want a husband and kids and etc” if I closed my eyes and tried to picture getting married…it wasn’t always a man. Sometimes, it was a woman I could imagine marrying. And right as I was having that realisation and trying to reconcile it with my religion (Christianity) the whole Lexa thing happened and I got angry. That was one of 2 representations I had to try and figure this out and they just get rid of her?! I decided that I wasn’t going to think about it anymore. I’d kind of figured out I was definitely bi at that point but because of the whole religion thing I decided “hey, at least there’s still a big chance I’ll end up with a guy.”

My nephew was born in the June of 2016 with a serious heart condition and for a decent few weeks, I thought it was God’s punishment. I’d figured out I was bi and God didn’t like that so he punished my family. I was 15 and I didn’t really process things right so I legit thought for weeks that it was my fault. And then I started going online more and I found the Earpers and that whole community made me feel a lot more comfortable. I found people of my faith that weren’t straight and talked to them about everything. And the whole time, I still had WayHaught on Wynonna Earp showing me that girl/girl relationships were alright. Right after the season 1 finale of WE, I told my sister that I thought I was bi. My mum figured it out within a year and told my dad for me. I didn’t officially come out to any of my friends or anyone from my high school until the end of 2019, after I started uni, but most of my close friends kind of figured it out because I stopped fighting it and actively started talking about LGBT stuff.

I was out and proud from my first day at university and that felt so amazing. It was the first time I hadn’t hid my sexuality at all from anyone and that was one of the best experiences of my life. Turned out a decent number of people I started hanging out with, both in lectures and society meetings, were also LGBT+ so for the first time in my life, I had a significant amount of non-hetero friends, one of whom is as big of an Earper as me. I found my people, both on and offline.

The Right People Will Always Stand By You

I knew when I was 14 that I was a lesbian. I actually had a friend in the LGBTQIA+ community that I had talked about for a while. When I was questioning my sexuality and trying to understand why I was feeling disconnected from all the girls talking about the Hemsworth brothers. We would be up at night, and he would just ask me questions. “What attracts you to a person? What do you imagine your partner to look like? What type of people catches your eye? Is there someone that you like now?” It just helped to have someone asking and just listening. A year later, as a kind of joke later when I was telling him about the people that I’ve told, he said, “You never officially told me you’re a lesbian.” Anyone who studied the performative understands where this is a little funny. He has just been such a great rock for me, and I am so lucky to have him in my life.

I came out to people in so many different ways. I told someone at dinner at IHOP. A friend I already came out to gave me an opening, and I said, “I haven’t told my parents this yet, but I’m gay.” She didn’t make any jokes or say, “I hope you aren’t trying to make a move on me” or anything like that. She was just supportive, and I could not ask for better friends in my life. It became a game of who have I told and who can they say things in front of. I sent someone Ally Hill’s Coming Out song, others from texts, during ice skating, and now just from passing comments rather than me announcing it to everyone.

The person I was most scared to tell was a teacher that became more of a friend over the years. I wanted to tell her because she saved me from myself and gave me the best chemistry education I could ask for. As she was my teacher, she couldn’t discuss her stance on things, so I had no idea how she would react. She moved schools, and I felt like telling her deserved more than an email, so I waited for when she visited, and I gave her a letter. It explained I was gay when I knew why I wanted to tell her, and why I am so scared. She emailed me later and said, “there is nothing you can do or say that will make me love you any less, ok?” It just made me feel like everything is ok and that I’m not going to lose someone over this part of me.

I tell people that I feel are important in my life, and I refuse to tell people that would put me in a bad situation or disregard it in any way. I’m 17, and I haven’t told anyone in my family, but I’ve told the people that I feel comfortable with it. Coming out will be something constant, and everyone has the right to come out when and how they want. There is no time frame and no expectations other than being authentically you. I’ve had a very positive coming out experience. Still, a lot of people don’t have that, and I want people to know that you will always have this community in your corner. You’re not alone, and we will all be here for you.

They call me a bisexual girl but I’d rather not label myself

Since I was a kid. It all started during my elementary days. I am avoiding one of my classmate because I am ashamed of her. Like she’s so beautiful and everyone likes her. Then one time our teacher assigned our permanent seating arrangement and I was shocked because she is my seatmate! We are awkward to each other then. So that was the time that I know to myself that I like girls and boys.

Bisexual/ Queer

I grew up in a small farm town in Indiana. Open mindedness was not a thing where I was from. Being raised by older parents and growing up in an closed mindset community, I was raised to believe that those who choose same sex relationships were sinful and “wrong in the head”. I always sensed I was different from about 14 on. But it wasn’t until I was 16 walking the halls of High School thinking I can’t be gay dad will hate me. So….. I suppressed the queer side of me that wanted to be with girls, dated some boys, and tried really hard to be “normal”. Several years of chronic depression and anxiety later I finally turned 21, lived on college campus, and had a mad crush on a girl in my class. Fate, God, the Universe or whatever force you believe in, this girl was also bisexual. And although a relationship never happened, I owe it to her and one drunken night for my official coming out story. I chose to live honestly and came out to my friends and family soon after. Things did not go well at first, but we did a lot of growing, and things did get better. Fast forward a few years and I am now happily married 2 years to my beautiful wife. All of my friends were there and my parents walked me down the aisle. I am so very fortunate to have such a positive outcome. We now live in the same small town I grew up in where we strive to live positive, out, queer lives, and strive to make the world a more loving place. #KeepItReal

Caroline H.

Looking back to my primary school years I can remember having feelings towards girls, and crushes on female celebrities at the time, I went through secondary school with a boy who later briefly got engaged too, still suppressing any thoughts of girls, I started my first job at 17 and instantly was attracted to another member of staff who was married, after many months we started having a physical relationship, this was our first same sex relationship and it was like someone had finally released me, we stayed together for 5 years having a secret relationship until she ended it, I was 32 by then, after the initial heart break I started living my life to the full and over the next 17 years embarked on 4 serious relationships, although by this time I was out to all my friends and colleagues, I still hadn’t come out to my family, this was a decision I had made as my parents were elderly and in poor health and I felt telling them would be fir my benefit and probably detrimental to them, so at the age of 49 my dear mother passed away and the following year I met someone and I posted a photo of us on social media to let everyone else know! Although we’re no longer together I credit her for giving the confidence to do it and love being a gay lady out and proud.

Lesbian-Gender Warrior-Relationship Anarchist-Eco Rebel

CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT SELF-HARMING BEHAVIOUR AND SUICIDE.

I usually do not write on any type of website like this but found myself encouraged to do so here.
I knew I was different since I was 6 years old. I did not have a name for it, and I grew up in a strict Catholic environment so forget asking any type of questions. It was not, until high school that I was exposed to the concept of gayness through homophobic remarks toward someone who had graduated. As I realized I might be gay the local college library became my haven for information or should I say misinformation. There were no role models or mentors. All information stated being gay was a mental illness. I did not see myself anywhere in the world, my home was not supportive, and I felt alone in the world. The result left me depressed, isolated, and feeling ashamed of who I was.
This left my young adult years coming out as a lesbian fraught with self-doubt and battles inherent in the cultural norms of the 70’s. I suffered the wounds of alcohol/drug misuse, suicide attempts, rejection from family, dysfunctional romantic entanglements as well as harassment and discrimination from the world around me. One of the worse being the murder of a friend for being LGBTQ.
And yet these experiences built a resilience in me that offered a guide to my own awakening. To remember who I really was and discover my voice. After Charlie was killed the dam broke and I came out all over the place. It was then I became an activist and educator around LGBT+ and diversity issues in higher education. I did not want anyone to experience what I had as a young adult. Thank god for gay bars and dances, as I found sanctuary in the only places to be out and safe.
As the 80’s and 90’s went by it was during my work on college campuses that another layer of my closeted life peeled away. Supporting young adults would in turn give me permission to acknowledge I am a non-binary queer woman. All along, I had thought since I was clear about my sex as assigned by birth, I could not be trans. This was my mistake and the personal work I had done prior assisted me in stepping into the acceptance of a deeper awareness of who I was. Gender queer.
So here I am a 64-year-old lesbian gender queer woman continuing to stand in a place of opening to the soul of who I am. All those years impacted by trials of the world’s norms and judgments contributed to a lack of confidence in my ability to know love and I longed desperately to experience it. During the last twenty years I became a Druid Priest of nature and dived into the guidance of my dreams as a path to healing and wholeness. To find and heal the darkness which clouded my access to feeling love. The land is so forgiving and calls to all of us to remember the heart of who we are as one planet, one being, and we need each other to survive and thrive. In listening to spirit I have now been guided to creating Dreaming Back to Earth. This is the gift of opening my heart.
Unexpectedly along the way of remembering I have become a relationship anarchist believing there is no hierarchy, state of control, or norms that drive loving and being loved with others and in community. It is a beautiful reflection of how to live within this earthly planet. And my dreams have offered the guidance to remember this within my soul and body. The key is to be willing and open to challenge my beliefs, face my traumas and open my heart to love in all its forms. This is some of my story.
Every day, I learn and shift. I am not perfect in the process and have made mistakes. I am not done, never will be. What a life. Thank you.

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.

Lesbian

I guess I have always been interested in girls, but I refused to acknowledge it. It was kind of obvious to some of my friends, who knew before I did. I guess that is why I never really tried to acknowledge it, but my friends would often comment about how different I was from them, just trying to make me realize it. I finally accepted the fact that I was a lesbian at the tail end of my seventh grade year. I refused to accept myself for who I am, but I still came out to one of my friends, who helped me come out to one of my friends who is an adult. She managed to help me accept myself, and come out to my parents, all in the same week.

Lesbian – my long journey to truth and love

I knew I was gay before I knew what gay was. I remember watching Hocus Pocus as a child and being in love with Alison. I knew how I felt, but remember thinking “that’s not right though because girls like boys.”

When I was 11 and started high school I had 2 friends who soon stopped talking to me because I wouldn’t say which boy in our class I liked, I could have said which girl I liked but I knew that “wasn’t a thing” having still never heard the word gay and with no education on the subject or representation on TV or in films.

I actually can’t remember the moment I found out about different sexualities but I know at some point my understanding went from “girls like boys” to “okay girls can like girls but it’s wrong/frowned upon.” Whatever my understanding I knew that I liked girls, and girls only, but I also knew that I would never tell anyone.

I am a people pleaser, I didn’t want to stand out or ever be controversial in anyway. In fact that’s something I still say to people when they say that being gay is “my choice” – if they knew me at all they would know I would never choose to be something anyone deemed as unacceptable.

I really tried hard to like boys, I could write a book on the disastrous dates I went on when people tried to set me up. I never had a 2nd date with any of them, I’d get home and cry and make excuses as to why they weren’t the right fit. I just thought that was my life, I’d just be on my own, it was easier than coming out and not knowing how the people I love would react.

I wrestled with these demons and never told a soul I was gay until I was 26 years old.

And then everything changed, a new girl started at work and as soon as I met her I was in love, we had the same interests, the same values, we soon became best friends.

We had been friends for around a year and a half when she came upto me as she was leaving work and said “text me when you finish, I need to tell you something.” I didn’t think anything of it, so when I finished I was text her “hey! what did you want to tell me?” She replied with something cryptic like “can you think of anything it might be?” for a brief second the thought flashed in my head “Oh my gosh she likes me” but I quickly dismissed it. Emma was a beautiful 19 year old dancer who everyone was after, I was a 26 year old spectacle wearing lump. So I replied and said no I didn’t know what she wanted to tell me.

Then came the text.

She liked me! It was a long text and I still know it by heart but the gist of it was that she liked me, and she knows I probably don’t think of her that way but she just had to tell me because sometimes she got the feeling we were on the same wavelength.

Well, I didn’t reply for a good few hours, which I still feel bad for. I just led there in bed thinking okay this could go 2 ways, I could reply and say no sorry I don’t feel the same and carry on living this lie without the disruption coming out would cause, or, I could say yes actually, I feel exactly the same and be true to myself for the first time in my life.

Thankfully I went with the second option, the hardest part was coming out to my family and my friends. My sisters were both amazing, my mum and dad took a bit of getting used to it but are now the biggest advocates. I lost a few friends but those closest to me were just so proud of me. Not a day goes by when I don’t appreciate how blessed I am to be surrounded by such an amazing group of people.

So that text from Emma was back in 2014, the 11th of July to be precise, from that day forward we spent every moment together. We lived between our parents houses until we could afford to rent a flat of our own. Then in 2018 we bought our first house together, and now we have 2 beautiful dogs and will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary next month.

If I could tell 26 year old me that in just a few years your girlfriend will be proposing to you in front of your whole family and everyone will be cheering, I don’t think I’d believe myself.

Ours is my favourite love story, I know not everyone is as lucky as me, but it’s important to give hope to anyone who is in the same position I was – it gets better, and being true to yourself is never the wrong choice.

People ask me if I wish I’d come out sooner, the truth is that no, I don’t wish that. I wouldn’t change a thing in my story and risk it being any different than it is now

THE WAY TO YOURSELF BEGINS WITH LOVE

Love for a woman is the most beautiful thing that happened in my life.

I’ve always been a weird kid who wasn’t interested in relationships. I didn’t like boys and I didn’t like girls. I was fascinated by my inner world and the mysteries that fill my life. But I confess: “All my life I have been looking for a friend with whom I would like to share my discoveries.”

At the age of 16, I went to another school and met a girl. It seemed to us that we were once very close, which amazed us. One accident helped me become aware of my feelings. Unfortunately, they were not reciprocal. I was able to suppress these feelings in order to move on.

From the very beginning it seemed so natural to me. The only reason I tested myself for a long time, trying to be normal, is our legislation. Most likely, I will never have a full-fledged family … But it is easier to accept this than to pretend all my life.

None of my relatives know about this. I don’t want to lose my only family. And I don’t want to hurt them. But with close friends, I am absolutely frank. This gives freedom to me and to them. Very soon I fell unrequitedly in love again, but chose a new path.

Once a persone I loved said: “Unconditional love is possible only for God.” And I smiled …

I think that to love a person whom you don’t hear, don’t see, don’t know whether he is smiling now or sadness fills his heart … and even more so you don’t have the opportunity to be near, to bare yourself in front of him … This is the same as to love God.

After all, all you know is that he Is. And at some point it becomes enough for you.

My soul has always resisted the understanding of Love as an internal state. After all, I was sure that love is, first of all, a manifestation … without which any important words lose all value. And these feelings (be it inspiration or immense emptiness) without action are most likely nothing more than a need for acceptance and recognition. Since you feel so important because of the other. And this is actually enough for many people.

But when you Love, one state seems so little. There is a growing feeling of overcrowding. It’s like a cup inside you, which will soon overflow … Or a growing tree, directed upward, which is blocked by a stone roof, not allowing it to become even larger and more powerful.

Subsequently, a moment comes when you lose the meaning of life… It’s scary, hard, and aimless.

Every day the same question: “Why? What is the meaning of everything that happens to you, what is born in you, changes you, inspires you, but also throws you against a concrete wall? ” Even if you do not even have the right to say “I love you” … In any case, in the sense that is genuine.

But you don’t want to get rid of it…

It’s so easy to erase someone from your heart, stifle it in yourself and move on, continuing your search. But only weak people do this. This is the path of those who expect love from others but don’t love others. You know … When you do not want to give up on anyone, consciously dooming yourself to loneliness, the appearance of that very only person gradually dissolves. His figure slowly disappears, but the feeling remains with you.

Now I look into the eyes and find God in them, I see a blurry silhouette, behind which the whole world is.

I was finally able to feel that everything in the world exists as a whole. One soul that knew nothing but chaos until it incarnated in the material world. That is why when you meet a person who seems similar, understandable and so familiar to you, you get the feeling that you have returned home.
It always seemed to me that to be spiritual means to be in such a state of consciousness in which you identify yourself with everything living and nonliving that exists in this world or another.

Now I also identify the people I love with the Universe. They are an integral part of it, just like me. This means that we are all small parts of each other.
This gives so many opportunities for my Love that I have not found before. And if I want to show my feelings, I can do it at any moment, under any circumstances, and wherever I am. Then the world, albeit imperceptibly, will change.

In this moment, I realize that I love life like I never did before. And I so want to know her. Since life itself is Love. Now I listen to music differently, I read books differently, my fingers touch the strings of the guitar in a new way, my arms hug my relatives differently, and my eyes look at the stars in a different way.

These feelings are so pleasant. Something warm and bright shines inside me.

The body seems light, and complex things seem surprisingly simple.

It’s incredible how beautiful everything around me is, and it deserves the greatest love.

So one person becomes the whole world.

I will go my own way and sow seeds, in the expectation that the most beautiful buds will bloom in those places someday. And you will feel their wonderful scent, or you will even be able to enjoy the dazzling colors and amazing shapes.

And I still believe that I will be lucky enough to meet someone who is as in love with life as I am to love it together.

After all, when I am gone, the world will continue to exist. And I want that in this world there would be more Life!