Community Rainbow Waves

I’m a non binary/genderqueer and I like girls

When I was only eight I realized that I liked girls, I didn’t understand the world like I do now and I didn’t know homophobia in it self. So I told my friends when I was something like 9. At the young age of eleven I decided to tell my mother of what I forced myself to be bisexuality, thinking that if she did not accept my homosexuality she wouldn’t be so mad. I am extremely lucky to be in a very understanding and open minded family. My mom said she was very proud of me to have the courage to speak my truth and to know who I was and accept it at only 11. At about twelve a girl in my class literally screamed that I was gay. I thought I was ready and whenever I would come out to one of my friends, it would this time be as lesbian. For two years I was bullied. I started having panic attacks everyday and I didn’t want to go to school anymore. When it became to overwhelming I thought about hurting myself (and I sometimes still do)… I did once or twice but nothing”extra”. At that point my dad knew I was gay and he helped like my sister who is, herself, an asexual biromantic. I had my friends and family to relate on and went to see a therapist. I’m now better and help a lot of my queer friends come out and know that it ok to be who we are and that we shouldn’t be ashamed. For a while I thought I was genderfluid and soon I realized that I felt like using they/them pronouns all the time. It felt right. Although it wasn’t easy understanding the gender confusion I was going threw, people were there and they had my back. I felt safe. I now use the term non binary/genderqueer and the pronouns they/them & she/her. All of that said I am only going to turn 15 in a few months and I still have a lot to learn and emotions to go threw. I am extremely lucky to be surrounded by open minded people. I know some don’t have that particular luxury. And I want to do everything in power to help them.

I hope my story will make a difference somehow. Love and know that you are not alone.

I am because we are, Marielle

I discovered myself bisexual when I was 11 years old, and I didn’t take long to accept myself but I accept myself is one thing but my mother is another, when I discovered myself I started to stop performing femininity and so I wouldn’t have to assume myself because I think the term is completely wrong but I understand what important it is, Throughout my adolescence it got worse until I was 14 years old when I was seriously dating a girl and my mother saw my cell phone and so she found out and then it was a huge wrong thing and I was thrown out of the house but they forced her to accept me inside the house, well 2 years ago this happened and as much as she says that everything is fine, I know and everyone knows that she hates the fact of my sexuality and treats me with contempt for it.

Queer

I was a freshman in high school when I realized that I liked both guys and girls. Most people always say that they always knew. But I didn’t. I found out that you can like the same sex when I was in middle school. The thought of me liking girls never really crossed my mind until the eighth grade. I had never been attracted to any girl at that point, but a little voice inside my head told me to explore that idea. So, I did my research. I took tests online, looking up ‘how do you know if you like girls’, and watched endless youtube videos on the subject. It wasn’t easy but I finally came to terms with my sexuality (thanks to Rose and Rosie for the help!). After I accepted this is who I am I told my best friend first, then my parents, then the rest of my friends. I still struggle with being proud, which is why only my parents know and not the rest of my family. But I’m thankful for such supportive parents and friends as well as the amazing representation on Wynonna Earp. It really helps normalize my feelings and makes me feel like I’m not alone, that there’s not anything wrong with me and that it’s ok to love who I love.

Because after all, love wins.

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.

Queer all the way

I realised when I was 29. But this was a cognitive type of realising as my heart already knew for a long time. I grew up watching straight couples in movies and tv-shows. These were the characters the viewer was supposed to identify with. I tried dating men and everybody around me just assumed I was heterosexual. I dated men who I thought were intelligent, attractive and kind. But my heart always said NO. One day a bisexual woman told me about her journey. Her story liberated something inside of me. I opened up… to myself, to the world and to new ideas. How could I not have seen that I was into women all the time? Yes, I like girls! This is me!

A discombobulated female that is into girls

It never completely dawned on me that it wasn’t socially ‘normal’. Both my parents had never shown a liking to the community but never expressed directly that they hated it either. We moved house a lot when I was younger cause of their work, so I got to see so many different cultures and ways of living.

I first got the impression that I was (in some ways) different when I was in secondary school. My favourite teacher did an assembly on LGBTQ+ topic, and ended it by coming out (subtly). A few months later I was questioning her on all things GAY! How to know if I was gay, if other people could tell etc. I ended up coming out as lesbian in year 9, and from then I noticed an increase in my confidence and self-respect. Most of my friend were extremely supportive giving me even more reasons to be proud.

I came out to my parents a month ago, 2 years after my first big announcement. I was only able to do this because of my amazing teacher guiding me through the hate crowd we call a society. She is the reason I can stand up to people and admit that I am a lesbian.

I want this to show that support and knowledge about LGBTQ+ matters and can make someone change from a nervous 11 year old with a stutter to a strong(ish) 16 year old.

I haven’t had a long battle with my sexuality and sometimes I am told that I’m not ‘old enough’ to know what I want. BUT I am proud of me and my community 🙂

MJ — One label at a time

My coming out story isn’t much different than the next person, I suppose. It boils down to the fact that I grew up thinking that being a straight cis-woman was the only option. While I wanted a family, the idea of fulfilling the role of Suzy-homemaker never appealed to me. I didn’t want to be a brainless baby making machine. I wanted an education, a career, and a partnership. I didn’t want what my parents had and it made me sad thinking that I would never get what I wanted, simply because I didn’t think it existed.
Fast-forward a few years and I was a High School Junior with a best friend (I’ll call her L). A best friend, who I thought would stick with me through thick and thin for the rest of my life. Oh how I was wrong. Anywho, through a long series of events L took a chance one night and kissed me. She was more shocked by my lack of negative reaction than I was. I remember thinking “wait, that was it?” and wanting to try it again. And try again we did.
For a little bit of background, I grew up in a Mormon household where I was taught that homosexuality was a sin. I knew that I had an uncle who was gay but I also knew that my Grandma had disowned him back in the 80’s at the height of the AIDS epidemic. So what I knew at that point in my life was being gay was wrong and I’d definitely go to hell if I was gay. So I never said that I was. When friends started to figure out that L and I were dating, I would say “Oh, I’m not gay. I just like L” or “I’m only like 5% into girls, so not really gay”. I was wrong, but I thought I was in love so labels didn’t really matter to me.
As most High School relationships go, our relationship only lasted about 6 months before it was over. I was devastated as she moved on to college and I was left to navigate the rest of high school by myself, without a best friend or a girlfriend. In hindsight I don’t think my devastation was caused by the loss of a relationship but rather with the mountain of questions she left me with. Was I gay? Was it just her I loved? Am I going to hell? Will I ever find someone who loves me? It wasn’t just the usual post-breakup mountain of questions I had to deal with. I was also left questioning my identity. Who I was, down to the core. So what did I do? I tried to get “rid” of my gay feelings and dove head first back into the world of heterosexuality, which didn’t last for long.
I went to college in the very liberal, LGBTQ-friendly state of Massachusetts, where I told my first college roommate that I might be bisexual. I think I chose that label not because I couldn’t pick a side (obviously an incorrect stereotype), but because I never had even kissed a boy before so I felt like it was “safe” to identify as someone who could go either way. So I gave it the good old college try and dated several men during my four years at school. Through many hookups and short lived relationships I kept finding myself saying “Hm, I’m not into him, maybe it’ll be the next guy”. I was always left with an empty feeling in my chest and the thought that maybe I was broken. I couldn’t understand how so many of my peers were able to find a partner and find happiness with that person. Maybe it just wasn’t my destiny?
I never dated any women in college despite all of my friends encouraging me to try. It didn’t feel right to me, probably since my 4 year experiment of dating men wasn’t quite finished yet and a part of me didn’t want to potentially skew the results by adding the gender I knew I had a connection with into the mix. I do have respect for the scientific method after all. It wasn’t until a cold night in October, as I was about to have sex with yet another man who’s name I never bothered to remember, did I realize that this wasn’t for me. I’ll spare you all the graphic details that helped me come to this conclusion, but ultimately I left that guy’s house at 2 A.M., without my socks and the newfound realization that I am, without a doubt, gay. I finally felt free.
I told my friends the next day and I was met with overwhelming support. I waited several months to tell my mom and again, nothing but support. A few months later I told my extended family, and to my surprise once more, full support! I felt a profound sense of relief and also guilt. Why the guilt? Well, I knew I was one of the lucky people in the LGBTQ community and I was thankful for that, but I realized that I just spent the last 5 years of my life battling internalized homophobia. Could you imagine how utterly disgusted I felt with myself? I never had a problem with homosexual people so long as I wasn’t one of them. Here I was with complete support from my family and friends and I felt like a fraud. I felt awful for identifying as part of the LGBTQ family all while I had feelings that it was wrong. I blame a lot of my internalized homophobia on my Mormon upbringing, but I also knew it had something to do with the fact that I’m a perfectionist and wanted a life that was normal. I had a life plan to get a college education, get married in my early twenties, and have children before I was thirty. In my mind, being a lesbian totally derailed that plan and it made me angry. All I ever wanted to be was “normal” and it took me until I was 24-years-old to realize that being normal, is totally fucking overrated.
So, I had officially come out to my family at 22-years-old, but something still felt off to me. I was out, I had gotten over my internalized homophobia and guilt, AND I was actually dating women. What else was missing? I didn’t figure it out until my job had moved me out to Northern California, just outside of San Francisco, and until I had met my best friend. H is a beautiful straight blonde woman and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t totally have a crush on her. But life isn’t like some of the movies out there and as much as I’d wish she was secretly in the closet and would one day fall in love with me, I know it won’t happen. Oh well, I’m over it. Mostly. Anyway, what I love most about this woman is her confidence to be her authentic self. She doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks about her and does whatever she wants simply because it makes her happy. My mind was blown. Who actually lives life like that!? I certainly didn’t.
Eventually, after months of internal debates with myself, I decided to take a page out of her book. I was going to do something because I wanted to do it and I didn’t care about what anyone thought about it. I cut off my long brown hair. I went from having hair halfway down my back to using a buzzer. It was fucking liberating! It took a few haircuts to get the style that I wanted but once I did, damn I looked good. A few months later I went through my entire closet and donated all of my dresses, feminine shirts, and shoes. I started shopping almost exclusively in the men’s clothing department and even bought a custom tailored 3 piece suit. I went from a shy tomboy to a semi-confident soft-butch woman. I was starting to feel a little bit better about myself, but I still wasn’t quite there yet.
Shortly after my extreme makeover, something weird started to happen to me. I was getting misgendered. A lot. But something even weirder caught my attention. I didn’t mind getting misgendered and I never corrected anyone who referred to me with male pronouns. What the hell did this mean now!? I had just gotten comfortable with my sexuality and now I was questioning my gender identity. Was I ever going to find a label that I actually fit into? I felt full of questions again.
I wish I could say that I’ve figured it out, but I haven’t yet. Do I think I’m trans? No, probably not. Am I non-binary? Maybe? Androgynous? Possibly. Am I just a soft-butch lesbian woman who doesn’t give a fuck about labels and loves women? Could be. Will I ever figure it out, who knows? What I do know at this point in my life is that I don’t really care. I don’t care what gender people think I am. I don’t care if the woman who I will eventually fall in love with has a sexual past with partners of different genders. I don’t care what people think because I finally, FINALLY feel some sense of peace within myself. I don’t have all the answers and I don’t think I ever will, but I’m finally living my truth. I don’t hide who I am anymore and I do the things that make me happy. Some days I can’t believe that I spent 24 years of my life living in shame and other days I’m so happy that I’ve spent the last year of my life embracing myself. I know my journey isn’t complete and I know I have more things to discover about myself and my goodness, I can’t wait to see how this goes.
If this ever gets published, and it’s okay if it doesn’t because quite frankly this was cathartic for me to write, but if it does, I hope someone can identify with my story. I hope this helps someone else realize that we are all on our own journeys and there is not one specific timeline you have to follow. It took me 24 years to live my truth. It took my brother 17. It may take someone 5 years or another person 75 years. All that matters is that you are true to yourself. If labels make you happy, use them. If you don’t care for them, that’s okay too! There is no right or wrong way to be yourself so just do it. You’ll be amazed at just how brightly you can shine.

A gay stubborn sweetheart

When I was younger I had no idea that the LGBTQ+ community was even a thing, my family never spoke about it and I had never ever witnessed anything of the sort so I didn’t have a knowledgeable background on any of it. I had my first girlfriend at the age of 9 and it was due to the fact she had “forced” it upon me, she kept asking me out and so on. I guess that is where it started and baring in mind I had no idea, I genuinely thought that was normal like any other relationship.

Moving on to first year in secondary school (I was around 12) that was when I realised after doing a lot of research I found out that I was bisexual, I was fascinated by girls as there was just something different about them compared to boys. I told my best friend that I was bisexual and she was very very supportive of me and helped me a lot along the way. A couple months pass and I was starting to get confused, I was thinking “do I just like girls so could I be lesbian?”, I told my best friend and she still stayed supportive, a couple weeks pass and I told her I was bisexual again and that I must like boys.

A year passes and I move away from my hometown to the beautiful highlands and I met these wonderful people who helped me to see myself in a new way. We were out one night and they walked me home (baring in mind it was a new place so I wasnt to sure where to go) and they came out to me, it was such an incredible moment and experience for me. I felt safe so I came out to them that night also. Another year or so passes and I came out to my mum during a lunch break in school, which was just so out of the blue but at that moment I knew it needed to be done. There was fear as I could tell by her tone that she was not a fan of me liking girls. I got home and we talked about it and she told me I was confused because I wasnt of legal age (I must have been 14/15) assuming that since I couldn’t legally be “sexually active” I couldnt know if I liked girls or not. I found it wrong myself because I knew I wasnt confused and we never talked about it after that until I brought home my girlfriend at the time and introduced her to my mum, she was still rather “upset” I guess, I’m not sure how to describe it but she kinda took on board that this was who I was becoming. I told my dad later on in life from my mum (they split up and it was confusing times) and he understood wholeheartedly and loved me for who I am and has always tried to keep me happy and I couldnt be any more thankful to have him by my side.

I’m almost 20 now and I couldn’t be happier with my sexuality and I’m hoping that since when I came out to my mum till now she has gotten a better understanding that this me, this is who I am, this is who I want to be.

Jennifer T

CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE.

I’m 26 years old and came out to a few select close friends when I was 17 (as Bi), then Pan, then Lesbian finally on 10Sept2015. I joined the Air Force (as a medic) at 18, and that was lift off for my Queerness and coming to terms with my authenticity and self love. When I was 8 my brother committed suicide (he was 16). It has been a struggle to come to terms with his loss over the years. I struggled with my own mental health over time, because of that trauma. Having gone through such a big loss/traumatic event at a young age has given an unfortunate advantage over the years. I’ve learned how to get through the stages of grief over the years in different and many ways. With positive and negative coping mechanisms. In doing so I have been very fortunate to notice the signs and vibes of depression and suicidal ideations within people, and I tell them my story. I’ve noticed that when I tell my story people tend to confide their own stories to me. In turn I have helped many people. Nothing feels better than a person telling me that I changed/saved their life by just listening and being there. Don’t get me wrong it has occasionally taken a small toll on my own psychie, but it also has grown it. Helping others has given me a level of self understanding and love for myself and for other humans. My mental armor has grown exponentially. I can only hope that strangers read this and take these words of wisdom from me… I promise it gets better. It will sometimes get worse before it gets better. There is always a way out. Be the person that your younger self needed. Surround yourself with people that listen and understand. Love is everywhere. Suicide is NOT the answer. It is never too late to get help. YOU ARE LOVED. I LOVE YOU! I am here if you EVER need a stranger to just talk to.

Gay and proud (most of the time…)

CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT.

I always had feelings for girls, probably from the age of 9, when I really fancied a girl in S club 7, when all my friends fancied J from Five! haha.
However I went to a school where the word gay was never even mentioned, I had no idea it existed or what it was. I don’t even think it was mentioned in sex ed. I kinda just left it at the back of my mind and didn’t hook up with a girl until I was 20, when I left to go travelling to Australia and walked passed Mardi Gras, which is the most amazing pride I have ever been to. This all started up my curiosity as I realised there were soooo many people who I could relate to, and kissing a girl for the first time felt amazing.
I used to think I was Bi, I didn’t ever think that I was a lesbian as nooo that can’t be me, I’m going to have a ‘normal’ life with a husband and children, however I have never actually enjoyed being with a man. My mum still thinks and hopes I am Bi. I have been sexually abused twice by men so she thinks that I am too scared to be with men, which could be true but it kind of hurts that she doesn’t just accept that I am gay. I now know I am just full on gay and that my past trauma has nothing to do with my sexuality. I was born gay, as was my brother and my cousin. We are all out to our families and friends (my best friend always knew I was gay, coming out to her was the most fantastic experience with the love she gave me) and my brother is marrying his partner when covid allows, I am hoping to find a date for the occasion who I can eventually marry myself and also maybe children 🙂
I know I am in an amazingly privileged position as I live in a country where being gay is celebrated, not condemned. I really hope over time that these countries will make it legal to be gay, there are some charities out there helping and I am trying to raise awareness of them.