Community Rainbow Waves

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!

Kimberly, Cisgender, Lesbian, she/her

I first realized I might be gay when I was in middle school, though it was not something I was ready to accept. I have always been a tomboy, and was very aware of gender growing up. While I had an incredibly supportive family and felt that I could live my life without limiting myself to what society had dictated someone of my gender should do, there were times when it was incredibly stressful. I avoided using public restrooms for fear of someone thinking I was a boy and trying to kick me out, I hated when activities were separated based on gender and even lost a friend because he thought I was a boy until we were separated in an activity, and I had another friend tell me he wouldn’t believe I was a girl until I had boobs. Despite all of this, I never changed how I dressed or the activities I was involved in until I thought I might be gay. I felt I was different enough as it was, I did not want to add the stress of being gay on top of everything else. My greatest fear through high school and college was that someone would think I was gay and I wouldn’t be able to deny it. I successfully avoided any formal events in middle school, but in high school I started wearing dresses for the first time since my parents dressed me as a very young kid. I avoided any physical contact with women and didn’t allow myself to get too close to any woman for fear of developing serious feelings I couldn’t deny. In the moment, I didn’t think too much about it, but reflecting back, it was pretty horrible. This lasted until my senior year in college, when my best friend started breaking down all of my barriers. She started hugging me, holding my hand, and cuddling, and for the first time I realized how touch starved I had been. This was great, but also super confusing. I had never had a super close friend or a partner and I did not know how to interpret my feelings for her. She was also in a relationship with a man and was pretty vocal about being straight. Eventually I just had to accept that I had fallen in love with her, and this helped me to start on my journey to accepting my sexuality. It was not until the next year, after we had moved in together and had been living with each other for a couple of months, that I finally felt ready to come out. I told my family first, and they were amazing, and then I told my best friend, who was also amazing. I thought that after I came out, everything would just fall into place, which did not happen. It has been almost 2 years since I came out, and I have struggled a lot. I spent the majority of my life trying to convince myself I wasn’t gay and the deep sense of shame, fear, and anxiety that I had been living with doesn’t just disappear. But I have also grown a lot in those two years. The shame, fear, and anxiety don’t rear their heads as much anymore, and I am starting to get to a point where I can actually have pride in who I am. I even told my best friend that the reason I came out was that I had fallen in love with her, which is something I had been hiding for so long and was a huge relief when I finally released it. There is still room to grow, but I am incredibly happy with where I am now, and for the first time in my life I feel like I can love who I truly am.

Woman/Lesbian/Gay/Queer…it’s all good! ; )

I properly came out I when I was 25 as a lesbian, but I called myself Bi when I 1st talked about liking women when I was 22 and I fell in love with my best friend.
Growing up in a very religious family I didn’t hear the word gay until my early teens, but never heard the word “lesbian” spoken out loud.
Looking back it was so obvious I was gay as I’ve always “liked” girls/women. I had a crushes on celebrities and my mum’s and older sisters friends, but never put 2 and 2 together.
When I broke away from my family and started travelling the world from 19 year of age I discovered about the gay community. But it really hit home when I fell in love with my best friend when we were in the army.
I was so confused, so embarrassed and thought I didn’t want to be different. My religious upbringing really made me feel guilty and wrong. But luckily my friend was so understand, even though it was unrequited love and I was heartbroken. I went backpacking to Australia after leaving the army and really started hitting the gay scene. There I discovered I was a lesbian as I never was physically attracted to men.
After that, I travelled to London where I had several relationships with women, partied hard on the lesbian/queer scene and years later met my future wife.
We now have 2 kids and been together for 17 years.
So it’s been a long journey and I could tell you so many stories, but that is for another time!
Anyway, I wish everyone discovering themselves a great journey. It will all be ok xxx Romy aka MamaGoo5e

Human

I never thought about liking girls as more than friends until I saw it represented on TV a few years back (my first ship was calzona) and I thought “oH so that’s why I think SO MUCH about girls and what it would be like to hold their hands and kiss them” (I know, should’ve seen it coming).
A few months later I got enough courage to come out as a lesbian to my best friend at the time who was SO supportive. I slowly started coming out to my step-brother and my dad, both of whom took it well and were so supportive. I wrote my mom a letter, and though she seemed okay with it, she later told me not to tell anyone and offered to get me a therapist if I wanted to talk about it. To this day, four years later, we still haven’t talked about it again. Since then, we have not had such a good relationship, mostly because I was already so afraid of disappointing her and not being the daughter she wanted, which I am not, as I have been told by her and, as much as it hurts, I still try to have a good relationship with her, because she is my mother.

I barely had to “come out” after that, it was mostly people already noticing I was into girls or me just casually talking about how cute a girl was, and, luckily, I have never had any bad reaction, except for one of my “friends” who was really weirded out and frequently made me feel like the “odd one out”.
In the past year I have had to “come out” again though, since I no longer identify as a lesbian, I do not feel comfortable with any label right now and that’s okay. I do not need a label.

Bisexual, Indian, Female, Androgynous. Still a badass 🙂

I didn’t know you could be something other than straight until I was 13. Growing up in India when homosexuality was still a crime, I didn’t exactly see myself represented in any way. But I guess it’s always been a part of me, whether I saw it or not. I “wanted to be friends” with any girl I thought was cool. I wanted to be the “boy character” in any kind of role-play games. I was starstruck looking at both Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale. Typical baby gay things.
My internalized homophobia convinced me that I couldn’t come out until I was sure that it wasn’t a phase. (If anything, being straight was my phase) I could muster up the courage to tell my friends only when I was 16 and when I did, I could feel some baggage physically being lifted from my heart. I was always worried that things would change between my friends and I but thankfully they’ve been super supportive and we are closer now because we are more honest with each other :’)
My parents are a tough nut to crack. They’re not homophobic, but can’t imagine having a daughter “like that”. It’s bad enough that they don’t have a girly daughter, and sometimes I feel guilty about my self expression. I don’t think I will ever feel confident about coming out to them.
At the same time, I know there’s hope. Homosexuality has been decriminalized (in India), I see positive representation in media and I choose to have faith in the human race. There are going to be people who won’t accept me, and that’s okay. I would rather be hated for who I am than be loved for someone I’m not.
Love is Love ‍
~S

Gwen

This is a great community! I am 61 and knew from an early age, like 9?, that I was different. I did not have any one or group to guide me thru all the avenues that abounded. I’m surprised really how I have survived. Thank you for giving the Newbies and the closeted some place to find their strength and courage. Rock on!

Khetalyn

I haven’t totally assumed myself yet, my family doesn’t accept me so I don’t have any support from anybody at the moment, and the fact that I’m a minor I don’t have many choices of what I really want, my mother found out some time ago that she liked girls, it was a very complicated period, it still is, because she told most of my relatives which none of them supports because they say that religion doesn’t allow it and that this is a sin. I live sincerely on the edge because it is complicated to live in a place that you feel threatened, that has no support and no choice of what to really feel, but we can’t get stuck in this tale that society invented that people of the same sex can’t be happy, that they are wrong and that this is not right. My dream is to be free, to be free from all this and to be able to enjoy every moment beside the one I really love, I hope to be free from all this someday. And I’m fighting, I still haven’t had the happy ending or the ending I want, but I won’t give up until I get it, and you too who go through this don’t give up, fight, be resistant.

In the sea of my life there are still no real waves but the sea is no longer calm.

I would like to start with a line from a song I love:

Siamo destini
We are destinies

Siamo sempre noi
we are always us

Ma più vicini
but closer

the singer is “Zucchero” the song is “blu”

At the age of 30 I understood that destiny exists, but I also understood that I have to help destiny to come true.
At the age of 30 I realized that I still have to understand what happiness can really give me.
I grew up in a good Italian family, I never lacked love … but they always told me I was a certain way because I had to be perfect in society.
They never asked me what I wanted …. and my fault was never saying what I really wanted.
5 years ago I left my city, moving to Milan for work and this gave me the opportunity to understand
something more about myself.
I was supposed to marry a guy my family loved … but I couldn’t suppress the voice inside me that leads me to love women … and I had the courage to cancel the marriage … I started asking myself what I wanted.
But I do not deny that I am afraid of people’s judgment, fear stops me, fear makes me wear a mask every day, fear confuses me.
For society I am still the girl from a good family, with a good job and a good mental stability but they don’t know that inside I have a volcano of feelings that fight each other.
Last Sunday at a fair in the city, there was a fortune teller in a booth, I was walking and she came to meet me, she looked me in the eyes and told me that inside I suffer but I also have a lot of light to give … it’s was the first stranger to understand this.
In the sea of my life there are still no real waves but the sea is no longer calm.
I just need to have more courage.

Barbara

I think I’ve always known that I am a lesbian. When I was 14 years old I already had my first girlfriend. I enthusiastically told this to my parents, who unfortunately looked at it with slightly different eyes than I did. My mother grew up in a very religious family, so my sexuality didn’t fit the picture. This caused a lot of insecurity for me, and I was bullied at school and this resulted in a period of anxiety attacks. Fortunately my parents now support me in everything. I have learned to accept myself for who I am and I AM surrounded by people who also accept me for who I am. Only when you love yourself and can be yourself can you love someone else and I have been happy with my beautiful girlfriend for 6 years now. So don’t be scared if you love another humanbeing. Just be and love yourself. You have so much to give.

I am a straight trans man (so ftm)

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

I started discovering who I was in 8th grade. I was among friends who were discovering their sexuality too so I came out to them first and they were really supportive. My parents found out that year and yelled at me for it. Told me it was a faze and that if I found god I would be “healed” and wouldn’t feel this way anymore. I was really taken back by that because I thought that when my family told me that they love me unconditionally that they would love every part of me. But they didn’t, and still don’t. I fell into a deep depression that to be honest am still struggling to come out of all these years later. I put a mask on and pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I hated that version of me to the point that I was harming myself. I thought that if my own parents couldn’t love me for me then how could I or anybody else. But because of the friends I had and the support they gave me I slowly began to accept myself. And even though I am not exactly out and proud around my family I am out and proud on social media. Even though it is a silly thing….I am typically the happiest when I make tiktok videos because I get to just be myself. And that is the best feeling in the world!
Also if you want to….. idk…. maybe