Community Rainbow Waves

Still figuring things out 🙂

I’m still very young, I am only in my mid teens but I’ve known that I had feelings for girls since I was like 7 or 8. I live in quite a small town and had no representation around me apart from in the odd tv show, I thought sexuality was as linear as just either straight or gay. As a 7 year old that had certain feelings towards girls but also fancied a boy in her class this very small concept on sexuality made me very confused on who I was and what I was meant to feel.
I went to church with my nanny even though my parents weren’t super religious and had sort of picked up through the years that love was supposedly only meant to be between a man and a woman. I was a very anxious child and the idea of hell was terrifying to me so the fact I had been taught that that’s were I would end up if I continued feeling the way I did made me very very scared. Now I know that I have been made the way I am and I’m not going to get punished or condemned for just being me so I’ve been able to overcome the that fear. And the thought of a big pride party in a lgbtq+ section in hell makes me giggle a bit.
The year or two of fear and confusion led me to just suppress it as much as I could and just try get on with the normal things a 9 year old should be worried about. My attraction to girls always just stayed in the back of my head and by the age of 12 I had learnt about bisexuality so anytime the thought creeped back into my head i just sort of went ok well your probably bisexual but that’s good because you can still just end up with a man.
I always avoided the thought until around the start of 2020 when my best friend told me she liked me, at first I was just like ok chill and didn’t think much of it until I started thinking did I feel the same. Over a month or two I stopped hiding from my sexuality which was pretty easy as I spent a lot of time just by myself because of lockdown. It was a lot easier than when I was younger as I had my friend who felt the same as I did.
In this time I labelled myself Bi and talked about it with a few of my close friends. they were all supportive and to my surprise a lot of them were also questioning their sexuality. Deep down I still felt unsettled about being bi apparently undoing years of internalized homophobia towards yourself isn’t the easiest thing to do. Thankfully I had several friends around me on the same journey so I never felt abnormal in my friend group.
I started watching just about every show with the slightest wlw representation in it because I’ve always used tv for comfort or an escape so maybe these shows could help me feel more comfortable with myself. It was sort of difficult to find a show that had a good representation of a wlw representation but then Bly manor came out and a short time later I found Wynonna Earp. Even though Dani and Jamie’s relationship didn’t end the happiest it was still a beautiful story and it was never made a huge thing that they fell in love with the same gender it just focused on their love story and the plot of the show. The same with Nicole and Waverly, it was never made out to be something so shocking that they fell in love with each other, it was also nice seeing Waverly accept her sexuality there was no 3 seasons of her questioning, it was simply a oh well that’s new, a slight hiccup then a, well I love this person so why should it matter if they are the same gender as me. This definitely helped me view my future, potentially with a woman, with a lot more ease.
In the past month or so I have started to question myself a lot again on whether I am bisexual or lesbian. I think watching these shows and realizing that ending up with a man isn’t the only normal thing has made me think whether my very few experiences with having feelings towards men were real or simply because I had been taught since birth that was the “normal” thing or the way I had to feel to fit in with society.
I am still very young and have so many things to figure out and do but at the moment I am happy with my sexuality whatever my specific label is. I am not out to my family but actually just a few hours ago my sister told me if I ever had an attraction to woman I could tell her because she would never want me to feel alone. safe to say I cried a little but I am very happy that I have support from at least one of my family members.

apologies if anything doesn’t make sense I’m not the best writer but I’m very grateful to be able to share 🙂

Gay (lesbian)

By pure chance I came across some videos on YouTube that brought me to Dominique’s profile and read this incredible post. Everything I have read has inspired me, I have felt identified and has made me wonder about so many things in my life.

I am 28 years old and since I was 12 or 14 years old I was attracted to women, men only saw them as friends, despite feeling all this I only dated men.

At the age of 22 I decided to stop and accept myself, accept that it was impossible for me to have sex with men and I did not see myself with any of them. I sat down with my best friends and told everything I had hidden until that day, it should be noted that my best friends are gay and I was still afraid. My friends understood.

Today with 28 years, I still feel that I am afraid to talk about it with other people, even my family does not know it, this has brought me problems of having a relationship as I would really like to have it. I am patient with myself and with the stages of my life.

This post has made me think and reevaluate my values, my passions, my whole life, rethink what I want and it has let me know that I have neglected a part of me that feels imprisoned. I want to be happy.

Sally R

When I was 16 I shared a rather short lived but exciting relationship with an older woman. Until then my sexuality had never really been something I thought to question.

My older brother is gay and for a long time I thought that it would break my parents hearts to find out they’d spawned 2 of us.
For this reason I didn’t tell them, and after a few years became a bit of a recluse.
It wasn’t until I was 29 that zi finally realised I needed to live my truth, and I came out to them. They were fine of course and I needn’t have worried.

Fast forward to now, I am 42, married to a wonderful woman and we have 2 beautiful kids by IVF.

Sometimes it takes us a while to get where we need to be going, but it’s worth it in the end.

Bisexual (I think)

I developed my first ever crush on a girl October of 2019, in my second year of high school. I’ve only ever had one crush before, and it was on a boy. Liking this girl scared me more than anything else I have ever known, and I still like her. I didn’t really know what to do, but I eventually told a friend who it was and I felt better. What’s weird is that I ran away before I could see a reaction. I guess I thought she would be disgusted. But she wasn’t. I then told my best friend because I felt like it was eating me up inside that she didn’t know. We were hanging out and she was talking about this boy she liked and the whole time I was thinking it’s now or never. I told her I like someone, and of course she wanted to know because I never like anyone. I almost started crying trying to tell her, hoping it wouldn’t change anything between us. I finally told her the name of the girl and she just smiled. She wasn’t mad. I was terrified. But she was okay. And I am okay. I told another friend a few weeks later. I was insanely nervous about this one because I honestly felt like she would become immediately uncomfortable. I was with the first friend I told and I kept avoiding it. But I did it.
Last week however, I decided to tell my sister. This TERRIFIED me. My sister is not at all homophobic but I felt like I couldn’t breathe just by thinking about telling her. She kept asking who I like, and I finally said it. It was weird. It still kind of is. She doesn’t treat me different or anything, I just thought we would talk about it a bit more. But it’s okay.
And that’s it. I am out as a bisexual to the 4 people closest to me.

Anonymous

i was standing in line at an Amanda Palmer concert, and a female presenting person in front of me made me go: oh. girl-types are pretty too. i havent looked back except to realize how much this reveals about my adolescent interactions with certain girls that i didn’t recognize because they were different than my crushes on boys.

Non binary who loves life

When I was in 8th grade I went to a Catholic school. Dating period wasn’t something that was talked about and was just kinda wrong. After a sleep over with some good friends I was cuddled by a best friend. Something in that moment made me feel something that no guy had ever made me feel. In the following weeks I noticed little things about this girl that sat next to me. It exploded from there. 2 months after this someone outed me. No one talked to me I became a social out cast in an extremely small school.

My dad loved me from the start. He’s supported me so much he’s taken me to pride events and I love him for it. He isn’t exactly okay with the idea of non binary people. He just says they want attention but I don’t feel okay telling him that I identify as that. He loves me but it’s part of my life that I have to hide from him. But despite what he thinks I know how I am.
I am a strong human being who loves art and baking and I couldn’t be more greatful for a place to share my story.

Noah, just a boy in a world who doesn’t see him as such

My whole life I’ve known I wasn’t like all the other girls I was friends with, everyday I felt as though there was something in the back of my mind telling me something was off. From a young age, I had always been more of a masculine person, and while yes, any gender can be masculine, I don’t think most little girls wanted to be a boy, be seen as a boy, as badly as I did. But the fact was that I had not been armed with the words that I could’ve used to express myself just yet, living in a religious and very conservative home does that sometimes.

So, when I was about 11 or 12, I met a friend of mine who identified as a lesbian, a word I wasn’t familar with and part of a world I had yet to discover. With her by my side, we figured that world out together, and from that point on, I identified as a lesbian, or as gay rather, because I hated that word for what I now realize was me hating the femininity that goes along with it, while gay was more gender neutral. But back then, I simply didn’t use that word for reasons I didn’t know.

Fast forward to my freshman year of high school, the year I was the most depressed and anxious I had ever been. I was so numb and tired all the time that I was even distancing myself from friends who had been supporting me my whole life. But then I figured out why. It was because I was unhappy with how I look, how I sound, how tall I am, all of that and it was eating away at me.

Before I knew it, I was watching a YouTuber named MilesMcKenna, a trans FtM youtuber who shared stories of his experiences as a trans man and his transition and… I had never felt more at home. I thought about what it would be like to transition into a guy both medically and socially and I smiled a real smile for the first time in a while. And that’s when I knew I wasn’t a girl, I was and have always been a boy who didn’t have the language to put to how I felt, but now I do.

I am Noah. I am trans FtM and I’m proud of who I am, even if only a handful of people in my life know right now. What matters is that I know, what matters is I’m truly, finally, happy.

Abigail, 24, Lesbian

I remember being in high school and finding it extremely difficult to find a connection with the opposite sex. I was pressured by societal norms and my own family to date men, as I know most women are. In my world, things were falling apart. I was bombarded with questions from my conscience: Why didn’t I feel like every other girl? Why couldn’t I feel something, anything for a man? I felt like something was wrong with me and I isolated myself. I spent a lot of time in the art room devoting myself completely to my work. I guess this was a way for me to get my stresses out and to ignore that part of myself that I was so confused about. I did eventually date men in high school, but I was confirming what I felt was real. It was around my senior year of high school that I realized what was going on. I found myself attracted to celebrities, but of the female type. Haha! And after finding my real self, I decided to go to prom…by myself. A bold move, yes, but one where I could be who I wanted to be. I remember standing in room waiting for the doors to open and my friends talking to me about why I was by myself. I told them that I was gay. My one friend who I didn’t know was listening turned and very loudly exclaimed, “You’re gay!?” Let me tell you that everyone in the senior class was there and turned towards me. My response? My cheeks turning red and my heart about to beat itself out of my chest. But then the craziest thing happened; everyone started coming up to me and hugging me and congratulating me. I have never felt more accepted in my life. After that moment, I finally felt ready to come out to my parents and the rest of my family. I told my mom first and I cried my heart out when I told her. She quickly leaned in and hugged me. This hug gave me comfort and relief. She told me that she did not care who I loved, as long as I was happy. This was the good part. My dad was not so happy, with the familiar statement of, “It’s just a phase.” To those who will be reading this, I tell you now that it is not a phase. Be true to yourself and always pursue happiness no matter how many obstacles you find standing in your way. Now to continue, I will let you know that the journey with the rest of my family was difficult, but over time, they started to see the true me. They accepted who I was and I cannot ask for more than that. It was also helpful that I started to find people out there like me. I knew I wasn’t alone. That is when I knew I was a part of this wonderful community of loving people with beautiful souls. We all know that love is love and we have all been through very dark moments. But it is not these moments that define us, it is how we react to them. Together we rise and fight against the hate. From the words of Mother Teresa: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” So, let’s start the wave. Love you all, from an American soldier, a loving friend, a human – Abigail.

Bisexual

I have always been a tomboy and ever since I was in elementary school I had crushes on girls and boys. I was the one who hopelessly fell in love with their best friend… twice. I never felt like it was necessary to “come out” to anyone around me. There was probably rumors and gossip around school but no one ever had the nerve to say something to my face and when my family finally put two and two together there was no discussion, just acceptance. And for that I consider myself lucky. I am glad to be a part of a community that loves so intensely and I’m happy to apart of the generation that is paving the way for younger people to live and love freely.

I am pansexual

Well I came out when I was in 3ed grade so about 9 years old and I dint quite remember haw I told everyone but I remember camping with my older sister and brother who are also bothe gay and twins. We where only 3 years apart roughly and I met this girl that I just gruled over and both hannah and alex where like giving me shit about it bc I was super close to them and we talked about everything anyway we ened up having a cheesy kiss under the slide at the park near the lake and then ran 2 my mom gushing about it and she was like WOW THATS GRATE. Then when we left she said t ok her mom this is my new BOYFRIEND and I was like I’m not a boy and she never spoke to me agen but I naw new that I didn’t cair who new. Naw some advice the bigidt risk in life is never taking any cuz then you will never know. And sorry my spelling sucks.