Community Rainbow Waves

Nuala – Lesbian

My name is Nuala and I’m from Scotland. Scotland is one of the leading countries for LGBTQ+ rights, but we still have our fair share of problems. I knew I was different from a very young age and as I got older I felt very confused about what was going on in my head. In my 4th year of secondary school I began to think more about my sexuality. There was absolutely no education within my school and no positive representation within the media. After actively looking for my own resources I came to terms with the fact that I was a lesbian. After realising this, I went into very lonely time in my life. I wasn’t ashamed of who I was, I was more afraid of what was going to happen to me if people found out, there was no one I felt like I could talk to. I felt alone, I always felt extremely sad, I was frustrated, I didn’t know what to do with myself, I just wanted to be out and proud. I never came out when I was in school, I was bullied though out my time at school and I felt that if I was out it would fuel their fire so, I suppressed it. I used sport as my escape, it was when I would feel like myself again. Due to the lack of positive representation on the media, all I saw was negative things happening to LGBT characters and that also played on my mind. The one show that I can confidently say absolutely changed my life was Wynonna Earp. For the first time I saw queer characters being represented in a positive way, Nicole and Waverly being themselves and openly showing their love for one another was and still is incredible. I come from a very small isolated town where I would hear and see homophobia daily. The fact that Nicole and Waverly could be themselves in a small town was extremely inspiring to me and I thank Dom and Kat for that. In 2017, I experienced the LGBT community coming together at a concert in Glasgow and I felt so safe and happy. A week later at the age of 19 I came out. My family were all so supportive apart from a relative who said “I always knew there was something unnatural about you”.
I took a gap year before going to University to take time for myself and continue to become more self-confident with being my authentic self. Since coming out I felt that it was so important that I helped my community. Before moving to Glasgow (a great city for queer people) I wanted to help the LGBTQ+ community in my home town. I wrote an article for the local paper about my journey and to know that it helped at least one person felt incredible. I then went on to challenge local government councillors on making the town become more inclusive for LGBTQ+ people. I became one of the founding members of the LGBTQ+ youth group in my constituency, which is growing in numbers. I am now in my final year of University studying Sport Coaching. I have completed research on LGBT participation in sports to educated coaches and sports clubs. I am currently working through my dissertation which is on transgender experiences in sport and what needs to change to make it more inclusive. Once coronavirus restrictions loosen, I will be taking sports sessions for LGBTQ+ people in Glasgow. Through this I am hoping to provide them with a safe space to reconnect with sport, or try something new, to get fit and healthy and meet new people with similar experiences.
It is so important to me to help my community and it has been amazing reading other peoples experiences. I am so proud to be part of this community, thank you Start the Wave for providing people with this platform. Remember you are all loved, in this community we all look out for each other!

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.

Lesbian

When I realised I had feelings for a close friend and freaked out. At that time, I already had another friend come out to me as bisexual so I knew that there was hope of me still being normal even though I was not straight.
I was forced out of the closet after I tried giving a family member some advice who then outed me to their homophobic parents. They threatened to tell mine unless I told them first.
I hope we can continue to spread love and acceptance to all and that we’re able to create more safe spaces. Thank you all for the work you do

Larissa

I’m a 30 years old queer cisgender woman that knew from a very young age that I liked girls. However, I didn’t really know that I was a lesbian at that time.
As far as I can remeber I had crushes on girls, but as a kid growing up in the northeast of Brazil (a very “tradicional” region) I had no queer references whatsoever. I just knew that girls were suppost to like boys, so I faked it, throughout my entire adolescence. I dated boys and kisses a lot of them so that no one would suspect that I was actually in love with a girl friend.
It was only when I went to college in another state across the country that I had the courage to try to kiss a girl. In a traditional Brazilian festivity, carnaval, I kissed a girl for the first time and that made me realize how much I wanted to do that for my entire life. Since It was a party and there was a lot of alchool involved none of my friends said much about It, and I actually ended up with some other guys for almost an year before finally having the guts to admit first to my self, that I was definitely not into guys.
It was watching shows with queer characters that helped me build the stregnth to come out, in special Naya Rivera’s Santana in Glee. I related so much to her that I started to feel the need to be honest with myself, to stop hiding who I was, that’s when I leaned on my first openly gay friend to start going out more, meeting girls and telling people around me that I was gay. I then came out to my childhood friends who still lived in my hometown and it was such a releaf to hear them say that they loved just the same. It was time to tell my family. In a visit to my parents house, on a long weekend that my dad was way I told my mother. Her reaction was as far from undestanding as it could possibly be, she didn’t speak to me again for several months. As I left the very next day, heart broken, I didn’t really know what to do next. My mother told my older sister who called me and said that my mom was devasted, crying all the time and not eating, begging me to go to a therapist. I knew that they were expecting me to be “cured” by this therapist but I went anyway to try to make amends. It turned out the therapist was a really nice woman who knew my sister and their intentions and told me at the first session that she wasn’t there to cure me, but to help me cope with everything I was going throutgh. My father was the real light for me at that time, he asked me to have patience with my mom, that she was taking it pretty hard but was trying to be better for me and that he would love me for the both of them until then.
A lot of scars had to heal before I started to feel whole again and be proud of who I am, but as I was going through all of this with my mom I kept reminding myself that I needed to treat her with the same love and acceptence that I expected to get from her. Now, eight year later, she has come a long way. It took patience and love, but most importantly I knew I wasn’t alone.

I’m Libby and i have not found a label that i think perfectly fits me

i came out in October of 2017 to my parents.
i told my brother and sister before anyone else in august that year, then a few of my closest friends.
i wasn’t too sure of what label to come out with so when i spoke to my mum i said i was bisexual a thought it would be easier to come out with a known label.

it is now September of 2020, almost 3 years later and i am in a relationship with my amazing girlfriend, Rachael, who wasn’t out to anyone, infact when we met she didn’t even know she liked girls.
However, we’ve been together about a year and 8 months.
we have gone through our ups and downs by we are all round happy and in love.

i was personally helped a lot by Wynonna Earp and the representation on the show,
obviously the relationship between Waverly and Nicole and the way it began and grew amazingly, helped me
along with watching all the cast at conventions and the wayhaught panels.

I personally felt free after i came out and started to be true to who i was and i couldn’t have asked for a better more supporting family.
i was so lucky to have been brought up in this amazing accepting environment and i will always be immensely greatful to my family and friends.

i am unsure what my label is

bisexual?
queer?

i don’t know, but i do know i will be accepted and loved either way

as Dominique Provost- Chalkley put it “i guess i’m in love with love”

I’m a woman who’s proud to love other women

My coming-out story is a loooong journey. I first faced my homosexuality when I was 18. I’d left my family-nest to pursue my studies, and it really was the first time I was left alone with myself. It became a journey, during which I discovered myself entirely.
And I met that one girl. She was gay, and I completely fell for her. That moment was the starting point of a really long thinking about my sexuality and myself in general. Each step was full of sadness and pain … but also full of joy. It took me 6 months to tell my closest friends about being in love with a woman. More than a year to completely accept and embrace my homosexuality.
But the hardest part was telling my family. I’m really close to them, we share everything and love each other so fucking much. Taking the risk to lose all of this by telling them my truth, it was unimaginable for me. So I kept it inside of me for 4 (very long) years. The thing is, I was exhausted. Exhausted of lying to the ones I love, of hiding my feelings and a huge part of my life.
That is why, on January 1st 2019, I confessed to my family about my homosexuality. And, damn it, all the feedbacks I received were full of love and acceptance. I was scared of crying because they would reject me. Instead, I cried only tears of joy because they accepted me. Whole of me.
Nowadays, I’m a very happy 24 years-old gay AF woman.
M.
From France.

Simply Amy

I was 15 years old, but I guess I always knew, had my first kiss with a girl on a dare and it sparked something in me, my friends accepted me before I even accepted me. Spent years struggling with my sexuality identity and still do to this day, didn’t come out to my parents until I was 21 forced out the closet by my ex girlfriend, which I resent but same time grateful for, I’m open and I’m free and last year (age 28) I found the label pansexual which suits me, I love women cis gendered or not I love non binary and rarely but yes I do sometimes find myself attracted to men cis gendered or not. I’ve struggled with my gender but never really wanted to change my body and I still struggle with that identity. Sexuality and gender is fluid and I’m always going to be figuring that out but that’s ok…. I’m simply Amy and that’s ok too

Hi! i’m 20 years old and a closeted female bisexual

3 years ago, i discovered that i belong to the LGBBTQ2IA+, a
female bisexual to be specific. i remember myself being so confused. i
like boys but at the same time i’m also attracted to girls. i had no one
to talk to, not even my parents because i’m scared of what would they
feel and think about me. but then i came across shows that represents
people like me and the confusions and problems that came with it. i
started to understand and accept who i am, the truth about my sexuality.
for the first time, i felt like a burden has been lifted off my
shoulders. i may not have the courage to come-out to my parents yet, but
i thought that sharing my story would be a great first step to move
forward. i thank Ms. Dominique provost-Chalkley for being a great and
brave example. she showed me that coming-out takes time and a lot of
courage. but the most important lesson that i learned is that coming-out
should be on your own terms, you shouldn’t let things and people
pressure you to do so. this is my truth and my story, thank you for
giving me the chance to share it with everyone. #OUTISTHENEWIN

Dakota, cisgender, lesbian, she/her

I grew up in a small country town in South Carolina. I was always a tomboy, playing with the boys, playing sports and loved getting dirty. I always felt different from everyone, especially girls, and I never understood why. In high school, I had thoughts that maybe I was gay but never understood the term because I never had any representation. Dating guys never worked out so I just assumed I was a broken human. I ended up going to college at a small school in the Northeast and played college softball. One of my teammates was basically like you’re gay and that’s how I pretty much came out to myself. Then the process of coming out to all my friends (they were all great and knew before I did). My favorite thing about college was the ability to discover myself: how I dressed, acted, etc and how comfortable I was. I did discover the pain that comes with heartbreak during my 4 years of undergrad. The struggle of discovering your sexuality at a later age means facing the trial and errors of dating as an adult (confusion, awkwardness). I still don’t know what I’m doing half the time (lol). The hardest person I had to come out to was my dad (at 23) and I still feel like I have to pretend to be someone different around him. It’s a long and hard process. Everyday, I feel like I am discovering something new about myself. It’s definitely tough being a woman who likes the same gender but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Hopefully, one day I can find the love of my life and show her how amazing life can be. It hasn’t been the easiest for me in the 25 years I’ve been alive but if you believe, it can only go up from here.

A queer, two-spirit, lesbian, drummer, nature witch who writes, draws, makes things and has the spirit of an owl, whale and dog

Growing up, I didn’t know anything about the LGBTQ2IA+ community. But I always knew when I was a kid that I liked other women. Like so many others, I suppressed my feelings and kept asking myself why I didn’t feel an attraction to men. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it as I’ve always been honest about what I like and what I like to wear. But my Mum had made some homophobic comments as I grew up which made me feel like there was something wrong. It was only when I went to university that I realised I was gay. I was watching the episode of Supergirl where Alex came out to her sister, and I felt so connected to that scene as I felt like I was watching myself. So, I decided that day to come out to my sister but the funny thing is, she said she already knew. It took me a little longer to come out to my Mum but she surprised me and said it didn’t matter. She would always love me for who I am. Even my Nana who has always expressed quite a traditional outlook on life didn’t even bat an eyelid. I think it goes to show that if your family truly loves you, they will accept and love you no matter what. They might just need time. I feel so fortunate and lucky that my family have been so supportive and loving as I know so many don’t experience that. I’ve always been different in so many ways but I know that I can say I’m so proud to be queer and a lesbian because it’s who I truly am and I feel so happy to know I can be my authentic self. I met my girlfriend at university too which inspired me to come out to my family as I didn’t want to hide that part of myself anymore. If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be to trust your family and never be afraid to be the amazing person you are.