Community Rainbow Waves

I am whatever I say I am

June 13, 2020 9:35 p.m. “I’m gay”. I came out to half of my family in a text. I don’t believe there is or ever was a god but I do believe people can be cruel and unfair. I live in a pretty small town in Illinois mostly everyone is religious. But if there is a higher power then how come we don’t get a say in how we want to live our lives. Or if you are gay you go to hell but you get to chose who you love. Then how come you don’t get to tell them you love them. I say people are cruel because I am a thirteen year old female and I fear that people wouldn’t understand me because of who I chose to love. When I was 11 years old I panicked because I liked one of the girls in my class. I still get butterflies when I talk to her. She makes me laugh and she challenges me which I love.To quote a movie” Love is messy and horrible and selfish… and bold. It’s not finding your perfect half. It’s the trying and reaching and failing.” Life sucks but when we find someone who makes it suck just 0.0000000000000001 % less why can’t we decide to love them whoever they are or however they present themselves. You should not have to lie to make other people happy. You should be able to tell whomever you want whenever you want whatever. So, this is my story, well the true beginning anyways, so what’s your. And if you want you can share it. I am gay. I am bisexual. I am pan sexual. I am what ever I say I am. Nobody gets to say differently.

Jessi, the gay woman

I was about 17 when I realised. I developed a crush on not 1 but on a group of 3 girls on the bus. 2 of them were sisters. I didn’t have a big coming out, not even with my parents, but I grew up in a place and around people that I knew wouldn’t have a problem with it. The first time I did actually tell my mom was right before I was going live on a radio show. My mom NEVER listened to the radio but that night of all nights she was. So I figured I would give her a little heads up I was going to be on the radio. So I ran into her bedroom and yelled “I’m going to be on the radio!” and then ran back out just to run back in and yell “to talk about my bisexuality!” I didn’t give her time to respond and she never actually did but I knew she was gonna be okay with it otherwise I wouldn’t have done that. Now we’re so many years later, changed a bit (or a lot) and I’ve come to the realisation I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with a man and can only see myself in a serious relationship with a woman. The older I got, the less I was interested in men to not at all anymore. Which is also why I identify as gay, because I don’t want to give myself a specific label like lesbian or bisexual. I’m happy with being gay.

I’m not much of a writer, but due to the inspiration I am feeling to share my story, I will do my best!

I didn’t come out until I was 21. Before then, I could barely say the words “lesbian, “gay,” or “queer.” I think because deep down, I know that was who I was-well one small part of me. In undergrad, I fell in love with another woman, whom I believe also had feelings for me, but due to being a member of a evangelical and fundamentalist religious group, I was told that those feelings are not valid and I would be an “abomination” if I acted on them. Interestingly enough, I come from an extremely supportive family and my siblings also identify within the LGBTQ+ community. Yet, at the time I was trying to find my own identity and the friends I found through this religious group were the only ones I was surrounding myself with. As I started to realize my attraction towards my own identified gender, these two identities between religion/faith and sexuality became a conflict. Anxiety came, depression came, and I knew I needed to do something about it. I was in an introduction to counseling class in my undergraduate studies, and one of our projects was to go to counseling-specifically at an on-campus clinic where counselors in training (graduate students) were practicing their skills with undergrads. This was better than writing a paper so of course I’ll do the counseling! What came of this was the realization of how much I disliked and even hated myself, without even understanding quite yet that the reason for this was my same-sex, same-gender attraction. After my counseling stopped with this clinic, I sought out counseling at the university’s counseling/psychological services. The therapist I met there-whom I saw for four years-saved my life. And helped me save mine. Therapy was tough. It pushed me and made me uncomfortable at times, but these were the important moments. My therapist helped me to bring my own self-awareness to the self-hatred I was using to sabotage myself, but also where this came from. It took about three years (by my senior year) for me to leave that religious group, begin to accept and validate my own feelings for what they were, and started dating my first girlfriend. It was scary, it was a big unknown, and ultimately, I was scared of Rejection. I was rejected by my “friends” from the religious group for having the resilience to go through what I did and to tell them my truth. I began going to a religious group that DID accept who I am, and began surrounding myself with supportive people. I am now 28 years old, have my graduate degree in counseling-the same program from which I first received those counseling services for the class I took-and am working in the mental health field to help others, like the individuals who helped me. I’ve assisted others through my career by listening and validating their thoughts and feelings and most importantly, Accepting them. I’m only able to truly do this now as I have accepted myself and love myself for who I am. It’s important to continue growing and learning, not just about ourselves but about others and their cultures, and fight back injustices we see. It’s the actions, not the words that true show advocacy. I’ll end it there but thank you so much, Ms. Provost-Chalkley for being you and for instilling this inspiration to share my own story.

I had some of my first thoughts about being with girls when I was about 9 or so years old. Prior to that I had never really been interested in anyone or being with any one in a romantic way. At this point in my life I didn’t even know being queer was an option. Although I do live in an accepting home, There were never any situations where I was exposed to this kind of love. At the time, I had just thought I was being weird, and I kind of just lost interest in even thinking about anyone in a special way, whether that’s because I was trying to hide my true self, or that’s just who I was I still don’t know. Fast forward 3 years or so, I had met two friends in school and gradually we grew closer together. Over the summer us 3 would face time nearly every day, and they knew a secret that I didn’t because they were friends before they knew me. One of them was gay. That declaration got me thinking, and opened up a door in some ways. I thought about whether that could be me, but I always just though, “No, you just want to be like her.” Because I admired her in a way, and still do. And then I stumbled across a wonderfully written show, Wynonna Earp. The character of Waverly, portrayed by the lovely Dominique Provost-Chalkley, sort of made me realize something. It’s hard to explain, but the idea that you can be swept off your feet by someone you never even thought you would ever be with really spoke to me. I myself identify as female, and I thought about it. I could be with a man, sure. But I also thought that I would be okay with dating a woman as well. I couldn’t care less what they identified as, as long as I love the person. And not long after through the openness and support of my friends I was able to tell them, all of them, and no one ever saw me any different. In fact, me and another friend of mine (who is bisexual) helped someone else be open about who they were to our friend group, which was beautiful. And that night we decided on a funny way to tell my parents. I am so thankful that my family was so accepting, and simply didn’t care. My whole life my parents never referred to my future lover as a husband, they always said “whoever I marry” which helped a lot. So, the way that I decided to come out was through the use of a pumpkin. My friend painted a pan sexual flag on a little pumpkin, and I labeled it ‘Panpkin’. I put it on the mantle one fireplace, and my sister figured it out almost immediately, and when my mom finally got it, she spoke to me about it. Since then I’ve been living an amazing life with incredibly supportive friends and family, and because Waverly was such an important figure during my journey, I decided to name my beloved Portuguese Water Dog after her. She’s 5 months old and a racket, but I love her none the less.

Lesbian

Not much of a story, but have always felt different in a way. And when I tried dating a boy it felt so wrong. I’ve never felt those feelings you are supposed to feel when I was with a guy but would be attracted to woman or at that stage girls, and would only feel the butterflies with them.
Because of the way I grew up and the kind of people my family were I didn’t want to accept it and couldn’t accept what I was. Found my sell falling deeper and deeper into a hole and losing myself. When my sister found out, she was supportive and helped me thru it. Finally learned to accept who I was and when I did I felt tons lighter
It was a struggle and still learning what this all is but now I don’t apologize for who I am.

Do things for you, not for the approval or satisfaction of others.

I knew at a young age that I was different. Different as in I wore basketball jerseys of my favorite NBA players when my friends were wearing dresses and makeup. I think I was around 11 years old when I had my first girl crush, I knew from that moment I was gay. At 11 it wasn’t that easy to understand, especially when you’re from a small town in Kentucky..being gay was foreign, disobedient and wrong. I didn’t have the guidance and the acceptance in myself until I was 19 years old to come out to my mother. It was hard, the relationship drifted apart for about 2 years, but she finally came to terms with me and realized that me being a lesbian didn’t change who I was as a person. I’m here to tell you that if you are scared and fearful of disapproval, I understand. You will say what you need to say when you are ready. Please do not forget you are not alone we are all here for you just reach out

~All Love,
Brittany B.

Bi

Since the age of 11, I have kinda known that I was attracted to girls; I used to have crushes that i used to deny because one, i was young, two, it was never talked about in my household, and three, i just didn’t know what i was feeling. It all came in perspective when i started to develop a crush on my friend’s sister. I was 12. My friends started asking me questions: Why are so interested in her? Why do you act so weird around her? Do you like, LIKE her or something? Those questions wracked my brain day and night for almost a year. Then i managed to suppress it for a while. Cut to 2 years later, i finally realized that I was bi. So i tried to focus on the part of me that liked boys, told noone.
Then, last year i decided to tell my best friend. It was too much to keep it inside me for so long, so i called her up to Starbucks one day and as u started to tell her, she said she knew. She knew and she was okay with it. I still haven’t come out to my parents and family yet, because i know they won’t be okay with it but at least I’m not lying to myself anymore. That’s what keeps me going.

90% Gay

I have known all my life I was attracted to girls. My first memory was telling my mom when I was 4, that I liked my sister’s girl friends. My mother has been aware of my sexuality since I was born. She claims that all my relatives told her that judging by the shape of the belly, I was for sure a boy… well, they weren’t wrong nor right.

In my younger years it was weird. I used to dress like a boy, play sports and so on, so girls wouldn’t be my friends and boys weren’t comfortable with me, because I’m a girl.

When I was a teenager, I changed schools and I was determined to fit and have friends. So I began to embrace my feminine side.

It wasn’t until University that I realized I could be a women attracted to an other women because I met a bunch of gay people.

However, the process was tortuous because I couldn’t face that reality. And I had fought so hard to be “normal”. So it took me a couple of boyfriends to call it quits and stop hiding from me and my feelings.

However, no one except my sister and my mom knew I was gay.

One sunny day I met this girl and I fell madly in love with her. The feelings were so strong, I just couldn’t hide it. One little detail. She was straight. But I will always thank her because, to be able to process all I was feeling for her, I came out to almost everyone in my life.

A year later I met my wife and we’ve been together for 8 years.

However, even though I’m a grown ass woman, I haven’t been able to come out to my father’s very religious family.

My parents are very supportive but they are afraid my relatives could make a bad comment so they keep discouraging me to come out to them. I feel a heavy weight on my stomach because of this. I’m looking forward to just be able to be, without fear of my relatives and hurting my parents.

Being 90% gay means that you’ll keep coming out over and over again. In every doctor’s appointment “are you married? What’s your husband’s name?”, meeting a new colleague, and so on.

That slight fear that digs a hole in my chest each and every single time someone asks about my partner, never seems to go away. But that is just 10% of the time. The other 90% I’m just happy I get to love who I want and most of the people, don’t really care what I do on my free time.

A 30-something year old whose journey took her from bisexual to lesbian to queer to not needing a label at all.

This story starts from the very beginning, so prepare yourself for a roller coaster.

Growing Up

Growing up as an only child, I was pretty dependent on my friends to get me through the day. If there was ever a rift in my group, it left me with a horrible feeling inside, as if I could show up the next day and be shunned from our usual bench at lunch. (My fear of abandonment is still real today, but in grade school, you were a loser if you didn’t bring the type of Lunchables that people wanted to trade you for or share with you. Social suicide at such a tender age. Kids are cruel.) So to keep my “social status”, I practically begged my parents to get me the lunches that the cool 10-year-olds ate, with fruit-by-the-foot and Mondo. After surviving the playground, my afternoons consisted of playing sports. Once I could start trying out for the teams in 5th grade, that’s all I wanted to do. I’d save the candies from my Lunchables and bring them to practice to share…with the popular (attractive – because society shamefully says that attractive=popular) girls. I’d pay attention whether they took the chocolate or the candy, which flavor Warhead was their favorite, etc. all in an attempt to talk to them as much as I could. Back then, I saw this as me just wanting them to like me because they were popular and everyone wanted to hang out with them. I knew nothing at this point other than I got severely jealous of their close friends, boyfriends, etc. Again, an awful feeling. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I started to put the pieces together.

High School

In high school, I continued to devote most of my time to schoolwork and basketball, and my teammates were again my best friends – one of them becoming my first girlfriend my sophomore year. Trust me, the irony is not beyond me. This relationship was my first real relationship, so many “firsts” came along with it: first physical/emotional/sexual experiences with a girl, first love, first breakup-and-makeup, first long-term relationship. We were together for roughly 4 ½ years, on and off, and it was such a whirlwind of a relationship. I was 15 years old, completely immersed, everything heightened and everything intense. The feelings, the arguments, the learning, the growing. It truly was a relationship fueled by the unknown mixed with teenage angst, which needless to say caused tension between me and my family because we were both “in the closet” at the time and I couldn’t tell them all the things I was going through. We went through several breaks and rekindlings, that when we approached the end of the relationship within the first maybe 1 ½ years of college, it grew to be unhealthy for the both of us. This is not to say that the good times we had weren’t really good, because they were, but all-in-all, I had outgrown it and was turning into someone I wasn’t quite fond of.

College

I met my second girlfriend in my second year of college, during my “divorce” period with my first girlfriend. I call this a “divorce” because I feel like it took a few months to “finalize” the breakup and detach myself completely. This proved more difficult than I anticipated because potential-Girlfriend-#2 was a roommate of one of Girlfriend #1’s friends, so we were still running in the same circles. Once I was officially out of relationship #1 and in relationship #2, we moved in together and this took my experiences to a whole new level – cohabitation can either make you or break you and it definitely made us. We didn’t have too many hiccups, until I hit a huge speedbump: my dad confronted me about my sexuality. I was 19 years old. Again, we were both still “in the closet” and it was terrifying.

Coming Out – Part 1

My dad asked me to go to the grocery store with him one Saturday afternoon. This would have been a normal occurrence IF 1) he didn’t tell me to get in the car the moment my mom started running her shower, AND 2) if he didn’t take the absolute longest, roundabout way to get to the grocery store. Once he parked the car, he jumped right into it. He asked who insert screenname here was (he already knew), how long we’ve been together, and if my mom knew. His spitfire questions got my spitfire answers: “Girlfriend #2”, 1 ½ years at this point, no she doesn’t know.” My face never seemed to get the memo from my brain to remain calm, so my panic shined right through. My dad’s response: he immediately put his hand on my knee, told me to look at him, and said “Hey, it’s okay. There’s no need to panic. I just suggest you don’t tell your mom yet because we both know that she won’t be as cool about this as I am. Now let’s get some shopping done.”

With my hands still shaking, we went into the store and went on business as usual. My dad, being the extremely blunt unfiltered person he is, proceeded to randomly ask me inappropriate questions about my relationship, drill in the point of me needing to delete my profile from the home computer so all evidence was gone, and said that if I didn’t do it the moment we got home, he would ask me more inappropriate questions and force me to answer them. “Blackmailed” by my own father.

I didn’t think it would ever go this way. I didn’t have a plan, I hadn’t thought about coming out yet, I was just being the kid-away-at-college and figuring things out as they came along. I mean, to me, this relationship with Girlfriend #2 was kind of still “new” compared to my first relationship. I have to admit though, even without having a formal sit-down with him, a coming out announcement, or anything out of my own choice really, the weight that lifted off my chest was so much greater than I anticipated it to ever be. I finally had a parent I didn’t feel I had to hide all my gritty life details from.

“Adulthood”

Girlfriend #2 and I moved back to our respective homes after being away at college, and things started going awry less than a year later. No longer being able to rely on “cohabitation making us”, we started growing apart. The want to visit each other, Skype, and even text throughout the day like we used to dwindled. We were together for roughly 4 ½ years (similar to my first relationship), but the relationship was becoming one-sided and it wasn’t fair anymore. I hate to say that fighting for it wasn’t worth it anymore, but it’s the truth. We were at different points in our lives, wanting different things for our future, but although I won’t go into the details (because that’s not the point here), all-in-all, it ended amicably.

I took a break from all the seriousness for a few months, focused on my hometown friendships, went on a few (failed) dates, but really just honed in on regaining my individuality. I was 24 years old, juggling my first job as an undergraduate and being a new furmom. Things were really coming back together, in their devil-may-care fashion, and I managed.

And then there was Shedonism – Las Vegas Pride, where I first met Girlfriend #3, my current and god willing my last. Long story kind-of-short, we met through mutual friends from LA and Sacramento, we said maybe a handful of words to each other in Vegas, went home after the event, I texted her 2 weeks later on her birthday, and it was all downhill from there. We talked daily at all hours, officially got together 6 months later, and have been together ever since. We did the long-distance thing for about 1 ½ years and here we are now, living together in LA with 2 dogs, just 4 months shy of our 5 year anniversary celebration, and I’ve never been happier. I could gush about this girl, but I’ll save you guys from that, but I just want to say that it works. It all just works. The present, the future, everything. But no matter how great and grown and comfortable I’ve been in the relationship, I still had a huge chip on my shoulder: I still had to come out to my mom. I am 29 years old, and disappointing my parents is still (and will always be) such a huge deal. But I did it, and I wasn’t alone, and it changed my life.

Coming Out – Part 2

Friday, October 28, 2016 – The day I took the most nerve-wracking risk of my life (and the longest and most crucial).
So this plan had been brewing for almost a year. I originally wanted to come out to my mom around last New Year’s, but it just wasn’t the right time. I thought so long and hard about the various ways to do it because this was probably the most important thing I was ever going to do. I was finally going to be able to plan for this and do this after so many years. I could tell her in one of our daily phone calls or texts, pony up and tell her in person in a very public place to avoid the meltdown, have my dad tell her since he’s known for 9 years, or write her a letter. I opted for the letter. I felt that if I wrote it all down in a letter, no matter how long it was, it would result in some of the weight lifting off of me AND allow me to lay absolutely everything on the table for my mom to absorb. My dad, naturally, wasn’t a fan of the idea, saying “that’s like breaking up with someone via text. I think you should do it in person,” even though I explained to him that I really didn’t think I had it in me to have an impromptu sit-down. I wrote the letter anyway and left it for her to see the next morning at my grandma’s gravesite (for other personal reasons).
Anyway, I was due to visit my parents, and since they get home around the same time, you can imagine how my plan quickly devolved into not my plan at all.
My mom and I moved about the house, my dad comes in, and says “Mom, sit down, your daughter wants to talk to you.” Cue heart attack. I’ve never glared so hard at someone EVER while I said “No dad, I don’t. I REALLY don’t.” At this point, my mom is now starting to panic. My dad then looks at me, says “You’re going to hate me for this, but…”, turns to my mom and says “Your daughter’s ‘roommate’ dates women, and so does she.” Cue heart attack #2 and blackout. What’s a girl to do now that her plan had been hijacked a day earlier than expected? I held onto my consciousness as best as I could and went to sit opposite my mother. Yikes.

The first words out of her mouth were the most heart-wrenching. A phrase a child never wants to hear out of a parent’s mouth:

“I’m disappointed in you.”

I nodded my head and gave her the floor. The next phrases played like a broken record before I’d even said a word.

“Never in a million years did I think my own daughter was going to tell me this.”

And then the parental denial:

“I prayed every night that this day would never come.”

(I complimented her motherly instinct in the letter – I knew she had it in her.)

By this time, my dad is unexpectedly sitting next to me, and as much as I hated him for blowing up my plan, I am so grateful for him right now. I began by telling my mom “I’d been in 3 long-term relationships in the last 14 years, my current relationship consisting of the last 4 ½ years (funny how this number keeps coming up). I’m so tired of hiding myself and my relationships from you and this family. I’m exhausted. My dreams for my future haven’t changed: I still want that house with a white picket fence, be pregnant, have kids, and get married, which now I can, it just won’t be to a man. I’m so happy with how my life turned out, and I’m so lucky because I’ve never been bullied or put down and my friendships are so much stronger now. I’m one of the lucky ones! But it sucked having to go through every relationship and breakup I’ve had and been too scared to tell my own mother about them so that she could help me through everything.”

“The future I wanted for you was for you to find a man who would treat you as the great girl you are, get married, and have a family together. That’s what a family is.”

My dad chimes in immediately, saying “She has found someone who treats her well and makes her happy. I’ve known for several years now, and in the grand scheme of things, this is no big deal. She’s still going to get married and have kids. Your job now as her mother is to love her, not judge her, accept it and move on. She is the same loving daughter you’ve always had. Nothing has changed that.”

Now I’m crying, and I’m not sure if it’s from my mom’s comments or from the shock of witnessing for the first time my dad’s verbal unwavering support. Fast-forward through the next 20 minutes of repeated comments, my mom then has to leave to pick up a family member from work. I turned to my dad after she’s left, and said “Well, I suppose that went as expected…when I get married some time down the road, I’d appreciate it if both of you would walk me down the aisle. I’ll take one, but both would be preferable.” He grabbed my shoulders and looked me dead in the eye, “Look, I’d prefer you to date men, but I know that’s not going to happen. You are the way you are, and if you’re happy, then I’m happy. That’s all there is to it. If your mom is going to be upset at you or your girlfriend or anyone for that matter, that’s her problem. I don’t give a shit about anything else. We’re all just people.”

My hero.

Coming to the end of this story now, my mom and I went through 4 days of radio silence, which equaled an eternity since she has text me or called me several times a day since I went away to college. Per my request, she did still read the letter I wrote for her, and we spoke about it while my dad was out of town. I took this chance to stand my ground more firmly, profess that I’m no longer a child, this is not a phase, and this is truly and fully who I am. It has been 3 weeks since “D-Day” and life is…well life I suppose. I’m still a little freaked out that we might just be on the brink of a mental breakdown, but I will take what I can get, and my mom still loves me and hugs me hello and goodbye whenever I see her.

The relief alone feels like nothing I’ve ever imagined. It could have gone a lot worse, and I’m slightly shocked that I am one of the lucky ones. It breaks my heart that so many people out there will not have their story play out as successfully as I did. No matter how old you are, no matter what path of life you are on, the most important things I can say to you are: Trust those close to your heart and embrace them and thank them always for being there for you. Trust yourself especially, because that is who you will always have. Be so unapologetically yourself, and demand respect in the purest way you know how. Please please please stay safe, stay mindful, and only do things you are comfortable doing. You know YOU best, so you’ll know when the time is right.

This is my story, and now I can honestly say it gets better.

Fast-forward 4 years: I am 33 years old, living in Sacramento with 2 furkids, and Girlfriend #3 became my fiancé! Even though we are in the middle of a godforsaken pandemic, I have to say my home life is pretty great and it still gets better and better.

Lesbian

Hi my name is Belen and I struggled with finding my sexuality and who i was all throughout middle school and the beginning of high school. I am 16 years old and i came out to my mom at 15 on November 11th 2019 and then came out to my dad in February of 2020. It took me a while to come to terms with me liking girls and hated myself for a while because of it. It was a big struggle that i had to overcome and i am very proud of myself for finally being able to be my true self and be proud of who i am and how far i have come.

Feel free to exhale homosexuality

For me, understanding my sexuality has meant going through several mental chaos. Before understanding my sexual identity, I had to first understand my sexuality. In my adolescence, while everyone was talking about girls, boys, sex or kissing, I only thought about playing sports and going to the movies. I was not attracted to anyone, neither boys nor girls. And that made me feel like a freak, because everyone was already having a partner or, at least, a taste for someone, except me. I went out with a couple of guys and those have been (until now, 10 years later) the most boring dates of my life.
Also, before discovering my homosexuality I discovered sexual pleasure through masturbation. The first times I felt guilty about doing it because everybody knows that men masturbate, but what a horror if a girl does it. And so, for a couple more years, I was still not attracted to anyone, and did not need to have anyone.
It wasn’t until I entered college that I met the love of my life. This girl stirred up each and every one of my hormones that, until that moment, seemed dead. Unfortunately, it was an unrequited love, because she was suffering for a boy who did not pay as much attention to her as I was suffering for her.
The first person I told about my possible homosexuality was my best friend. His words of comfort (because yes, for him that confession was comforting) were “Relax, you’re not gay, you’re just confused. Let me tell you, there is nothing more confusing than when you are told you are confused. His consolation created a (other) mental chaos for me: how do I know if what I’m feeling is real or if I’m making it up? How do I know if I’m one hundred percent sure of something or if I’m confused and haven’t noticed? Furthermore, what does it mean that I am confused?
With those doubts in my head I entered my first relationship. The first month was a mental chaos because it was my first time (in every way), and it was with a girl. Because of the macho and conservative country I live in (Peru), being gay was seen as something negative. (Level: the same police officers assaulted both gays and lesbians) So, for someone like me, who has always tried to do the right thing and be a better person in every way, the idea of being gay made me ashamed. I mean, I knew it wasn’t a bad thing per se, but I was embarrassed that I wasn’t “normal. I was embarrassed to be something that was seen in a bad light. That’s why I didn’t tell my parents about it. However, as the days went by the mental chaos became more acute, so I thought it would be best to talk about it, maybe I could lean on them to understand me…. The reaction they had was shocking. You definitely don’t really know your family until you come out of the closet. From my mother I expected some rejection for being Catholic, but there was only silence. Not a single word for several days. Until she came over one night and told me to be careful because I could get AIDS. Yes, AIDS. It was the middle of the 21st century and I still believed that you get AIDS just by coming out of the closet.
On the other hand, my father is half relaxed, to the point of letting my brother smoke marijuana in the house. But it seems that drugs are not as serious as homosexuality. As soon as I finished telling him that I thought he was gay, my father started crying. There is nothing more ridiculous than seeing a big, loud person cry because his daughter is a lesbian. He started crying because it turns out that homosexuality is a disease. It turns out that homosexuality is a product of some childhood trauma. It turns out that homosexuality is an impediment to marrying and giving birth to grandchildren. And, in between cries, she began to apologize for whatever she did to make me believe it was “it”.
So far, when I think about that scene, I am aware that my departure was not tragic, it was just disappointing. At that moment I realized that I was alone in all that mental chaos. And I accepted it. You’re not always going to have someone to lean on, so I decided to raise myself to be my own source of support. But, of course, going through that chaos alone is not easy. It took me several more years before I could stop feeling ashamed of myself, and feel truly comfortable in my own skin. And it is only now, at 28, that I feel free to breathe out my homosexuality.
Now, because I’m half antisocial, my story hasn’t inspired anyone (because I don’t talk to anyone), but, if anyone keeps reading this far, what I can tell you is that, it’s not about forcing someone to accept you, it’s about how, as long as you love yourself, little by little things and people around you are going to shape up to you. And, one more thing, Respect. Even if someone lowers himself to the level of disrespect or seeks to harm you, as long as you hold your head up high, little by little you will be the one who wins.
Thank you very much for reading this will. Much love.
Ariana.