Community Rainbow Waves

You can call me B, I go by she/her and I’m a lesbian. 🙂

It’s probably not a surprise but it’s taken me quite a while to get to this point, where I’m comfortable enough in calling myself a lesbian and being able to share that to the world. But here I am. And I couldn’t be happier.
Around gr. 10, I had a tough time with friends. The year before I moved to a new city and being the shy quiet kid I am I was extremely nervous about making new friends. But I did become close friends with two people so it wasn’t that bad. Then came gr. 10, and I didn’t have any classes with either of them which sucked. By that time, everyone else seemed to have made friends and well… I wasn’t a part of that, I wasn’t really friends with them. So I just stayed quiet.
Then one day, I ended up checking out this club that I knew a few of my friends would go to every Wednesday. It was GSA. Around that time I had heard of gay people and how they weren’t very well accepted, I never understood why they faced so many hardships because it was just love wasn’t it? So then why was the Catholic community I had grown up in so unaccepting of it when all I had learned from them was how to be kind to others?
Anyways, that sparked my curiosity about the LGBTQ+ community, and along with my friends in that club and my favorite art teacher running the club, I kept going there. Soon enough it became my safe haven that year. A place that I was happy to go to every week while the rest of my school life seemed to suck.
I learned a lot from the wonderful people there. I saw what a supportive and caring community was like. Safe to say I never stopped going to GSA even after started making more friends and high school no longer felt like it was terrible.
Subconsciously, at some point, I’m not sure when I started to have this question that would randomly pop up in my head. “What if I was gay?” My continuous and automatic response to that was no, I wasn’t. That when on for at least a year, and I wouldn’t give it much thought. I would ignore it. Then near the end of gr. 12, in the last month of school, I came out to one of my closest friends. I never planned to, nor expected it. We were on a phone call and she brought up boys, and most importantly how I was talking to this boy she hadn’t met in the hallway. (Note he was asking me something about one of the other clubs I was in/running). And when she brought it up, I just felt this gut feeling that this idea seemed… wrong, I had that feeling is several other occasions when my friends would talk about boys. So I took a deep breath and said, “I think I like girls.”
At the time I wasn’t sure because I never liked a girl before, but I had a lot of female celebrity crushes the same way that girls my age had crushes on Zac Efron for example. Looking back now, I remember I tried liking a few celebrity guys, like Brad from the Vamps. But it never came with as much ease as it did with liking Selena Gomez or Olivia Holt. I felt like I was in a way forcing myself to like him.
Sure there were a few actual guys I said I had crushes on, but I think they were just what I thought as a crush at that time, something I now call an admiration crush. One where I looked up to that guy and would want to hang out with him a lot, but never really thought about relationship stuff. Because honestly the idea of girls liking girls never really occurred to me, until I discovered this ship on my favorite show Supergirl. Kara and Lena. Easily I developed crushes on both actresses and loved the idea of their characters getting together. I finally had representation.
That grew more when I started watching Wynonna Earp and One Day at A Time. And yes, I did solely watch those shows because I discovered Wayhaught and that Elena was a gay character. I started to feel more okay with the idea of liking girls.
That summer, I also told one of my other closest friends that I liked girls. The two of them were the best about it. Which was great because they were the friends I was going to university with. The place I decided I would let myself explore this and see if I really did like girls.
Surprise, surprise, I do. I developed a crush on this girl. I finally experienced an actual crush, with the whole feelings thing. Yes, that whole “your heart races around them and you can’t seem to form words” thing I discovered is real.
Then I started to come out to a handful of people, the friends that I wanted to know, that I felt safe telling. Then even two of my cousins. I’ve gotten lucky because I have yet to experience losing a friend because of my sexuality. It may happen later on when I am fully out, but I now have a group of people who do accept me for who I am and will be there for me no matter what.
Then, one day with some advice. I gave myself before winter break to try and ask her out. (I know, a lesbian girl who’s an introvert asking someone out. That must be new lol.) On the third day, the chance came up and I did. I took the risk. She got back to me after winter break, and well, I got rejected.
Even though things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped with her, thanks to her I got the courage to come out to a lot of important people in my life and I’ve never been more sure about liking girls.
Heck, I got a pair of Doc Martens and a friend gave me rainbow suspenders. (And added to my already large collection of flannels). Never in my life had a simple thing such as clothes made me so happy and confident in myself. It was refreshing and absolutely amazing.
So now here I am. Happy and more confident. No longer as shy as that girl in gr. 10. I went from someone not knowing why we stated our pronouns during GSA meetings to being proud of being part of the community. I’ve grown a lot in the past few years, and especially this year.
Right now, the only part that scares me, is telling my family. Especially my parents. They are both aware of the community, know I went to GSA, and have seen gay people on shows and movies. But it’s different when it’s your kid. I’m sure a lot of you who are part of the community understand that. I know that they won’t kick me out or anything, but I’m still scared. I know I will finally tell them one day when I’m ready. But for now, I’ll just be in my room watching my gay movies.
Anyways, I hope my story helped you with whatever part you are in your journey or made you feel less alone in all of this. I just wanted to share my story with all of you whoever you are, however you identify, and whoever you love. Remember there will be people who have your back that you can lean on even if that won’t be everyone. It takes time to figure this out, so take your time, there’s no rush. And you don’t have to come out to people until you feel safe to do so and when you feel it’s the right time. Even to your parents. Your journey is your own.
Be authentically you, because when you are “you are all the colours in one, at full brightness,” (-all the bright places).
Sending you my rainbow love, B.

Book_Music

I knew I was a part of the LGBTQ+ community roughly at the age of 7 it was definitely hard for me to come out since both of my parents are religious, (babtist & Apostolic) I had came out to my mom at the age of 10 and never came out to my dad cause I would get thrown out of my home. Luckily both of my siblings and mom accepted me and I felt really validated but sadly I am never able to tell my father which gives me horrible anxiety and other thoughts (as well as other stuff). I am now 13 and I have helped many of my friends through coming out as well as figuring out who they are.

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

A badass graysexual lesbian

When I was younger, all my attempts at imagining myself marrying a man felt… off. So naturally I assumed that I just wasn’t someone who wanted to get married.
On my facebook account that I started at the age of 9 (dont arrest me) I had mistaken the sexuality question on the profile description as a question about what friends I would like to make. My facebook profile read “I am interested in girls” for everyone I know to see. I was 9 and had no clue what a lesbian was, but I certainly pretended to know when everyone at school started calling me that.

There were countless times where I would think to myself “the next boy who walks through the door will be my crush” just because I was so tired of my sister asking me if I had any crushes on the boys at school. In reality, I had no interest in them at all. In fact, I didn’t have any crushes on anyone and didn’t even feel attracted to people, which was very confusing and made me feel somehow defective.
Both of my sisters had relationships and crushes on guys and talked about how people were attractive but I just didn’t get it.

The first crush I had was in middle school, and it was my best friend. I still had no idea what was going on at that point, and only realized until it was too late and she had moved away. I put a lot of effort into research after that. By high school, I knew for sure that I was gay. Luckily at the school I attended, almost everyone in my friend group was part of the LGBTQ+ community and I even had the opportunity to join the LGBT club there! For the first time I felt seen by the people around me. There was no stress on coming out because we were all growing up with the same pressures and expectations that we hated. ‘Be normal’ ‘Be straight’ ‘Do what you’re told.’

My research also lead me to the asexuality spectrum. An infinite spectrum of the gray area of sexual libido on which I have come to fully recognize I will never find my exact place. However, knowing that my lack of sexual attraction was not some kind if mutation but instead just the way my brain worked was more than I could have ever asked for.
I felt safe to be who I was at school without the fear of being called names or being bullied for it (not to say I wasn’t bullied for other things, of course).

Coming out to my parents was not hard. For a while I felt bad or somehow inadequate because I didn’t have some tragic story, but then I realized that it was a fact that I should be greatful for.
My parents aren’t the only republicans in the world who are accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, but it is not common to positively associate those two things together.

I came out to my parents as graysexual the week after I did extensive research on it. It was a non-issue. My gayness, however, I kept hidden for four years.

Not because I purposefully hid it, though. Not once did I ever tell my parents “I like boys.” I never in my life wanted to ever have to LIE about who I was to anyone. They simply did not ask about my sexuality.
Except one day when I was 18, while I was sitting outside with my mom, she finally had the thought to ask if I liked boys at all.

I was nervous; caught completely off guard with the question I had never expected her to actually ask (despite the fact that she has previously asked about my gender identity and pronouns). Shakily, but nevertheless determined, I told her the truth.

“No, I’m gay.”

She seemed shocked at first, and asked me if I was serious (because sarcasm is a true commodity in my family). After I told her I was serious, she smiled, shook my hand, and said, “Alexa, play ‘I am Woman’.”
I distinctly remember the corner of my lips trembling anxiously as I tried to fight the smile that wanted to break out across my face. I had never been so open with my mother before about anything, and it was an odd feeling to feel accepted by her.
The rest of my family soon followed. My older sister thought I was joking and wasn’t paying attention the first five times I said it, so I had to grab her by the shoulders and say it directly in her face. She quickly hugged me and congratulated me then.
I told my dad, eldest sister, and her boyfriend all at the same time after hearing my sister’s boyfriend sing “I’m coming out”. I thought, why not? So I told them right then, and my sister said she already knew because she had seen all the gay shit I watch on my netflix account, haha.

I got hugs from all of them, and felt proud to be part of such an accepting family.

I did not know then that coming out was not an isolated experience. It is a constant task. A box that needs to be checked every time you make a friend. By the time I got to my third semester of college, I found I was tired. I wanted to see what it was like to not come out to friends for once.

Really long story short, I didn’t come out to a group of friends that I had incorporated myself into and I ended up accidentally going on a date with one of the guys who probably didn’t believe me when I told him that I’m gay. He then outted me to the entire group, and they proceeded to question if I really was a lesbian or if I just didnt want to date that guy.

It made me feel so inadequate. As if being a lesbian is some kind of last resort to get out of a bad date.

I started to feel very insecure about myself and after that incident I stopped hanging around those people, bought a ton of rainbow-themed clothes, and wore my rainbow bracelet obsessively for nearly a year. After that I never purposefully hid my sexuality again. I had seen the other side and the grass was putrid and yellow.

Due to some amazing friends and supportive family, I have become proud of who I am. I don’t hide anymore. I advocate for who I am and who I want to be. I get angry when things are unfair. I get sad when people are being hurt. I feel happy when I see part of who I am on TV more and more often as the years pass.

Other people have it a lot worse than me. Many of those people are my close friends, and it breaks my heart.

What my experiences have shown me is that I am lucky. Every day, I have people who support me and love me for who I am, and I am so damn grateful. I hope more than anything in the world that I am that person for someone else.

I am a female

I am 14 but i noticed may of 2019 but came out in July of 2019. My mother was supportive and so were friends but the rest of my family kind of looks down upon it.

Homosexual, Panromantic

I come from a religious family, practically raised in a church. I had gay family and in my head with my teachings that was fine for them to live that way but I could never choose that because it was wrong. I had thought it was a choice. Until the 8th grade when my best friend came out, and slowly through conversations she had made me realize that I too was possibly part of the LGBTQA+ community. Even then some part of my brain desperately wanted to be straight, knowing that my family likely wouldnt accept me. I’d pray and I’d pretend that if I just didnt act on that side of me then it would go away. In high school I became friends with somebody who was pansexual, lots of people actually but this one happened to be a senior while I was a freshman. She asked me very outright while we were alone if I was attracted to females. This came as a shock but I found myself answering yes. Still believing myself to be bisexual. By the end of the year I had wrote a poem about my sexuality, and posted it over Facebook. Surprisingly most people were incredibly supportive. However, my aunt had called to tell me how proud she was of me and ended up outting me to my mother. Who was less than understanding, I was grounded and forbidden from hanging out with friends the night of prom. (She wouldnt allow girls to really sleep over anymore either.) It took until senior year for me to come to terms with and realize that I was just simply not physically attracted to men. Which is when an uncle I had only met as a toddler came up. He came out to my father, and then proceeded to out me. My father is very religious and often used gay, queer, and fag as insults. He never talked to me about it, but I noticed he changed his language around me. When we accidentally ended up in the middle of a pride event he kept bringing up how love is love. I guess subtle support is better than none. My mom still doesnt fully accept it. Over the years I found myself having emotions for guys, but never being able to express them, cause the physical attraction just wasnt there, and I believed it wasnt fair for either me or them to be in that type of relationship. The ones I attempted always tried to get me to be physical with them anyways. It took a lot of time researching the different types of attraction for me to understand who I truly am, and I still dont really discose it unless I am totally comfortable with somebody. Or just dont care how they feel about it.

Asexual/Lesbian

I figured out that i’m gay at 15, but I only recently (i’m 19 now) figured out I am actually asexual and romantically attracted to girls. Im pretty much out as gay to most people and I don’t care if people know, sometimes I wish I could constantly have a sign that says I LIKE WOMEN or a tattoo on my forehead or something because I am proud to be attracted to girls, I am not ashamed.

My asexuality on the other hand I’ve been struggling with. I’ve always had the thought at the back of my head that I might of been asexual but I would just brush it off because I didn’t think you could be asexual and attracted to the same gender and I’m definitely attracted to girls. But with the help of Google I found out it is possible to be asexual and still romantically, aesthetically or sensually attracted to people, including people of the same sex.

I’ve still been having abit of a hard time accepting being asexual, sometimes I feel like I’m broken or that something’s wrong with me. My brain really did a full 180, I’ve never felt like this reguarding my sexuality because I’m not ashamed that I’m attracted to girls but at the same time I’m struggling to accept my asexuality.

I was prepared to keep my asexuality a secret because I was scared of telling people but I ended up telling my best friend about it anyway because I was dying to tell someone and he told me that he is the same, not sexually attracted to anyone but still romantically attracted to the same gender. This made me feel so much better about myself and I’ve now told 2 of my other friends about it who have been nothing but supportive. I’m still scared and technically in the closet but I don’t feel as alone, especially reading Doms and everyone else’s stories on here and I hope soon I will be out and proud of my asexuality like I am with my attraction to girls.

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.

Love is universal, kindness is beautiful

Now when I think back, I realized that I always felt this way, but growing up in a heavily religious country I didn’t know this was normal.
The talk was always “when a men and I women love each other” (fill in the rest). This construct of what love and partnership is supposed to be, leaves no room to be truly open and explore feelings.
I thought I was weird, I thought something was wrong with me and so I didn’t say anything to anyone.

On top of that, the message that everything outside heterosexuality as “unnatural and sinful” was present in society and even school. There was no reference to same sex couples, gender fluidity or anything else.

I remember having feelings for girls and when they became friends (that is how I explained it) is friendship and nothing else, but it also happened with boys, which added to the predicament.

Then around grade 8 news about violence against “those people” were more visible (or maybe I noticed more) stories of rape and murder with no one being brought to justice.
I can’t like girls it is dangerous…. fear really intensified in me!
So I concentrated on the boy part of my feelings, pushing my feelings for girls way, way down!

I didn’t want to admit it but I still felt not quite myself, there was more to me. I didn’t take the time to understand what my feelings really were, there was no language I knew about how to express what I was feeling.

Fast forward and I came to Canada, I wish I could say that I felt free to explore all sides of me, but
A new country – culture shock and feeling lost
High school while learning a new language
Wasn’t a citizen – fear of being turned back

My mind was so busy with, learn the language, pass classes, make money to survive, help mom in everything needed – calls, translation, doctors etc., I didn’t have time to be a teen, let alone revisiting my feelings for people, because no matter how much I pushed them down, these feelings were always there.

I was lucky and towards my final year I made really good friends and things started to look up.
Even though there were instances in which I wanted to come out, I felt it wasn’t the time yet.

Eventually my mom started the conversation “Maybe you can find a nice guy to marry and have kids with” I told myself “this is it, this is how I’m going to come out to my mom”
I turned to her and I said: what if I fall in love and it is not a guy, what if I fall for someone else?

She looked at me, paused for a couple of seconds (which felt like an eternity) and said “As long as you love and respect each other, is all the same to me, I just want you to be happy”
I cannot explain what I felt at that moment
I will carry those words with me forever!

Since then I’ve come out on different occasions depending on my comfort level, I know the people who truly care about me will have my back.
Coming to terms with this part of me has filled me with a warm sense of community that I didn’t know I could be part of and opened up some amazing opportunities to form new friendships.

Fear can be strong but LOVE is powerful!

I am glad I finally let go, because loving openly brought life to a new level where essence matters more! I now know love is more complex than the narrow narrative I was taught.

Love is universal and kindness is beautiful
Let us ascend to new heights together

I am queer and happy to be in this journey
I can’t wait to see what life brings!
Mace

Kier – dreaming Big in Big Sky Country

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

I was raised in a very strict, fundamentalist “Christian” cult, so many of my liberal values were viewed as wrong and shameful. My father was bisexual, but he was also very abusive to my mother and I. So my association with any kind of sexual ‘other’ was tied to difficult emotions. I was sexually abused by my father when I was of a tender age and again by a cousin when I was 14, so coming into womanhood and sexual awareness was met by fear and instant repression. I simply shut myself off to the whole experience.
Now, at the ripe old age of 29 😉 I have left the cult, separated myself from abusive family members, and am discovering who I am. It feels so good!
Just since turning 29 in April I have come out as gender queer and am flying the asexual flag (though I may truly be more demisexual). I have never felt so free or so confident.
It has always been easy for me to love others, but I find it’s even easier as I learn to also love myself!
I am inexpressibly thankful for Dominique Provost-Chalkley for her bravery and her representation. Positive representation really does change lives, and sometimes it even saves lives!