Community Rainbow Waves

Old School Dyke

I came out 40 years ago this August when I was 19 years old. For me, the realization of who I was when I came out was like someone had thrown open the shutters and thrown up the sash and let the air and light into my life. Unfortunately, there was also a great since of fear especially at that time. Short history lesson: Stonewall had happened just 11 years earlier in 1969. Homosexuality was removed from the list of “mental illnesses” by the American Psychiatric Association only 7 years prior in 1973. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was still 14yrs away so they did ask and if you were found out you could not only be disowned by your family, but chances were good you might lose your job or your housing and most of your friends.
For me it was a time of wonder, I was naïve. But I as lucky because when I first came out, I found an older lesbian, who I worked with, that was able to help me navigate this new hidden world and find the community. You must remember that this is long before the internet, so finding each other was exceedingly difficult. She taught me about feminist bookstores, Lesbian Connection (a newsletter that is still published today), women’s potlucks, women’s music and of course the bars, though very few if any of those women’s space still exist. It was all about knowing the code words and symbols: feminist, womyn, potluck, lavender, violets, labrys, etc. To this day I still use “the look” with other women in public that let us each other know that we are the same without words.
Regarding the fear and history there is one story that I carry with me to this day. It was on St. Patrick’s Day 1981 when my older lesbian mentor smuggled me into the Three Sisters bar in Denver. I know they knew I was a little underage, but they also knew that the lesbian bars were one of the few places that was safe to meet other people like yourself. The Sisters was packed that night and the group I was with had been there about 30-40 minutes when across the room there is a face I recognized. Being young, and like I said naïve and feeling invincible I got up and walked across the bar, and bold as brass walked up to the woman I recognized and said: “Hi Miss (name withheld)”, to my high school guidance counselor. She turned and looked at me and said HI back in a very trepidatious way, not using my name and being kind of distant… I was a bit taken aback as we had been close in high school but figured whatever ‘it’s been awhile’ and went back to the group I was with. About a half hour later she came across the bar to me and said, “Hi Jackie” and introduced me to the woman she was with and we spoke for a few minutes. To this day I cannot forget the look of sheer terror that ran across her face when I said her name, it was the first time I understood just how dangerous being out could be. If found out she would have lost her job, possibly her home – everything. She was sacred of me recognizing her in a lesbian bar and it took her over a half hour to realize that if I was there too it was OK, and her secret was safe. I wish I could say that was the only time over the years that I have seen “that look”, but I am glad to say that I see it very seldom now and I hope that this generation and the next will never have to see it.
Thank you for this forum to share these stories. As I get older, I worry that our herstory and where and who we came from is being lost. Hopefully, projects like this will help to keep that from happening and keep our stories alive.

Natália

Hi, everybody!
My name is Natalia from Brazil. I’m a Portuguese Language Teacher! My relationship with my sexuality has always been stifled. I never liked to talk about it with anyone, not even during adolescence. When I was a kid my mom repressed me a lot about it, I grew up with no desire to relate to anyone at all.
It was never a problem to be like this, but I felt strange in front of my friends and family.
It is important to say that I was born in a family that was “more open” than the traditional families in Brazil. Definitely, Brazil is a very conservative and authoritarian country in some issues, especially as of 2018, despite the plurality of our population.
Another point is that in Brazil there is not much representativeness. An impacting data is: Brazil is one of the countries that kills homosexuals the most, but, it is also in the leadership in audience on LGBTQI+ porn sites.
To recap: at the end of 2020, while on vacation, I started to reflect on who I am. This is so recent. Sometimes I feel afraid. I am in a daily discovery and hope to get there. Discovering Start The Wave is being a relief.
Thank you all so much. !!!!

Lesbian

I fell in love with my best friend but came out to my stepdads partner before my parents they was all supportive couldn’t of asked for more.

Honest liar to bisexual fire

It’s hard to say when I knew I was a part of the LGBTQ community. Coming out to myself and to everyone else, including family, was a slow process that took years. This was probably due to one, growing up in the 90’s/early 2000’s and two, growing up in the South (as in conservative Southern American States). I knew I was different from a young age, maybe around five or six years of age. I loved sports and loved playing with the boys at school, whether it be soccer, rugby or street hockey; even though female activities like playing with barbies and the color pink were encouraged. I remember being the only girl in fourth grade playing hockey with the boys. The guidance counselor, Mr. B, pulled me in his office one day and said that I could not play anymore. When I asked why, he said it was because I was a girl and it’s a boy’s activity. The boys did not want me to play with them (maybe because I was just as good, if not better).

Fast forward to middle and high school, we had moved to a very small town with around 90 people in my graduating class. I had mostly male friends, and a few good female friends. I struggled with my sexuality and tried to suppress thoughts and feelings. I was an anxious wreck (like most of us) at this age. I remember flipping through the few channels we had and stopping on an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Seeing Red”. I think this was probably my first sort of “awakening” to the LGBTQ community. I had never seen this show before, but I had heard of it. There were two females on TV and they were in bed together, kissing! My mind was blown 🙂 This was the late 90’s/early 00’s and we didn’t have smart phones or the queer representation you see in TV shows, tumblr, etc. that we have today. This kind of thing was sacreligious where I grew up (and still is for a lot of people). Needless to say I binge watched the show and fell in love. Willow and Tara’s relationship, and the acceptance among peers on the show, was the first of its kind on television and it was influential for so many people. Their relationship showed me that it’s okay to love someone of the same sex, and it’s hard to imagine this today, but that kind of acceptance just wasn’t part of the culture in which I was raised. I found the wonderful world of fanfiction and began to explore the LGBTQ community.

My parents raised me to be honest. I am a horrible liar and anyone who really knows me will know I am lying immediately. It’s something I value very much in myself and the people I surround myself with. The internal struggle to be honest with myself while also hiding an important piece of who I was from others was so exhausting. And I didn’t even realize what I was doing for years. I slowly began to accept myself in high school, after watching things like Buffy, Gia, etc. But there were setbacks. I was taunted and made fun of by my peers in school after slipping up and making a gay joke with one of my friends. The rumor I was a lesbian spread like wildfire and I vehemently denied it, hoping my parents would not find out. My mother found a few notes between my friends and I that were filled with immature/lewd jokes. One of those friends happened to be my best friend; a girl I had a bit of a crush on. We occasionally flirted and I could tell she liked me too, but nothing ever happened. When my mother read the notes between us, she sat me down and asked me if I was “gay or bi”. She was so upset that I was scared to be honest and denied it. My parents threatened to send me to a catholic school if I didn’t straighten up (pun intended haha). So, I withdrew that part of myself again, and it took several years to come to terms with who I truly was. Shame is a powerful thing. Especially when it is used to mold young, impressionable minds.

College was definitely a different experience. I could not wait to move on from the small-minded town/high school of my teenage years into a more open minded, accepting atmosphere. I moved out of my parent’s house as soon as I could (18 or 19) and started college. As I distanced myself from the judgmental, shameful environment in which I was raised I, again, slowly began to realize/accept who I was. I finished my Associates degree and decided to join the military in my early 20’s. This changed my life. I had preconceived about the military from things I had seen on television, but it was nothing like Hollywood portrayed (surprise). You trained hard and played hard as a family. The military was in front of a lot of the civilian population in social movements (and that was a legitimate surprise!). Acceptance of all races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, etc. is drilled into you from day one. And it is a problem for some, but for most the struggle of military life brings you together, regardless of background and culture. The same year I joined was the same year the military repealed the “Don’t ask don’t tell” (DADT) act which was a policy implemented by the Clinton administration that barred discrimination/bullying to closeted homosexuals while banning openly gay people from serving. After the repeal of DADT, and several equal opportunity lawsuits, same-sex marriage and spouse benefits were eventually incorporated. Some states were definitely ahead of this act, however, the South struggled with these Obama administration policies.

At this point in my life, I had dated and been in a few long-term relationships with men (well more like boy-men :). But they all ended the same. The beginning was fun and exciting, then we would end up being more like good friends and I would end it. I was never interested in marriage and definitely could not see myself marrying a man. I was more comfortable in my own skin in my mid-20’s and began to identify as bi. I didn’t openly come out and tell people, but I didn’t deny my attraction to females either. As I progressed in my military career and traveled the world, I met so many people from different cultures. I don’t know any official statistics for the LGBTQ community in the military, but I have met SO many since I joined. This acceptance enabled me to explore my true self in a safe environment, and I will be forever grateful to the military for this. I don’t go home often, but when I do, I still feel uneasy and somewhat ashamed to be myself (something I am working on).

At 29 years old, I met the love of my life. Something I didn’t think existed. We met in a training program in the military and immediately hit it off. We became fast friends and shortly after realized it was way more than friendship. It felt like a tiny flame had burst into a raging fire inside me, and I had never been happier in my life. I had a few flings in college and after joining the military, but I had never been in a relationship with a woman. A lot of things were very new for me, but everything just felt right for the first time in my life. I knew this was it and I came out to my family, very slowly. I told my siblings, closest aunts and uncles, and my father and grandparents and they were all very supportive, to my surprise. I had great anxiety about coming out to the family, but it was all worth it for her. The last person I told was my mother, because I knew this would be the most difficult. But it turned out to be more difficult than I could imagine. She did not take the news well and does not accept our relationship, mostly due to religious reasons. It has taken a toll on our already strained relationship.

We were engaged on May 2019 and married at the beginning of this year. After training, we both went to our separate duty stations and have been separated for the better part of three years. One of the unfortunate things about a military career is the time sacrificed from loved ones. Due to COVID-19 and the restriction of military movement, we have remained separated. It has been the hardest three years of my life, but every second was worth our eventual reunion. One of the things we do to pass the time is binge watch television shows. We started watching Wynonna Earp last year after she came back from a six-month deployment. Waverly and Nicole’s relationship is such a beautiful relationship and we have loved watching the character developments. Growing up with almost zero LGBTQ representation in the media makes me appreciate a amazing shows like WE. Thank you Dom, Mel, Kat, Emily, Tim and the rest of the cast and crew for helping my wife and I get through these tough times!

Gwen

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

The woman in Compartment C, Car 193

I didn’t come to terms with my sexuality until I tried to be everything else but myself first. Even today, I shy away from receiving love. I remember feeling myself let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding at Electric Forest on June 26th, 2015. I remember the day before not being as colorful. It was in Nashville years prior that I took my first big step to come out. It was midnight and sleep was impossible those days. I slipped out through the back door of the second story entrance down a long staircase past the window of my sleeping roommates, and I would get into the car and drive down the rocks of Battlefield Drive. I drove alone on the streets of Nashville past Sevier park, past Belmont University, and I would hear the clash of live bands outside of the bars off Broadway. This was the only way I could quiet my anxieties. Sometimes, Abigail and William would pick me up in their wagon and take me to East Nashville. We would walk into their bare house and go to the back yard and start the fire pit. William would turn on Delta Spirit, and they would let me talk about whatever it was that was keeping me up at night. It was always the same thing, but I wasn’t brave enough to talk about it. So I talked around it, and they let me. They gave me the space I needed to talk circles around my sexuality until I felt safe enough to talk about it directly. After I did, I was able to come out to my friends one by one. I flew to NYC to have dinner with a friend and to tell her I loved her when we were in high school. At JFK, I called my mom and started crying as I told her what I confessed to my friend. I asked her if that was okay and if she stilled loved me (which she said of course). Coming out wasn’t hard just the first time. It was hard every time, and even after coming out and moving to Los Angeles, I still found myself hiding behind terms that didn’t fit me, like bisexuality. I spent the first couple years in Los Angeles testing the waters, but still feeling like I wasn’t confident enough to be myself. Even today, I have to remind myself to let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. And this isn’t always the same breath. We are constantly restricting ourselves in different ways, oftentimes unnoticed. The times that I am the happiest are the times I didn’t even realize I was letting go. I was just being me at that moment, not for anyone else, and not for any other purpose but to be.

Bisexual – CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT SUBSTANCE USE AND DEPRESSION

My life was normaI, my parents split when I was around 10, but it honestly didn’t make much of a difference to me! I guess from an early age I figured out that things don’t last and people can’t stay together for the wrong reasons, like my parents were. I didn’t think much about anything quite honestly and I didn’t until I was around 16. I did the usual stuff, hanging round with my mates, getting into trouble, got arrested a few times from generally just being a dick! (Nothing sinister) I would get drunk a lot, do a few drugs and just generally have a good time. I felt like something wasn’t right with me, so me doing what I do best and trying to cover it up and hide it, I continued being a dick. There were a lot of lads I used to hang round with, it was one of them when literally everyone had pretty much been with everyone in the group, not particularly sexual, but we’d all had a few drunken moments. The girls, well the majority just liked boys which would lead to the odd scrap and nasty words, but we were all mates and in time we all forgot about our problems. One day I met a girl at a house party, obviously there was drink involved and she was smashed, really really bad. She grabbed me by my arm dragged me into the bathroom and started telling me how she felt differently, how she kind of liked me in a different way to her other friends. I thought she was drunk so got her some water, held her hair as she threw up in the bath and then basically looked after her. She started to sober up and decided to kiss me, I found it weird at first, firstly because she was drunk and secondly because she was a girl. My head was spinning and my heart was racing, so I bailed, went to get one of her mates and then I left. All night I was fighting with myself trying to figure out what had just happened and how she was drunk and clearly didn’t know what she was doing, but for the first time in forever I actually felt something the moment she kissed me. Anyway, a few weeks later she invited us all over to her house again for another party, I tried to avoid her and just keep out of her way, felt like the right thing to do and the easiest option to avoid any sort of awkwardness or risk anyone else finding out. I was outside in the garden and she came up to me, I literally froze wanted to run for the hills but thought it was unfair as she probably felt the same way I did. She was sober this time and I was kind of sober. She asked if we could go for a walk and have a chat and I agreed, after a while we stopped and she held my hand and just came out with it, she said that she couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss and me and wanted to try again just to see if it was the alcohol talking. So we kissed again, she told me that this was the first time she’d kissed a girl (apart from our first disaster of a kiss) but that it felt so right and that she wanted to spend some time with me again, alone. I literally ran away from her, ignored her texts, her calls, everything! I couldn’t be gay, there was no way!! I liked boys and only boys! Or at least that’s what I made myself believe for years!! Eventually she moved away, made my life a lot easier, I liked her a lot but couldn’t let anyone know that,particularly her! I got with lads, had a few relationships which lasted around 5 minutes considering I wasn’t the relationship type and enjoyed going solo. And then I met a girl from work, straight away I fancied her, she was beautiful, funny and we got on really well! I was seeing a lad at the time and I liked him or maybe I just liked him being there when I was pissed off or just wanted to get away from my head. Me and another mate got invited to another party, the usual happened, we had a good time and then… she walks in, the girl from work. She looked stunning, I pretended I didn’t see her and carried on. Early hours of the morning Everyone was either asleep, gone home or with someone else. I started to sober up and me and this girl started chatting, we were having a laugh and then literally out of nowhere I went in for the kiss, I shocked myself, couldn’t believe what I had just done. But she smiled and kissed me back, we must of been there just kissing for hours. I had to leave and get ready for work, hungover to fuck and having to deal with people all day made me want to cry she was in on the shift after me, I was terrified at how she would react. Would she ignore me? would she be awkward? The time came when it was time to go home, I just smiled and left. Then I got a message, she wanted to know why I was being awkward and if what had happened the night before would affect our friendship and obviously I ignored it once I had pulled my head out of my arse, we decided to hang around quite a bit, and we decided that we would be in a relationship but that no one could know because we were embarrassed of what people would think. This went on for 7 years!! I constantly cheated on her with boys and the odd girl, I had to be straight!! What if people would take the piss out of us, what if they would be really nasty to her? After all she was the sensitive type, where I was/am the type to give it back. Being with her, for the first time I felt love, I knew I loved her but couldn’t tell her, I think she knew I did, she just knew I couldn’t say it. Our “relationship” if that’s what it was ended slowly, we saw less and less of eachother which was sad and then it just kind of stopped. She would message me from time to time, but I just couldn’t reply, I suppose I was hurt looking back on it now!! Even after them 7 years, I still didn’t want to believe I liked women, so again I got with boys and again the odd girl. There were so many times when I could have something real you know?! But I just couldn’t give myself to them fully, I was struggling with my head- again! The anxiety and depression kicked in and I just wasn’t the person I used to be, I wouldn’t talk to my friends, I wouldn’t go out, I wouldn’t talk to my family. I just drifted, I was lost!! I’ve met an amazing women and we’ve been together for nearly 4 years, but I’m drifting back in to that old pattern. I’m not the person she needs right now and honestly I don’t know how I can be, I’m lost again!! She is so patient with me, so kind and so loving, but I just can’t reciprocate it. I’m lost again!! I thought maybe I was gay and that was that, but now I’m not so sure!! My story has just begun and I’m nowhere near the person I want to be, but actually writing it down and being able to say all the things I’ve been battling with for years has really helped! If there is one thing I’ve learnt from all this, it’s that you have to be yourself! Gay, Bisexual, pansexual, whatever, whoever you are, you have to be yourself!! If there is anything that 2020 has taught us, it’s that crazy and unexpected things can happen! People have lost the people they love, people are losing the people they love and do you really want to go out, when it’s your time regretting things that you could have done or could have said? Because I know that’s not how it’s happening with me! I’m going to finally sort my shit out and be who I really am! It may take some time and I’m afraid it may hurt people at the time, but you can’t hide who you really are, otherwise what is the whole point in all this heartbreak? Be you! Not who someone else wants you to be! If you like girls then good for you, if you like boys then good for you and if you like both then you’re greedy like me just be yourself, because I know I’m going to be! whatever that may bring with it!! Peace

I’m bisexual

I am bisexual but when I came out of the closet with my parents they didn’t accept it so I had to tell them to “change” but luckily I have people who love me and who support me no matter who I am and encourage me to never stop being who I am.

Bisexual

I knew I was different when I was about 11. Didn’t realize it until I was in my twenties.
I was reading fan-fiction one day and started talking to the author of the story and she told me that she was gay and how she came out and was proud of it. I told her what I had been feeling and came out to her as bisexual.
Then I had to buck the courage to tell My best friend of 20 years at that point. But she had pointed it out to me one day after my conversation with the author friend.
She told me she always knew because I looked at girls differently than I do guys. She wasn’t put off because she has a gay family member.
I told my husband and he smiled and said I still love you.
The hardest one to tell was my other friend. She wasn’t too keen on gay people as In she just didn’t get it. However now we play “couple” together when we do go out to the bar for a girls night. She’s fine with me now. Just blindsided her.
In a manner of speaking I haven’t totally come out. I’m terrified of telling my family. My dad I’m sure knows I’ve hinted at it and he goes with it. But it’s my mother. She’s called bisexual people greedy. And it’s stuck with me. She’s called me a butch since I cut my hair differently. Or how I wear my clothes. She says you dress like a dyke. I get annoyed and ignore her as best as I can.
It hurts. It will always hurt. But Dominique you inspire me. So here is my truth. I am a bisexual married woman. I love the heart not the parts type.

Lesbian

i guess i knew i wasnt straight when i was watching greys anatomy and started liking amelia shepherd and lexie grey a little too much. i sort of obsessed over them and realized that wasn’t a thing straight girls did. i tried calling myself bisexual and it worked for a while, but eventually i realized i didn’t really like men the same way i like women. i told one of my close friends, and she encouraged me to tell my other friends. a year and five months ago i came out to my sister, and she said she wasn’t surprised. two weeks later i started dating one of my best friends, and we’ve been together for a little over a year and four months. then, 8 months ago, i came out to my mom. she wasn’t thrilled about me dating at 14, but she really didn’t care that i was gay. now she makes gay jokes with me and tells me to invite my girlfriend over for dinner. i’m glad i got the courage to come out, and im insanely grateful to my family for being so accepting and okay with it. so here i am, typing my story into a website. my name is Hannah and i’m a proud lesbian.