Community Rainbow Waves

“I am not confused and therefore a bisexual…I am just a confused bisexual” Alina, Germany

Looking back on my childhood I now ask myself “how did I not realise it sooner”. I am a 16 year old cis white girl from Berlin, Germany. Troughout my childhood I always wanted to “be friends” with sertain girls becuase I thought that they were pretty and kind. I had a huge crush on Emma Watson because “she was so cool”. My “bisexual awakening” was popably in 4th grade while watching “Pirates of the Caribbean” I had a crush on both Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.
I was always a little wilder and “boyish” in my behaviour although I wore dresses. In 5th grade I stopped wearing them and started wearing hand me downs form my older brothers. because of my outer appereance mixed with my boyish behavior I was called names by some mean kids but hey I either ignored them or challenged them fo a fist fight (I won…most times).
So the name calling stopped and I lived in peace until 8th grade came along. One of my close friends outed herself as “bisexual”. I was like “wait a minute…I can like both? Boys AND girls?”. It took me a half a year to accept the Idea of me liking both girls and boys. In 9th grade I wa certain that one could classify myself as a bisexual. But then my “bisexual” friend came out as a lesbian and explained that she only outed herself as bisexual because she wasn’t 100% shure she only liked girls. But now she was.
So my inner struggle began…I thought that I maybe was lying to myself because being bisexual was “easyer” than being a lesbian. on other days I thought that I must be a lesbian because not every boy seems attractive to me.
My wohle friendgroup is pretty gay…like LGBTQ..yep we have every damn letter represented. Don’t get me wrong I love my friends but sometimes they overdid it a bit with things like: “You totally look like a lesbian today”. They didn’t know that their “encourageing” words confused me even more.
On some days I just wanted to be a lesbian just to stop that ongoing confusion in my head. But I still liked boys and had to deal with that.
I am not confused and therefore a “bisexual” I am just a confused bisexual.
Now 2 years later I am out in school, to my famely and friends and am currently dating a girl. The confusion stopped and I accepted myself.

My coming out:
The first time I came out to someone other than myself was in 9th grade when I told my friends that I was “bisexual”. They weren’t suprised and freaking high fived me. So a very positive experience.
Half a year later I came out to my dad(my mom and dad are married for 33 years now) he promised not to say anything to my mom. We were driving back from the ski-lift. My father was telling me fun facts to the song we were currently listening to. One of these facts was that the female singer was married to a woman. I said:”why marry a man if you could have a wife”. He just looked at me and agreed “true”. A few minutes later he turned to me and asked “are you a lesbian now?” I sayed: “No, bisexual”. He nodded. No questions asked.

so 2 positive reactions to my coming out. I also have had negative ones but I already wrote a little bit too much XD sooo
I wish you all the best and hope that you are living in a save environment that allows you to be yourself.
-Alina

Still figuring this out

I’ve never admitted it before, ever, to anyone… I’ve spent 15 years feeling like there is something wrong with me! I am brand new to this world and to earpers and I’m blown away by the community feel. I was introduced just a few weeks ago after reading Dom’s birthday post and after reading it I related so much. I was so inspired by her words. I related to the feelings of suppression and putting the part of me I knew to be true to the back of my mind to pretend it didn’t exist. The part of me that I know is also attracted to woman. I’ve got that feeling where my tummy is doing flips by even just typing it. Because I’ve never faced it until now.
I’ve been in heterosexual relationships my whole life and have been in my current relationship for the last 10 years. I have young children who are my everything. This is part of the question that runs through my mind, how can I be in a long term relationship with a man, be a mum and still know that I do have an attraction to woman too? Does it make me a bad person? Or a bad mum? My partner would also likely feel betrayed that I never talked about this. I don’t even know how he would feel about it. There are so many scenarios in my head.
I’m still not ready to verbalise what I am but at least I have finally admitted it to myself. Maybe over time, meeting the right people and continuing to be inspired within the STW community I will one day be at my bravest. But for now, all I know is that Dom sparked something within me to be true to myself. I’m a thirty year old bisexual.

Still figuring things out 🙂

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

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

Bisexual Woman

I’ve known that I wasn’t straight for the last four years of my life, and in that time, I had only come out to two other people, both of whom are a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Recently, as I have come to better understand and accept my sexuality, I felt that it was time to come out to my family but could not broach the subject without feeling (rightfully) nervous about it. Surprisingly enough (or maybe not so surprising), I came out to both my uncle, as well as my mom and sisters in two completely separate, yet unplanned ways.

My uncle is a jovial man who has always lovingly teased us growing up and him bringing up whether I had found a boyfriend yet was a daily occurrence which I always indulged him in by answering “nope.” For some reason, receiving this answer on a random day in July promoted him to ask if I was even interested in men. I stayed silent, unsure of how to respond, so he moved on to ask about women. When I refused to answer that as well he slyly asked about both, and having made up my mind to tell him the truth the moment this inquisition began, I simply raised my glass in toast. I wasn’t expecting a negative response, but the cheerful slap on the back and zero hesitation in his joking ways as he continued the conversation were gratifying, to say the least.

Cue two months later, we’re in early September and my immediate family still doesn’t know. I had noticed a new beauty mark on the heel of my palm that sat right in the middle of the intersection between two palm lines. I instinctively brought this up to my mom and showed her the beauty mark, and she responded by joking that maybe it’s position meant I was bisexual. I brushed off her comment, not intending to come out right that moment, but my twin sister quickly followed my mom’s comment by questioning whether I was bisexual. Now, I can’t lie to save my life. My whole family knows that. So the moment my twin asked this question I knew I’d be coming out to her, my mom, and my younger sister who was sitting with me on the couch. I answered with a simple “yeah,” and the conversation moved on. Admittedly, they were a bit shocked that I had known this about myself for the last four years, and they were completely taken aback to find out that my uncle knew before them and had kept it to himself without me asking him to, but they accepted me, as I knew they would, and that’s all that matters.

I have yet to come out to my dad and brother, and despite being out to a lot more people, I’m still nervous about broaching the subject out of the blue. I’d rather let it come about naturally, as it did with my uncle, mom, and sisters, but hopefully I can gather up the courage to let them know soon.

Caroline P C

when i found out, it was very confusing and when i decided to share it with my friends they super welcomed me with open arms, being just one of my lgbtq + community friendship cycle, i feel welcomed by them and a lucky woman for that

JENNIFER, 19, CISGENDER LESBIAN, SHE/HER

I first thought I might be gay when I was 11 (2011). It occurred to me that every ‘crush’ I’d had on boys had only ever been for show. Boys weren’t something I ever thought of that way unless prompted by peers or parents. I remember thinking over in my head ‘no, Jeni, you can’t be gay. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me’ and then I pushed it far back in my mind for years.
By high school (2013), I started to notice I was different. I happened to be in an all girls class so it was easy to notice. I was spending every day with 30 other 13yo girls and all of them obsessing over boys and I started to feel like something was wrong with me. Funnily enough, 13yo me didn’t even consider that I might be gay, I was just pleased to not be distracted from my school work and went on faking crushes on boys, barely realising that was what I was doing.
It took one of my close friends coming out as bisexual, in grade 9 (2014),to make me start thinking about that again, and I didn’t fully admit it to myself, that I liked girls, until I couldn’t deny my feelings for that friend.
I wanted to tell my best friend first but she was away sick from school the day I planned to do it. It made me sad all day and in English I ended up coming out my bi friend/crush as bisexual. I saw being bisexual as more ‘normal’; I was too scared to admit to anyone or even myself that I didn’t like boys. She took it well of course. I texted my other friend that afternoon and told her and she was supportive too.
The next person I told was my older sibling and they were great about it but warned me that our parents didn’t ‘believe’ in bisexuality.
Those first ‘coming outs’ went down in August 2014 right around my 14th birthday. By that September I told a classmate of mine (later became my best friend, now still a good friend) after she’d gushed to me about the boy she liked and then asked who I liked. And, after some nervous hesitation, I told her. She didn’t even question it she just said it was cute and wanted to hear more about the crush not my sexuality which was a huge relief.
The rest of my family (mum, dad, other two siblings) I came out to that October, when I started dating my bisexual friend, simply by telling them who I was dating. They weren’t not supportive. I didn’t expect them to have any ‘issues’ with it. But I can’t say I was happy about their reactions. All that sticks out to me is my dad joking ‘at least you won’t get pregnant’ (which hurt because I’ve always really really wanted to be a mum) and one of my siblings chiming in with another joke. And I can’t ever complain about that because they support me which is ‘lucky’.
My other friends and peers just found out by seeing me with my girlfriend, from what I remember. We didn’t hide it much at school, but there was still hate. I remember holding hands once on the way to class and some guy called us f*gs.
It took me a couple more years to let myself be just gay. I’m almost 20 now and still struggle to talk directly about how I’m attracted to women, unless I’m saying it in a joke. I still feel a bit ashamed at times when watching intimate moments between 2 women in shows/movies and even when no one else is in the room and it’s just kissing. I still have to worry about how anyone new I meet could be moderately to extremely homophobic. I still feel the need to come out to new people I meet. I still have to hide it from my homophobic grandparents. Some of it just really sucks.
But some of it is beautiful too and I try every day to focus on those parts more. My new goal, inspired by Dominique P-C, is to remind myself daily that my queerness is beautiful.

Lesbian

I had never been much interested in boys, while my group friends talked about the boys they liked I never really cared for it or wanted to comment on it. After a few years I drifted apart from that group of friends. One day at school
when I was either 14 or 15 one of the girls from that group approached me and asked if I’m a lesbian. I was shocked and didn’t know how to respond immediately, I had answered with a no and asked where that question came from. She had explained that I had never shown any interest nor talked about boys while I was still friends with them and that I was always very tomboyish. So I thought about it and I said maybe. She left and I quickly followed her to ask not to tell anyone. We got into a lively conversation and her other friends approached to ask what was going on and she flat out told them that I’m a lesbian. I was furious, more people came along and they told them as well.
Soon so many people knew of something I wasn’t even sure of and it was embarrassing. I changed schools after the year ended and I started to question my sexuality a whole lot. I was afraid to call myself a lesbian so I went with every other thing, asexual, aromatic, bisexual, pansexual, lesbian, back to pansexual. A rollercoaster for many years. But recently, I discovered myself completely at the ripe age of 20, that I’m a lesbian. I came out to my close friends very quickly and I was showered with love and acceptance. I couldn’t have been happier really. I love being a lesbian and I love my community. Much love to everyone

Feelings and Finding Footing

I came out on my private facebook page in October 2018, when I was 25. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written.
I’d never been fully, openly truthful about who I am. While I had told a few close friends, I hadn’t told anyone else. As scared as I was to do it, it was time. I’m still scared of how it may affect my career (I’m also an actress), but I refuse to live in that fear forever.

I identify as a demisexual-lesbian. I’m not a huge fan of labels, but I use that to help others understand.

I grew up in a conservative family, in a conservative area. I’ve known since I was 11 years old. For many years I was hoping and praying it was a “phase”, repeatedly begging God to please help me; fix me.
It never worked.

I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 12 years old. I developed panic disorder and depression.

In high school, I told a trusted friend. Not long after, what seemed like the entire school knew. I lost friends. I was blackmailed, harassed, bullied, humiliated, and was even physically threatened. My school did nothing. I didn’t want to live anymore.

I’ve grown tired of worrying about who knows and who doesn’t, worrying if people that I didn’t want to know found out. It’s too much to worry about. I know I will lose people that I care about over this, but I can’t change who I am. Like I’ve said, I’ve tried.

I’ve accepted who I am (even if I still don’t always like it.) If you can’t accept me and support me as I am, please respect me and refrain from trying to “change” me or “save” me.
If God be God, and really can do anything, that means that I can be changed. Then why haven’t I been? Maybe it’s because I’m SUPPOSED to be this way. Why? I don’t know. It is what it is; I am who I am.

I would hope that I deserve to love and be loved just as much as anyone else.

To those who stick by me; your support means more than you could ever possibly imagine. 10 years ago I thought no one ever would, so it still surprises and moves me every single time someone does.

I definitely still have more self-discovery to do, but I’m learning to be less afraid. I’ll get there.

Sending all the love and light to my rainbow family.

Kaleen’s Journey

Your personal journey to finding yourself¬–whether you’re queer or not¬–is a universal thing we all experience. As unique and individual those journeys may be, the feelings and emotions are something we all share, and I find that to be so beautiful!

Love is love, hurt is hurt, heavy is heavy, hard is hard, joy is joy. Remember we all experience these things together and no one should judge anyone’s story and compete over struggles, but rather find connections and how much we all share as people. Let’s all continue to grow, love and support each other and continue this wave of self-love and discovery!

So that said, I would love to share my experience publicly for the first time, in the hopes it helps someone else find their truth. <3

I’m Kaleen and I identify as lesbian, queer and gay. I am 28 years old and I’m an art director and actress in San Francisco. For me, and I’m sure many of you, finding myself and accepting myself are two very different things and came at very different times in my life. Next week, I proudly celebrate my 4 year wedding anniversary with my amazing wife (we’ve been together for over 8 years) so my story has a very happy ending! But it definitely didn’t start that way.

For most of my life, I did not realize I was gay. I didn’t even consider it as an option. I grew up in a religious household with a mother who I believe after years of therapy to have Borderline personality disorder (BPD). It was not a healthy or emotionally safe environment for me. I truly believed that I was just an amazing Christian who was waiting till marriage (for you know)… but waiting was super easy for me because I had ZERO desire to be intimate with a man. Even when I had boyfriends and would kiss them, I would find myself counting down the seconds till it was over. I truly thought everyone felt this way and it was something I would learn to like and we all just have to get over that hurdle of disgust. I would see my friends falling head over heels for their boyfriends and wonder how they got over that hurdle, and think I’ll get there soon too… that day didn’t come for me.

Knowing myself now and looking back, there were so many “clues” that I was gay, but it still did not cross my mind. I remember watching the show House and there was an episode when Olivia Wilde’s character, Thirteen, came out as bisexual. The scene where she kissed another woman, I remember rewinding and watching it a few times. This was one of the first times I’d seen this on T.V. and it was the start of my eyes opening into what is possible. This is why representation is SO important!

Fast forward to college. This is when my life flipped on its head! I found myself in a relationship with a man and we got engaged (for his privacy, I will call him John). He was a wonderful human, and I truly thought I was “in” love. I did love him, but just not the way he deserved to be loved, and not the way I deserved to experience it. At this time, I also built a wonderful friendship with a girl and we became best friends. When I got engaged to John, something in me snapped because my mind knew that eventually I will have to have sex with this person. This tossed me into a deep depression and in doing so, also opened my eyes to a past I had bolted shut. I realized all in one moment, that I was gay, in love with my best friend, and I also had PTSD with memories of being sexually abused by a family member for half my childhood flooding my mind, all while going to school full time and holding a job to pay rent. It was a lot to discover all at one time and I felt completely overwhelmed and alone. The only person I felt comfortable sharing all these pieces of myself with was my best friend Kay. Little by little I had to confront and try to accept all these things happening in my life.

At this time, I asked John to give me space. He understood that I was having trouble with my PTSD and needed to distance myself from him. We were fully separated for over 3 months with no communication as I worked to find myself again and heal from my past.

Kay was patient and helped me heal, and through all this we became unbelievably close. At this time, she was not out as gay either. Funny enough, we did not even realize that our relationship was different than other girl/girl relationships because it felt so natural to the point we didn’t stop and ask ourselves if this was “normal”. Needless to say, we figured it out together. At this point, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to allow myself to live an authentic life because I knew in doing this, I would lose family. Before I said yes or no, I gave myself one day to openly (in the privacy of my home) love Kay and acknowledge how we felt for one another. We spent the day just holding each other, laughing, and enjoying how we felt. As the clock drew near to midnight, our hearts began to sink as we knew we only had this moment. To this day, I can’t watch All Dogs Go To Heaven because that was on in the background. We shared one last amazing kiss and then walked into separate rooms. Oh, did I not mention we were also roommates! Yeah… that made things even harder!

Days turned into weeks of me pretending like I could live without her, till I just couldn’t take it anymore. I decided I would let myself be gay if, and only if, my sister could be ok with it. Lucky for me, she was open to trying to understand. It was at this point I officially ended my engagement with John. I returned the ring and we had a wonderful moment of thanking each other for all the good times and wished nothing but happiness and healing to one another. A few months after this, I began my first true relationship with Kay.

I came out to my family and my father and stepmom were amazingly supportive and even helped pay for my therapy during all this, but my mother would not accept my truth. She said to me “I would rather you be unhappy in this lifetime, but forever happy in the kingdom of god” and asked me to deny myself love and live alone. I gave myself the best gift I could and will ever give and decided to fully embrace my love for Kay regardless of what this person thought. It was hard, it’s still hard to think about, but it’s what was best for me. Years later when we became engaged, my mom officially removed herself from my life and we haven’t seen or spoken since.

Like I said in the beginning of the story, Kay and I have now been together for over 8 years and we are about to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary on April 2nd. She is my absolute best friend and I don’t have words for how much I love her. She is the first time I have experienced unconditional love, and I value her with everything I am. Deciding to accept myself and live an openly gay life is the best decision I’ve made for myself and it’s a privilege I will never take for granted.

I wish everyone who reads this love and acceptance within themselves. You are love, you are here and you stay. Xoxo

Lesbian

Oh man. It’s been quite a journey. I guess it started around 5th grade or so. I recognized it and actually began to come out to myself, but in true ADHD fashion, managed to push it to the back of my mind and forgot about it for several years. My sexuality popped up later in middle school when relationships began to bloom and I failed to understand my friends’ obsession with boys. Instead I was thinking about them. I kept repressing it’s and was terribly unhappy up until last year, when I entered my first real relationship. She and I met through school and did not even know the other’s name after 7 months of sitting right next to each other. Finally, she bucked up and asked me out. Then I realized I wanted my parents to know her as my girlfriend. So I came out to them via text while across the street from them. They took it very well and it was immediately seen as just another part of me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. By coming out I was able to understand that I don’t want to hide my love for this amazing woman from anyone.