Community Rainbow Waves

Gay

Hi, I’m Monika and I’m from Poland. As you can know, in my country being no-heterosexual human is still very controvercial… Last year on Pride Paradę in Białystok, 5 thoustand pseuo-catholic man in t-shirt with inscripions about “God” interrupted the march. They were yelling to participants that they are preverts and should get the fuck out of their city. Finally they were threwing bricks at the participants, many of them needed to stay in hospital. This was happend because our government is lead by homophobes and with the church, before the parade, they were calling to “stop deviants”. In some cities and towns local governments passed the law called “zone free of lgbt ideology”… You can see how much, when you search in google “atlas of hate”. So it’s very difficult to live and come out in country like this… But I’m out! I want to tell a story about my coming out in my study group. I study medicine, presently on 3rd year. This story was happend at the end of 1st year. We were sitting in classroom and waiting for the last class of chemistry. Somebody ask the question “What would you do if your son would be gay?” and than it all started… My friend, who come from very catholic family said, that she would sent her son to the exorcist. I was totaly shocked… Then my other friend said that he would sent him to the good psychologist to treat him from” this”. That was very painful for me, because we’re going to be doctors, we can’t discriminate anyone… So I stood up and said “I’m lesbian!” Everybody quieted. Then few people said that is okey, good etc. I can say that this evet changed mind in my group and nobody said anything against LGBT community later. Because of it, I think it’s so important to be out, to change stereptyphical thinking about LGBT community and to support other people! In this moment I want to thank you Dominique for your coming out! It means a lot for people like me, which sometimes live in hostile envitonment and have to struggle with this everyday.

Queer in Northern Utah

When I was 22, I was reading Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult and I wished I was gay because I wanted a wife, I wanted a relationship like the one the women in the book had. I told this to a friend of mine and she said, “Maybe you’re gayer than you think?” Four months later, I’d left my male fiance and was dating my friend.

I am queer

I have always felt “out of place.” Dressing like a “tomboy” from the age I was finally able to dress myself everyday. I wanted to hang out with the boys on the playground and play video games with my uncles. Then much later on, in the 7th grade, I started coming across the LGBTQ+ community. It was in brief passing, but slowly and surely I started doing research into the vast world of gender and sexual orientations. I tried to tell my family this over that summer…it didn’t go well. The first person I told was my cousin. He was my best friend at the time. However, he ended up telling his parents who would then tell mine. My parents tried to accept me, but ultimately they just didn’t understand. They didn’t understand how this “change” could just come out of nowhere. Why I wanted to cut my hair and start dressing differently. Most importantly, they were worried that once I came out how it would reflect on them. They were scared. So I hid my identity. I was only true to my close group of friends, who would later on abandon me as well. This lack of support caused me to fall into a deep depression and struggle with mental health for over 4 years now. But, in the midst of all the darkness, I found people who accepted me. I found my best friend. I found my first girlfriend. We dated for several months, however my mom eventually forced me to stop seeing her. Now I live relatively closeted. Waiting for a place I know is safe, free from judgment. But I know who I am. I am queer. I am 16. I am a female. I am a survivor. And I will remain true to myself no matter what because the bravest thing you can do is be yourself <3

A queer work in progress

I had become aware of my queerness very early on, when I found myself wanting to kiss girls and not really understanding why. The thought immediately terrified me, due to many of the surrounding messages I had around the topic. Many of my extended family members are devoutly religious, and believe the traditional viewpoints on sexuality. That was the platform they used to deny the existence of such people. To deny my own existence to me before I was even aware.

With my parents, the story was different. I grew up in a agnostic household, neither my mom or dad practicing in anything. So these experiences of homophobia somehow stung even worse. My experience with my father has been better, but the experience with my mother has proven much more difficult. I was always aware of her general disgust over “those people” and that negative reinforcement crept in very early on.

The peak of our issues occurred in June of 2020. I had already been out to my parents, and basically the world. I was out as bisexual, but at the time I was experimenting with other terms to see what felt best. I was struggling with the authenticity of my attraction to men, as well as experiencing internalized bi-phobia. Basically, I was in a spot where I wasn’t sure where my sexuality best fit. So, I personally landed on queer. After reading about Dom’s experience, I grew to like using the term queer as my label. Queer, to me, feels liberating and doesn’t limit the type of people I can love. It opens up the option for my sexuality to be fluid and grow with me over time. I love all terms and find them all to be valid, but with time queer just became the best fit for me. Ultimately, I got a pride themed tattoo and identified and queer publicly, in celebration of my two year coming out anniversary.

My mother did not like the change. I had told her about the tattoo and the label, and explained that I wasn’t sure where I stood with my attraction to men. She grew distant, and I confronted her about the silence. Ultimately, she told me “I never wanted my daughter to be a lesbian.” This obviously triggered a visceral reaction within me, striking as the inevitable finale to all her homophobic undertones.

After the worst had passed, there has been brighter days. My mother and I are on decent terms, but my sexuality is a topic we just don’t address anymore. My dad will address my queerness occasionally but I can still sense the discomfort.

Apart from my parents and most of my extended family, I have received nothing but immense support and love from friends and some family members. I have also been supported substantially by seeing great representation in the world around me, such as Dom’s work on Wynonna Earp and with Start The Wave. This gracious support has helped me move on from the harsh words of others, to experience myself authentically and grow into my own. A growth I am still working on to this day. As a 22 year old, I still work with and struggle with finding comfort in my sexuality. Feelings fluctuate as I change as a person over time, so my discovery of who I am is a constant work in progress. I learn about myself everyday, and how I am meant to live this life.

At the end of the day, I am me. In all of my authentic, queer ways. I’m learning to see all parts of myself and accept them with open arms. For now, I find comfort in the unknown. Terrifying, yet forever liberating.

Thank you.

Asexual

I was 14 when I realized I was LGBTQ2IA+ but at first I thought I was Bisexual at first because I didn’t even know what being asexual was. Just before I turned 16 is when I started thinking more about asexuality and I knew as soon as I found out more about what is was that it was who I am. The first person I told it was a really casual thing and we didn’t really talk about it. After that I told my best friend but after that I realized I didn’t really care about coming out. I started thinking that people who are straight people do not have to come out and being straight inst the norm anymore so I just went along and people found out when I introduced everyone to my girlfriend. After that people kind of just had to except it.

Learning not to Fight Myself

A lot of people seem to know that they are “different” from an early age.

I never did. Or I didn’t for years anyway.

I had so many other things I was worried about. Whether it was switching schools again, taking care of my siblings that were significantly younger than me, or just trying to settle in to another new place, boys always seemed unimportant, so the fact that I wasn’t interested in them obviously just wasn’t a big deal. “I’m busy,” I told myself. “I need to make friends, get good grades, go off to college, then I’ll have time for that.”

But I was enamored with my girl friends, here and there. They were dynamic, intelligent, powerful, beautiful, captivating. I wanted to understand them, to do things for them, to make them feel like they were seen and they mattered. I would skip out on homework to text them, crawl out onto the roof at night when I was supposed to be in bed to have long phone conversations about our hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. I would give up sleep to hear more about the complexities that come out of a person in the dark. I resented the boys that made them feel worthless or annoying or not good enough, because how could they be so blind?

When I first figured out that dating girls was a thing that you could do, I was 15. My first thought was, “Oh no. That. I want to do that.”

I made my way through my sophomore year in a blur, for the first time fully aware of a crush while it was happening. I went to prom with a nice boy from my friend group and hid in the bathroom because I couldn’t bring myself to dance with him. I knew I was staring at a friend who would never look at me that way, and I knew I had something to confront.

In the middle of all of it, my parents sold my childhood home and announced that we would be moving from our tiny Midwestern town to a suburb of Denver. I muddled through the year, researching by consuming every piece of lesbian representation that I could find and then promptly deleting my search history. Until the day that I didn’t. Until the day my parents sat me down as asked me about it. And I told them. And they asked if I was trying to get back at them for making me move. And we decided a few months later that I would go back home to finish high school, but tell no one because it would make things too hard. Make people too uncomfortable.

I truly, publicly, came out a month after I graduated. The day that marriage equality became the law of the land in the United States, June 26th 2015, I wrote a long, thoughtful Facebook post for anyone apart from my friends and family I’d already told. My mom called me to tell me that I should have asked her first, because she was having a hard week because it was her 40th birthday. That I should have asked before I celebrated because she didn’t want to deal with questions form the family. That I could still live a life of celibacy with God.

That was the first time that I felt the fierce protectiveness for my community, for myself, for my own worth, swirl and solidify in my chest. The first time that I really recognized that I didn’t need to be my own worst enemy because the world would take care of that. I had plenty to fight. I didn’t need to fight myself. Most importantly, I was strong enough to put myself in front of anyone that wasn’t there yet, and that that’s what this community does. We defend each other. We help each other. We love each other.

Since then we’ve seen the Pulse shooting. We’ve seen half a dozen years of Pride. We’ve seen job discrimination outlawed. I’ve fallen in and out of love and back into it again. I’ve met spectacular women and men and non-binary and agender folks that have taught me the beauty of the spectrum of human expressions of gender and sexuality and love. It’s made me a better person. I’m more understanding, more empathetic, more open. I wouldn’t trade this community, or this experience of myself for anything.

THE WAY TO YOURSELF BEGINS WITH LOVE

Love for a woman is the most beautiful thing that happened in my life.

I’ve always been a weird kid who wasn’t interested in relationships. I didn’t like boys and I didn’t like girls. I was fascinated by my inner world and the mysteries that fill my life. But I confess: “All my life I have been looking for a friend with whom I would like to share my discoveries.”

At the age of 16, I went to another school and met a girl. It seemed to us that we were once very close, which amazed us. One accident helped me become aware of my feelings. Unfortunately, they were not reciprocal. I was able to suppress these feelings in order to move on.

From the very beginning it seemed so natural to me. The only reason I tested myself for a long time, trying to be normal, is our legislation. Most likely, I will never have a full-fledged family … But it is easier to accept this than to pretend all my life.

None of my relatives know about this. I don’t want to lose my only family. And I don’t want to hurt them. But with close friends, I am absolutely frank. This gives freedom to me and to them. Very soon I fell unrequitedly in love again, but chose a new path.

Once a persone I loved said: “Unconditional love is possible only for God.” And I smiled …

I think that to love a person whom you don’t hear, don’t see, don’t know whether he is smiling now or sadness fills his heart … and even more so you don’t have the opportunity to be near, to bare yourself in front of him … This is the same as to love God.

After all, all you know is that he Is. And at some point it becomes enough for you.

My soul has always resisted the understanding of Love as an internal state. After all, I was sure that love is, first of all, a manifestation … without which any important words lose all value. And these feelings (be it inspiration or immense emptiness) without action are most likely nothing more than a need for acceptance and recognition. Since you feel so important because of the other. And this is actually enough for many people.

But when you Love, one state seems so little. There is a growing feeling of overcrowding. It’s like a cup inside you, which will soon overflow … Or a growing tree, directed upward, which is blocked by a stone roof, not allowing it to become even larger and more powerful.

Subsequently, a moment comes when you lose the meaning of life… It’s scary, hard, and aimless.

Every day the same question: “Why? What is the meaning of everything that happens to you, what is born in you, changes you, inspires you, but also throws you against a concrete wall? ” Even if you do not even have the right to say “I love you” … In any case, in the sense that is genuine.

But you don’t want to get rid of it…

It’s so easy to erase someone from your heart, stifle it in yourself and move on, continuing your search. But only weak people do this. This is the path of those who expect love from others but don’t love others. You know … When you do not want to give up on anyone, consciously dooming yourself to loneliness, the appearance of that very only person gradually dissolves. His figure slowly disappears, but the feeling remains with you.

Now I look into the eyes and find God in them, I see a blurry silhouette, behind which the whole world is.

I was finally able to feel that everything in the world exists as a whole. One soul that knew nothing but chaos until it incarnated in the material world. That is why when you meet a person who seems similar, understandable and so familiar to you, you get the feeling that you have returned home.
It always seemed to me that to be spiritual means to be in such a state of consciousness in which you identify yourself with everything living and nonliving that exists in this world or another.

Now I also identify the people I love with the Universe. They are an integral part of it, just like me. This means that we are all small parts of each other.
This gives so many opportunities for my Love that I have not found before. And if I want to show my feelings, I can do it at any moment, under any circumstances, and wherever I am. Then the world, albeit imperceptibly, will change.

In this moment, I realize that I love life like I never did before. And I so want to know her. Since life itself is Love. Now I listen to music differently, I read books differently, my fingers touch the strings of the guitar in a new way, my arms hug my relatives differently, and my eyes look at the stars in a different way.

These feelings are so pleasant. Something warm and bright shines inside me.

The body seems light, and complex things seem surprisingly simple.

It’s incredible how beautiful everything around me is, and it deserves the greatest love.

So one person becomes the whole world.

I will go my own way and sow seeds, in the expectation that the most beautiful buds will bloom in those places someday. And you will feel their wonderful scent, or you will even be able to enjoy the dazzling colors and amazing shapes.

And I still believe that I will be lucky enough to meet someone who is as in love with life as I am to love it together.

After all, when I am gone, the world will continue to exist. And I want that in this world there would be more Life!

Gay

I forced myself to have a crush on a boy because everyone else had one so that’s what I did. Little did I know that I was crushing on girls that were older than me and I didn’t even know it. I thought it was normal to feel that way so I never thought anything of it. I was always nervous and my face would always fluster because I was attracted to them. I remember when I was in 7th grade someone had asked me what my sexuality was and at that time I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t even know what gays and lesbians or even being bi was. So when I told them I was bi I didn’t really know what it meant so I just stuck with it. But a few days after that they ended up telling my whole class that I was bi. Every second that I had I denied everything because I was so scared of what people would think about me or if they would treat me differently. I was in a catholic school so it was never normal or shown so I denied every second of it. Until I moved schools and I saw diversity and I found out what sexuality was. That’s when I actually noticed that I was paying more attention to the girls rather than the boys. I made up what I thought were real crushes with boys and then I started realize that I liked girls the entire time. But of course I was always in denial of it. I even went online to take the ‘am I gay quiz’ I took so many of them, every single one of them came out positive. Even after all that I denied it I didn’t want anything to do with it because I was scared of it.
I remember one day my mom was taking me to soccer practice and she ended up talking to me about labels. And she started explaining to me about how my older sister thought that she was gay and that putting labels on things is what makes it become real. It sounded like my mom knew about me and basically told me I was full of crap for thinking the way I was even though I hadn’t told her anything about me. At this time I had a girlfriend and everything so I just brushed that conversation off. But but it made me feel insecure a little bit. It made me feel like I was stupid for falling for a girl and that it was fake like it was child’s play. So I hid my relationship the best way I could publicly and at home. I never really came out to my mom but now I’m growing into it and finally accepting myself for who I am. And it makes me shine brightly and especially to know that I wasn’t alone in this, that other people had been going through the same thing I was or am.

I hope my story hasn’t ended just yet.

Okay here it goes…I knew I was an LGBTQ2IA community member about 10 years ago when I stopped being in denial about my sexuality. It was exhausting coming up with excuses and thinking that I could fake love a guy if I found myself in a relationship with one. And I almost convinced myself into thinking that was an okay thing to do simply because I knew my mom wouldn’t approve of a gay daughter and most of all because it would make life easier. But something inside of me wouldn’t let go, I couldn’t imagine living happily with someone I didn’t truly or honestly could be in love with both emotionally and physically. I saw and still do to this day see how unhappy my mother is in her marriage and I cannot forcibly bring myself to live life similarly.

I did come out to one person, but she proved to not be trusting. I have not come out to my family. I know I won’t get a positive reaction from my mom. I love her to death, but she’s got this traditional way of seeing relationships that I simply don’t fit into and it hurts so much to know that she doesn’t have a problem letting someone go if they don’t retain similar interests with her. Sexuality is a big one and that has kept me in the closet. I cannot risk Losing shelter.

But life has been sad and maybe strange from an outsider’s perspective. I have so many years been my mom’s helping hand in everything from household duties ( cooking, cleaning, running errands, going to the market ) to renovation projects at home, and now in the past 8 years, at least, helping her with her with the same things, but now also helping her with her health, she’s been sick with some major illnesses and now she’s struggling physically – she is getting frail. I have literally never left her side which means I have never dated and never been in a relationship. I took online classes to acquire my higher education and it allowed me to help her while going to school too, but I never had the opportunity to explore my sexuality and to know what it feels like to intimate with someone.

God this feels so embarrassing because I don’t know if anyone can relate to my story.

It took a lot to say outloud to myself, one night lying in bed many years ago, that I am gay. It was so liberating to say because I could finally be honest to myself about my feelings. But I knew I couldn’t step out. Over the years it has eaten away at my mind so much, it is tiring and exhausting. I got into reading fanfiction last year and it has helped me cope a little with my situation. But I feel like I need something more. I recently turned 30 in March and I feel like time is running out. I want to know what it is like to love and to be loved. I hope it’s not selfish to think or feel this way when I have my mom that needs my help.

I recently have had the opportunity to apply for work at law enforcement agencies, police officer positions. I hope between all the stress here at home I will be able to get into the physical shape needed in order to get through the physical agility tests. I hope through this I can finally come out and not be fearful about it and hopefully find a girlfriend – a loving partner. I can only hope right?

I came across this website through a fanfiction writer’s tumblr. I learned about Dominique’s instagram which led me to her website. I have never shared my story with anyone, and doing so on this platform is nerve wracking, but in knowing that if one person can relate to my story it will make me feel a little better and it will mean the world to me that this one person can feel better too knowing their not alone.

Thank you for taking the time in reading my story and thank you Dominique for creating such a wonderful and genius website that allows for stories to be told. I was really moved by your coming out story and as a result it motivated me to share mine.

A burrito but like very spicy

Well to make it short I’ve always wanted to look like some girls (since always like padme from Star Wars when I was like 4), and some day I juste realized like “hey MAYBE I don’t want to be like them but to be WITH them”. Then I was like : I’m a lesbian donc try to convince me otherwise.
I didn’t really told my parents and entourage they just understood as I was just myself completely.
Then I started to put words on the fact that I never felt like myself in my body or when called “she, her”..
So yeah just like that I knew that I was actually trans (ftm) and yeah a boy like “hey let’s just complicate everything”. That was 4 1/2 years ago and I struggled a lot with that.
I’m out as a straight boy to my friends and my school and some members of my family but let’s say that my family aren’t that open minded about it so yep I have to pay all myself and being just 18 I can finally start this long journey on my own.
So yep long story short this was my life so far, good day to all from France <3