Community Rainbow Waves

Just a random guy enjoying to give love to other people.

I was born in Russia, adopted and living in France. I never knew my biological parents and so never got answers to my many questions. And it caused a lot of problems in the future, as I’m going to explain you there :
As soon as I remember, I knew I was feeling different. First I thought I was just a lesbian, a woman attracted to other women. But with the years, I was feeling unconfortable with my name… People were all saying “Justine” “she” “cutie” and my mind was feeling in another way…
In France there are genders for EVERYTHING, and so I was feeling weird ALL THE TIME…
I felt bad, always feeling like something was missing in my life.
I suffered for years from mutilation impulses and now all the scars remind me what I went throught, at the begining I was ashamed, but now I’m proud of it, it shows that my life hadn’t always been easy, but I survived, I won against depression.
When I clearly got what was happening to me, I decided to don’t hide myself anymore, I had a name on what I felt. I wanted to continue being proud of me and who I was ( I was already an assumed lesbian ).
I told it to my parents and my siblings last summer, and my siblings don’t care at all about it, but my parents don’t accept it, at all…
I told my friends as soon as I came back to school in September, they call me Thomas as if I’ve always been this man, and it feels soooo good !
I feel like I have a new life, truly me, Thomas, a random guy, finally loving other people because he learnt to move himself
My last relationships were better than all the others because I was myself, and I could love someone without fighting inside for who I was.
I’m a man, in a women body ( for the moment ), but I really love my life now, I’m ready to confront life and all its problems because myself isn’t one anymore.
Be who you are, whatever people think, because you have to love yourself before wanting to love other people
And, be fucking proud.
You’re an human, special, incredible, unique, wonderful.
And I am this kind of human
I’m a transgender
And, finally
#I’m out !!

A shy baby bi girl who has no idea what she’s doing, but is glad she is here

I’ve known since a young age that I was attracted to girls. I kissed my babysitters niece when we were 8 or 9, a few years later I found my dad’s playboy magazines – and I wasn’t trying to read the articles, I was lucky enough to have a computer in my room when I was in 6-8th grade and I found wlw fanfics online and I remember the one time I took a 1 megapixel video recording of two (2) girls kissing from a TV show on my flip phone when I was in the 9th grade (of which a friend saw and I’ve never panicked more than I have then, but someone got them to drop it and move on). The point is I’ve always known, I just always felt like that part of me had to stay hidden, even though I later became a very outspoken ally of the LGBTQ2IA+ community. I even sat with several friends as we cried together while they came out to me and I loved and supported all of them, but yet I felt that I couldn’t do the same. Maybe it was just my body insecurities, or whatever but I felt, and I guess still do to an extent, that I didn’t belong. That I didn’t physically look or dress and certain way so I couldn’t be anything but straight.

Even though I supported and had friends in the community I felt that I still needed to hide that part of myself, like it was ok for everyone else but it was wrong that I felt that way. I kept that part of me isolated to my apartment, my second tumblr account, etc. I let others make their own assumptions and just ran with it. That felt a lot easier to me than actually saying those words out loud.

I also struggled as the years went on with my age (I’m 28) I started thinking that I was “too old to come out” and what if I come out as this but later figured out that I’m that or none of those. Would people take me seriously? Would that perpetuate the bisexual stereotype of just being confused? Thinking about coming out is stressful enough but add those questions on top of that with no one to ask or have provide some kind of reassurance that everything I was feeling and thinking was normal and valid and all I had to focus on was me was torture.

And then one day I was scrolling through Tumblr and saw gifs of WayHaught and I read the comments and found out about Wynonna Earp (Funny side story: I didn’t watch the series immediately so I was just going off comments and tags and I thought Nicole was Wynonna for the longest time and was a bit confused when I first started watching the show lol) Watching Waverly grow to understand and accept herself and how brave and sure she was of her feelings for Nicole really hit me. I knew it was just a TV show but her journey was so authentic that if helped me be a bit more comfortable with what I was feeling. As soon as I started the show I also sent out my #EarperGreet tweet and was floored by how friendly and accepting the fandom was. Everything combined made me feel like I had a safe place to be myself. I started getting bolder on what I posted or liked on my main twitter and eventually got the chance to hang out with other Earpers from my city. Being able to hang out with other queer people naturally made me feel more comfortable and confident to be myself. It would be another 7 months after meeting my fellow Earpers in person, of subtle hints and whatnot online before I finally came out on twitter, on national coming out day no less. I came out as Bi and I couldn’t be happier. I’m still a bit shy in person talking about it, but I think that’s just my normal introverted, awkward self. It sounds silly, or maybe it doesn’t, but Wynonna Earp, WayHaught and Earpers as a whole really helped in making it possible for me to be me. If I hadn’t found wearp I honestly think I would have continued to be a closeted ally. So thank you.

Disclamer: I am not a writer by any means and have major scatter brain when I try to write so this probably reads as a word vomit salad so I hope it makes sense.

Better late than never!

I always felt like I didn’t fit in with the girls I went to school with. I grew up in a hard-believing traditional Christian household, and one didn’t talk about things of sexuality that didn’t fit in that vein. So purity culture was huge, and total abstinence was expected no matter who you loved outside marriage. So I pushed it down and tried to ignore it. I was attracted to different genders and I felt wrong trying to be with people I was attracted to and had to deal with the guilt of that attraction as well as the worry of violating purity culture in general. I guess subconsciously I decided that since I could be with who I wanted, I would not be with anyone.(I know- it sounds wrong to me now too!)
Fast forward literally decades to 2020- I was terrified of coming out to my family, in particular to my Mom, who was the strongest Christian influence in the family. She passed unexpectedly in 2020, and in my processing grief, I decided it was way past time for me to live my truth. I had denied myself my true being too long. I decided that I was tired of living a lie and had moved away from the many of the strict “traditional” Christian beliefs of my childhood and started looking for myself. It was time to come out. I spent weeks thinking & worrying about it, and one day, the timing made itself right- I came out as queer.
My Family’s response: “We just assumed you were.”

I couldn’t believe that I spent so many, many years living outside my genuine self and my family wasn’t really an obstacle (some other, distant relatives are not on board, but I’ve never interacted much with them) as much as I had made them to be in my head. I know this isn’t likely a common experience and I am so proud of my family and the support they’ve given since, and the work we have put in to build communication on a new domain.

I am learning and growing, since I feel like a sort of oddity being a middle-aged “baby gay”, but I’m wading into a life that I have long denied myself. I’m thrilled, I’m scared, I happy, I’m nervous, I’m certain, but mostly, I’m free and I’m out!

Loving all humans

I come from an very conservative military family so when I found out in middle school that I liked boys and girls equally I felt like my whole world was collapsing. I couldn’t talk to My family or seek their advice about this feelings and I didn’t have that many real friends so I started to feel like I didn’t know who I was. For years I put on a mask and only showed people what I wanted them to see. In 2018 my whole word changed. At the age of 22 I meet this girl what am so lucky to call my girlfriend. But that wasn’t easy. I finally told my family about her and me. They decided to send me a letter that said that they didn’t want to have anything to do with me and I was confused because “ as long as you love boys you are straight and just rebelling and trying to hurt us”.

I didn’t talk to them for 1 1/2 year. Now they say that they don’t respect it but have accepted.

My girlfriend and this community makes me strong and wanting to walk to the end of the world with my head held high and with a heart full of love and color.

Queer!

I grew up in a very conservative environment, where women are taught to aspire to have good grades and a good job just to impress people and lure the right man in to have a big jolly family… And that’s alright and fair… If it is what you really want, which is never true for most. These sort of expectations have one BIG thing missing… Where is the part about knowing thyself? Well that was basically me for the first half of my life.

All I knew was that I should be on the look out for this boy who would sweep me off my feet, lift me up from the ground and took me on his horse to a shinny happy ever after. And for that to happen I needed to be pretty, and girly, and not play ball with the other boys or act silly after a certain age, or speak out when I saw or heard something that I disagreed with… Basically be a slave to stereotypical standards… And I was great at it! Straight A student, shy and proper, church on Sundays’ great! (with the exception of Barbies… I still have no idea what’s the point of them)
Since I didn’t know anything else, I was OK with this reality. It was not until my bubble got burst, that I realized I was missing out.

In my early 20’s I had the chance to travel, and soon enough that shy, insecure girl started blooming. I was fortunate that life aligned the right people on my path, understanding, brave and genuine, that helped me grasp that all that I had conceived as “wrong” it wasn’t… It was just unknown.
It was incredible how fear was replaced with curiosity once those walls started to come down… I make it sound quite romantic but really my process was: go party, get drunk, have existential and trivial conversations at stupid hours of the night… But the important bit… It was all with the right people, with people different from me. That’s when I understood that everyone has a different path, essence and meaning, for themselves and for you.

One of these people was a girl… Chan Chan Chaaaaan.
At this point I had have relationships with boys, serious and… Not so serious (let’s leave it like that haha), but I was always looking for reasons not to stay with them, even if they were amazing; but with this girl I was instantly hooked, and it was not because of what she could give me (marriage, kids, economical solvence… whatever that means) it was because of her beautiful smile, stupid but histerical humour, her support, I even found adorable when she was being a brat… Yep… I was done…and somehow… she felt something for me too… And the rest is history…

Not the right kind of history because we didn’t end up together haha Buuuut that was when I realized that I didn’t care what the wrapping was, I loved the content, I love discovering what is inside of people, what drives them and motivates them and more importantly, finding that satisfaction for discovery in myself, the more I learn from people, the more I know myself and the more is to learn. We are in constant change, evolution and flow.

Today, I am not in a good spot, I have fallen again into trivialities and vanities that don’t make me happy. But writing about this, makes me smile, and I am motivated to continue this journey that brightened my soul.

I am a Queer woman. I fall for passionate and calm, for intriguing and simple, for silly and mature, for anything that knows how to love.

19, lesbian, and on my journey of becoming proud

During my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I realized that I wasn’t straight. I started having feelings for girls that I had never experienced before, but there was always a part of me that tried to suppress them so I wouldn’t disappoint anyone. I had been struggling for a while, I was scared to open up to my friends, and I honestly didn’t know what to do. I had felt this way until one day my best friend came out to me as pansexual. It made me feel better knowing that I had someone who would accept me and show me support no matter what. A couple months passed and I finally found the courage to talk to her about my path to discovering a major part of me. I ended up coming out as bisexual to my friends, and I started dating a boy during my junior year.Throughout that relationship I tried really hard to make myself feel like I liked him. Turns out, there really wasn’t anything there for either of us so we broke up. It was hard for me because I wanted something with a boy to work so badly but it never did.

A few months passed, and I was nearing the end of my junior year when I became friends with a girl who I had only seen a couple of times on the bus. I sat down at her lunch table because all my friends were out doing their senior ditch day. We talked more and hung out a couple of times and then I realized that I had a crush on her. I had feelings for her that were way different than anything I had ever felt for a boy. At this point though, I still tried telling myself that I liked boys and I ended up going to junior prom with my ex. Summer came along and I talked to the girl I had a crush on more and I finally figured out that I made a connection with her that I was never able to have with boys. So, I started questioning my sexuality again. Then during my senior year I became friends with the people who she hung out with, which were also apart of the lgbtqia+ community. I finally had the support I needed to figure out my sexuality, because my parents never really gave me their full support and always told me things that you don’t want to hear. After I started college and finished my first semester, I finally found the courage to tell my parents that I was gay. From that point until now, I have been slowly but surely becoming more and more proud of who I am, and it’s because of the people I’ve surrounded myself with, and all the people who are willing to portray characters and show the world the lgbtqia+ community.

I look up to each and everyone of you beautiful people for sharing your experiences and allowing me to see that our community is filled with very extraordinary individuals. <3

Hannah

When I was 12 years old, I had realized that I had been an oddball for the entirety of my schooling. I was different, almost like an outcast and I didn’t like it. I had realized that I like girls. My parents along with the rest of my family are incredibly homophobic, so I decided to internalize everything. I had done so for 6 years until I got to my senior year of high school. I wanted to start being myself, but I knew I couldn’t as long as I was under the same roof as my parents. Summer 2019, I moved in to college and within 3 days of being there, I had already met a girl. I could finally be myself. My parents didn’t have to know about it, everything was okay. People at college really accepted me for who I was and it was so different compared to high school. However, both my parents ended up finding out along with the rest of my family the day before my 19th birthday. A lot of my family are now hesitant to talk to me. In this period of time, lack of acceptance from them made my motivation decline. I had stopped going to my classes, I stopped eating, and I stopped taking care of myself all around. I ended up having to drop most of my classes as a music therapy major due to failing grades. I lost scholarships and money, but worst of all I had lost myself. When 2nd semester came around, I was excited for a fresh start. However, my mental health hadn’t gotten any better. I ended up having to drop out of college on a full ride in which I had been studying for my dream job as a music therapist. I live at home now with my parents and never stop getting to hear the homophobia. I’m doing my best to try and support myself as well as my girlfriend. I’m trying to get a stable job so that I can move out before the end of 2020 and plan to apply to a 2 year paralegal program so I can have a somewhat stable career. Currently, I’m a full time musician trying to record music and get my name out there for people to hear. All I have ever wanted to do was make people feel good with the music that I make, whether they relate to it or not. I want to make music for people like me, but also for people who aren’t like me. Anything to bring more positivity and awareness to the world.
I usually label myself as a lesbian, but I just want to love who I love and have it not be an issue to others that I just so happen to be attracted to women. I know that good things are to come for me, all I can do is be patient. But I’m proud to say that I like women. I had never had this much pride for something since I started playing music and it’s such a beautifully bizarre feeling. I’m happy to say that I am a 19 year old raging homosexual female.

My name is Gaby and I´m Queer

Hi guys my name is Gaby, I have 23 years old and I from Venezuela but I live in Argentina.

so here goes:
I started to feel strange when I was very young, when I have 10 I started to realize that I was attracted to one girl in my school something that not happened to me with boys, it was a stange felling it scared me a lot I studied in a religious school and my family were very traditional So what they had instilled in me since I was little was that those feelings I was having were VERY BAD because of that I made my feelings go aside I grew up trying to ignore what I felt, I knew that something was different in me and that kept scaring me a lot, I did not talk to anyone, many nights I cried and told myself that it could not be like this, God going to punish me and that My mom would suffer a lot, so I kept ignoring that feeling and hid it pretty well until I fell in love. I fell in love with a girl without realizing how it happened, but it was what I felt, I do not know what happened to me, but one day I woke up and told myself that I could not continue deceiving myself, that I could not let go of my happiness because of people think bad about me, so I dared to be myself, it was not easy to accept me but when I decided to talk to my friends they supported me 100%, gave me strength, I started to read and see lgbt characters on tv what made me inspire me more and more and make me feel great, YES I am different and what? being different is AWASOME.

Time passed and I decided to come out the closet with my mom, I can swear that it has been the most hard and sad moment for me, she cried a lot, got angry to the point of calling the who was my girlfriend at that time and demand her that she move away from me I was a minor (16 years to be exact), that night I felt extremely bad I came to feel very guilty for all the pain my mom was feeling, for my mom, being a lesbian was the same as being a drug addict, coming out with my mom it was not nice, but I must say that it is the best thing that I could do, After several visits to the psychiatrist, many conversations, and all the information my mother sought about homosexuality, today my mother has become my greatest support. hearing from my mother “You are my daughter, I love and accept you as and as you are “is the most gratifying and beautiful thing that has happened to me, she supports me, she loves me as well as she also loves my girlfriend (The love of my life), little by little I was telling my cousins and aunts my truth and I The only thing I have received is love and support, now and after several years (I am 23 years old) I can say that I am a free woman to love whoever I wantand with all the confidence to shout it out to the world, thank you To my mother who despite being from another era and being a traditionalist, put love for her daughter before everything, thanks to my friends for always supporting me, thanks to the fact that we now have good and incredible LGBTQ representation on TV, I must thank the universe for putting such amazing people in my life. I really hope that if you are reading this it will help you, that you understand you are not alone, that the world is a beautiful place, love always win because LOVE IS LOVE and love is what moves the world.
Be BRAVE, be STRONG, be HAPPY and FREE.

This was my story, thanks for letting me share it with you

I’m a trans-masculine nonbinary lesbian.

I realized that I liked women when I was thirteen. I recognized it and came out as bisexual when I was fourteen years old. I came out for the first time on 3/29/20. I kept searching for labels that fit better after realizing that bisexuality didn’t fit me. I began experimenting with they/them pronouns and my attraction to men decreased very quickly. I chose a new name for myself and began using they/them pronouns. I began identifying as a lesbian, and came out as a lesbian in June 2020. In July, I came out as nonbinary. I started dressing masculine and I felt a lot more comfortable. I was not accepted by my family after coming out, and I struggled with undiagnosed depression and anxiety and possibly ADHD. Even though I was out of the closet, I still struggled with internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality. My family continues to deadname and misgender me, despite all my efforts to correct them and get them to use my correct name and pronouns. I began to self harm to cope with gender dysphoria and my family’s rejection of my identity. I still live with my family and I am not currently able to get away from them or move out. Seeing the state of the country that I live in, and how it treated people like me worsened my feeling of hopelessness. My story does not have a happy ending yet, but I want to live to make it better. I am human. I’ve got goals, and dreams, and hopes. I am not just my past, and I am not just my trauma. I want to become an actor. I want to have a family one day. I want to adopt kids when I get older. I can’t wait to make some of my dreams come true.

I identify myself as Bisexual

This coming out was a long and tough journey….. 6 years and it’s not finished yet.
Since I became sexually aware, I think I always had a part of myself that liked girls, in addition to boys, but I was really confused about it.
Because, when I was a young teenager, I thought that there were only two different sexualities: straight or gay. But I didn’t fit in those two sexualities.
So for a couples of years I was in total denial of this part of me that was attracted to girls and I focused on boys only. But I wasn’t happy at all, it’s like a part of me was missing and I wasn’t truly and entirely myself.
And I think that bisexual characters from the series that I watch helped me soooo much to find who I am. Like for example, Calliope Torres from Grey’s anatomy and of course Waverly Earp. They are the two characters who helped me to understand what was happening with me and to accept it.
There was no problem with me, no I am not weird or broken: I am just Bisexual and it’s normal, it’s okay.
It took me a year to accept this and it was a real source of anxiety. At the beginning of high school, I started to have panic attacks about it, I was crying all the time and didn’t sleep at night: because I was scared about judgment, scared to be rejected by my family and friends because I am « different » from them and also because I wasn’t really myself with them and it became more like a burden to keep this part of me hidden.
So I told my best friend first, I burst into tears as if it was bad news or something serious. And the first thing she did: she hugged me really tight and told me that it wasn’t a problem, she’ll love me and support me no matter what. And at this time, I understand I wasn’t supposed to be ashamed about it with my friends.
In senior year, I fell in love with a girl. This girl confessed to me that she’s bisexual and she seemed really open about it, no complex, nothing…. I confessed to her that I was Bi too because for the first time I wasn’t scared to be judged because she was like me. Anyway, we had a really strong connexion and something was happening between us. It kinda pushed me to come out to all of my friends and also my parents (brruuhh, the toughest part).
My friends totally accepted it even if they were disappointed that it took me so long to tell them but I think that I just needed to be fully ready and it was something I had to work on.
Then for my parents, I decided to write a letter because I was not capable of telling them face to face. I put the letter on the stairs before going to school and had written that they raised me with an open mind, communication and understanding. I said that I was into all humans, I don’t care about gender, I just want to love freely so I identify myself as Bisexual but I hadn’t changed. I was, I am and I always will be the same person.
Their first reaction: they didn’t reject me and they still loved me: yay
But then I had to talk about this letter. And guess what? They didn’t believe me…And I started to doubt myself…again, and all my confidence collapsed.
During this time of doubt, I really found myself in music. It was a way to escape and forget all my fears. I started writing songs and playing different instruments. And music became my best friend, a part of me and it saved me.
A couple of months later I went to my first pride and I think it was one of the most beautiful day of my life. I felt like I was at the right place, where I felt myself, truly and entirely, for the first time ever and GOSH it was so good and liberating. Everyone was so incredible, open minded and supportive. This day I saw my true colors and I saw that those colors were beautiful. I think this day changed my life forever because I finally found this wonderful community and I made friends and I didn’t felt lonely anymore. It helps me so much to accept myself and be less scared of judgment.
Today, two years later, my parents still didn’t believe me and still think that you can only be gay or straight, and don’t understand all the different sexualities in the middle. So they still don’t accept me yet. My father seems more open minded than my mother on that. It’s been really difficult with my mother because she is full of prejudices. So we have had kind of a hard time but I know that someday they’ll accept it and I know that it can take a long long time, but i’ll try to be patient.
My brothers and my cousins were really open minded about it and accepted me immediately.
And,for the rest of my family, I am not out and I don’t know if I will be one day because both sides of my family have strong religious principles from two different religions and I don’t know how they will react, so I am not ready.
Oh and recently, I learned that the international day of Bisexuality is on the 23rd of September and guess what? It’s my birthday! Coincidence? I don’t think so.
I think that each coming out story is unique, because everyone is unique in their own way and have their own story and each story is as beautiful as the others.
No matter what we’ve been through, no matter who we love and whether we’re out or not: LOVE IS LOVE. You’re valid, you’re not alone, you’re beautiful just the way you are. Show your true colors and you’ll shine brighter than the sun.
« Your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow ».