Community Rainbow Waves

Blood & Water

Growing up I had an open relationship with my parents, particularly my mom. My mom was a very good listener and had a gift for making her home a safe place for kids. I have distinct memories of my best friends, going through rough times (either life-altering crisis…or in hindsight not so serious teenage dramatics) coming over to feel “heard.” She’d listen and understand and when she’d leave after hugging us goodnight my friends would often say something like “I wish my mom and I could talk that way.”

Fast forward to the summer of my senior year in college. At the time I was in a 2-year relationship with a beautifully kind guy my family, and heck myself thought I’d marry soon after graduating. I was taking a summer course and decided to live in the dorms with one of my best college friends and teammate, “Bell.” (for purposes of this story) Her best friend/partner, now spouse, was bunked up with a girl that would end up playing a pretty big role in my coming out story. “Bell” was pretty involved in the LGBTQ community as her partner had at that time recently come out as trans. By then they had fought through most of what would be their uphill battle as an LGBTQ couple at a very Catholic school. This context is important because by that summer I had introduced them to my mom. She was kind and treated them like any other person I cared about. This little detail will throw me for a loop later…

One summer night a group of us decided to go to a Gay club. It wasn’t my first time going, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say some part of me knew something was going to happen. The night ended with me kissing the girl I mentioned and making the conscious decision to see what sleeping with her felt like. My understanding of my sexuality at that time was that I enjoyed having sex with men, I loved a few along the way…and if I ever found myself being attracted to women, I’d simply add them to the list of people I was also into. I’d say I had a very matter of fact feeling about my sexuality. Love is Love… and I’m straight.

My mom called the next morning and I answered, “Hi, I’m hungover as hell and a girl kissed me last night.” I remember her laughing and asking if I was going to tell my boyfriend. The conversation went on and now that I’ve since been to therapy (which rocks btw) I can clearly remember the sound of how casually I lied to my mom. The truth was that I was interested in this girl since summer started, I leaned in first, she leaned in back, we kissed, and I made the mental call to go home with her that night. I realized I was slightly full of shit when it came to honesty. With others…and myself. Sure, I kissed girls in High School on “dares,” but never admitted I liked it and maybe… (not so maybe) put myself in a position to take those particular dares on purpose. I told myself, my parents, and friends what made sense about boyfriends I genuinely loved as people, but possibly never really liked as partners.

All in all, the open relationship I thought I had with my parents wasn’t so open. And that was on me. However, the fears that kept me from being honest then and now (still healing) were realized when I broke things off with my boyfriend and called my mom to tell her I was, “pursuing a relationship with the girl” I had told her about. She screamed, my parents cried, they cancelled my phone plan, closed my bank account, sicced my very Mexican very old school grandma on me, and of course, “cursed the day they spent 6 figures sending me to a Catholic school to become a lesbian,” etc. I laugh at this all now (again… thank you therapy) because it was the swift kick in the ass I needed to start “adulting,” but I’d be remiss to say it didn’t crush me. A. because I was surprised, they reacted the way they did given how open they had been with my friends and their experiences. (Although clearly my subconscious was on to something lol) B. I began to associate my self-worth with monetary value. Money and acceptance were twisted into a very messy and conditional thing that I would later need to work out. Money of course screaming PRIVELEGE. (Insert: Unlike a lot of my LGBTQ family I am a white passing, middle class, college educated women, and because of these things I was born into I was in an ideal position to get back on my feet, quickly.) And acceptance of course being something too many of us struggle with on a daily basis.

Fast forward to ending a very toxic and abusive relationship with the girl from the gay bar, moving into my own place (parents eagerly paying for the Uhaul when I announced I had left her… there’s an ironic gay joke in there somewhere) and meeting my now wife amid the chaos. At that point I was out to my friends and sister but had never said the words “I’m Gay” to my parents. Sidenote: I never said those words to my friends or sister either, beautifully enough I simply told them I’ve met this amazing girl and it’s going well…they didn’t need the labels.

After 6 months of dating my then girlfriend I told my parents I was in a relationship. Fast forward another 6 months of my dad telling me they weren’t ready to meet her I decided to propose knowing I couldn’t wait for them to come around. We got married a year and a half later and they didn’t show up to the wedding. We’ve been married for 2 years and are now trying to start our family!

They probably won’t ever meet my wife, and our future kids, but I’ve learned that coming out and coming into myself was something I did unconditionally. A sort of promise I made to myself and the world (Insert: source or the universe, g.d, or whatever works for you) that I would dedicate my authenticity to the balance of justice and harmony. And although that balancing act is sometimes very hard with people like my parents it makes for clear boundaries… simply put, seek justice when the rights of others are at risk (i.e when I don’t stand up for myself, my community…or other marginalized peoples)…and seek harmony when recognizing one another’s humanity will birth compassion and perhaps strides towards progress and understanding. (I struggle with the latter)

The last and most important thing I’d like to share, and the gift of my life is my chosen family. It may be cliché and an unfortunate necessity for many of us in the LGBTQ community, but the friends I have found and the family I have built is more than I could have imagined. I have a sister that walked me down the aisle, best friends whose parents showed up to celebrate my engagement, witness my first look with my wife, celebrate my marriage, create and celebrate new holiday traditions, and last but not least show up for every major life moment no matter the miles between us. I’ve found friends and bonus parents that will help raise my children and teach me how to be a wife, mother and the best version of myself. Sure, there is pain, but like many quotes that are historically misinterpreted, “blood is thicker than water,” really means that the blood shared on the battlefield is thicker than the water of the womb. And trust me the people who have chosen to fight for me and those I’ve chosen to fight beside are sure as shit there. Always.

For anyone needing to hear this: “You are loved, and it gets better.”

Gay

The start of my journey was a girl. It’s stereotypical, but that’s how it happened. I was teenager, my parents were divorcing, I wasn’t even sure the true romantic love was real. Then we kissed for the first time. No longer could their be any denial of love or my sexuality, because in that moment I knew.

When I first came out, it was as bisexual. Maybe because I still had not fully accepted who I was… or maybe because the girl was bisexual. Coming out to my friends was blissfully easy. They’d suspected for years and had never had any problems with the idea. My dad, such an open minded man, again gave me no fear. My mum though. She was unpredictable. I was so scared, that I did it via text message while we were in the same house! BIG MISTAKE. I had to wait 40mins to hear back! But when she did she told me she still loved me. It somehow didn’t give me relief. As though, she was being okay with my sexuality because she felt she had to be. In this phase in my life the biggest difficult was school. I once had a group of 30 people chanting things like: “What would Jesus say” at me. Lucky for me, someone saw. The school asked me to talk to the group and asked my opinion for appropriate punishment. So they did an assembly on inclusion.

When I later came out as a lesbian, nobody was surprised. I’d dated guys, but it was clear nothing had particularly clicked. But finally I was out for me…. or so I thought.

5 years on I was 21. I was absorbing a lot of LGBT content and I remember thinking about this in the context of myself. My gender. I’d never been what you’d call ‘girly’. When I was younger I was called “a tomboy”, but when I was older, suddenly this label disappeared and I no longer had it as inclusive context. I was just different. When I was learning about other LGBT labels, one that came up was gender neutral. Because it is one I instantly identified with. I wasn’t female…I just wasn’t male either. Then I had to come out again. It took me several years to come out with one of my friends. We disagree on many things and the concept of genders beyond cis or transgender is definitely one of these. I’d tried so many times to calmly explain how it is possible for an infinite number of sexualities and genders could be, to no avail. When I told him, he was offensive – but in a way that showed his , acceptance. We constantly talk about our differing views on multiple topics. I certainly find it difficult, at times, to remember that just because he isn’t as open minded as I would like him to be he is not a bad person. He just has different views to mine.

With gender and sexuality being constantly changes, filled with multiple aspects I can not promise that these aspects of me won’t change. This is why I like to identify as ‘gay’. I feel that it is such a broad term, I can make it fit with who I am now and who I will be in future. The story above is all to brief. You come out thousands of times! It also doesn’t include some of my darkest moments, but the main point is that as dark as things have got I am me… I wouldn’t want to change that for a second. Neither should you. Be proud of who you are, regardless of what comes your way.

Rose

I was working a summer season and, for the first time in my life, was around people who were LGBTQ+ (mostly gay ladies). Obviously the question of sexual orientation came up a few times – I had never been with anyone – and a few of my friends suggested that I might be into the girls. I rejected that, having never really considered it as a possibility, wasn’t against it in any way, just never really thought of it as an option! (I come from a very straight white village in the UK)
Anyway, long story short, eventually I realised that maybe actually girls did it for me more than I might have originally thought, I got close to one particular girl, and one of my little brothers came to stay with me. Now, there were a few rumours going round due to a complicated situation involving her ex and a healthy dose of gossip, as often is the case on a season and I thought it best to tell my bro before he heard it from someone else. So, we were in the car and I said look you might hear some things about me and this girl, nothing has happened, I’m not saying I’m gay but I kinda like her and I thought you should hear it from me.
He went silent for a couple of seconds, then he looked at me and just went
“Haha. Gay.”
And that was that.

For the record, he was correct, I am a fully fledged gay, rainbows and all

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

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

Lesbian

CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT.

I came out when I was 14 years of age, 13 years ago, most of my family were accepting, though a few were not. Some still not to this day, but have been a little more accepting through the years. Shockingly for me the older generation in the family were more supportive than the younger, excluding my dad. My dad was not accepting at first, it come to the point where I didnt have any contact with my dad for over two years.. due to the fact that when I was in my late teens he actually tried to pay me to be with a boy! As you could tell that was a big no. Thankfully my dad is 100% supportive of me now and we have a great relationship. Many people ask me how I could forgive him? My reply.. whats the point in holding on to something bad, when hes sorry and I’ve had many more happy memories shared with him. I have had many struggles in life many battles I have fought, the most hardest was being told I was confused because I was sexually assaulted from the age of 12 to 14, “your not gay, your just traumatised”, i always new from a young age, the first time I kissed a girl, 9 years of age (practising) like kids did. My happest memory of coming out was actually only 2 years ago, to my great grandfather, I was always told not to say anything as he was old and wouldn’t understand, i was very close with my grampa so, when he was 93 I came out to him, he did not judge me what so ever he just told me about the time he met my great grandmother, and told me it doesn’t matter who you love, it doesn’t matter how much you fight, if you love you them don’t ever let them go . That conversation was one of the last conversations I had with him. Its a conversation that I hold dear to me and one people should listen to.

Queer/Gay

I live in a pretty open-minded country (gay marriage has been legalized in 2003), so being gay was something people were not ashamed of when I grew up. But as a kid, and even a teenager, even tho I’d heard of the word gay, I only pictured it as the big homosexual man stereotype, the “girly boy”. I didnt even think about girls being attracted to girls, or anything related to the LGBT community other than the “gay best friend”. I was the masculine girl, and Im pretty sure everybody but me knew I was queer. At 16 I discovered Fifth Harmony and I fell into the camren hole. My body was acting weird whenever Lauren Jauregui was singing, or just looking at my soul with her amazing eyes. Deep inside I knew it, and without even questioning myself, I kinda identified as bisexual. Not with that word, but I just knew I wouldnt just date guys in my life. Two years later I was in college, met my best friend. We talked a lot about sexuality, and she told me she was pansexual. The more we talked, the more I realized the queer part of me was not just a little attraction to Lauren Jauregui, it was important. I realized I’ve had real crushes on girls before. I came out to myself as bisexual (again, but for real this time). Then I dated this guy cause he liked me and I couldnt say no. But I had no feelings at all, not only cause we had nothing in common. I jumped from bi to bi into women af, to okay maybe Im gay, to fuck I dont know lets say Im queer. That summer I came out to my old school friends, and my parents. They were cool with it. They kinda knew already.
Now its two years later, Im a gay mess, I’m fuckin into girls, I still have no idea if Im into guys. I hate the word lesbian, even more in my mother tongue, cause I’ve only heard it from straight dumb perv men. I love the word queer, cause I dont feel the pressure to add an explanation to my sexuality, queer is the global term I needed. But gay fits me too tho, most of the time. I just wish the word queer was well known in the hetero world, cause dammit every single person i’ve came out to asked me what the hell was queer
To all my closeted queer folks in here: dont feel the pressure to label yourself, and please, take your time. I know being closeted hurts, and you will get out of it, but only when youre ready. Love from Belgium, one hell of an ally country.

I’m a brasilian lesbian

My whole life, i Love girls but i didnt know that. I denied. I dont being happy, all the time i was bullied and i just on my 18th birthday i kiss for a girl and this show me my truly inside. Today i’m free and happy with so many lgbtqa+ representacions and so proud about me, today i love Who i’m. (Sorry about my terrible inglesh) love and thanks.

I’m a Bisexual teen. Leaning towards lesbian. Oops I said it.

Ever since I was younger, I always loved seeing girls together. You know how your supposed to have that couple that you always cheered on in shows, well mine were girls. It just always amazed me. The love that existed between them. Last year it finally hit me that I was actually bisexual. I like girls too and I finally admitted it. I came out to certain people. Those I could trust. First was my teacher. The first thing she told me was that it finally made sense. All of my previous relationships with guys had always failed. I didn’t always seem to be completely interested. Sometimes I dream that my happy ending will be with a woman. I hope that comes true. Your show allowed me to finally accept the truth. Thank you for that. Thank you for listening. <3

No More Pretending

Funnily enough, when I was about 6 I told my sister that I was gonna grow up to be a lesbian. It was naturally laughed at by her and the rest of my family. Fast forward, looking back at high school, my friendships were all close with my female friends, particularly touchy, and I would occasionally be jealous of their relationships (even when in my own). I played it off though, just me being a needy friend. When I got to college, everything changed. I met out queer people, one of which was my roommate and one of my favorite people on this earth. She introduced me to media and the community (and funnily enough, Wynonna Earp nearly a year ago now). And it was like my entire world opened up, and I realized I was bi. And that was crazy to me, how I had been missing this huge part of myself. How everything finally clicked into place.

I was opened to the community and all of the beautiful people in it. And I finally put myself out there. I was out to everyone at school, and nearly all my friends at home as well. But it took me even longer to come out to my family. I told my brother first, his response (and my favorite by far) was “Well, I also love women so we have even more in common now.” Coming out to my mom and sister was harder. It was immediately met with “Are you sure?” “Don’t label yourself.” “I thought I liked women at one point too.” and many other cliche lines that I never thought I would actually be hearing. Eventually, my sister came around, and even my mom to an extent. They both support me and love me, and that is something I am very grateful for. However, my coming out was met with a “But play it straight around your father.”

And finally, after coming out to them, I started dating my first girlfriend, and I was absolutely in love with her. But it also led to probably one of the worst experiences in my life. While planning a trip home to see her, my mom decided that after months of telling me to “play it straight” that she would take it upon herself to tell my dad about my sexuality. Only 5 days after I had left for my third year of college. Which led to the absolute worst phone call of my life with a very angry father and some of the most hurtful words I had ever had spoken to me, with the phrase “You’re not gay.” Yelled over and over.

The sarcastic person in me so badly wanted to reply, “You’re right, I’m not gay. I’m bisexual.” But I don’t think I could’ve landed it with confidence over the way I was feeling in that moment.

Eventually, the relationship ended, and me and the girl went our separate ways. The response from my father being “Thank god that’s over”, while I was experiencing heartbreak for the first time. Luckily, by that point, my mom had learned a lot and was there to have my back and reaffirm that I am who I am, regardless of my relationship status.

And now, nearly a year and a half later, I am proudly out to anyone and everyone in my life. Whether they accept me or not, I have no care in the world. I love men and women and I decided that I wasn’t going to hide it for a second longer than I already had. I am proud to be bisexual and a part of this incredible queer community. I love you all. #OutIsTheNewIn

Gay cis gender woman

So… growing up being gay was never a thing. Nobody ever talked about it, or at least not that I remember. In like 6th grade we briefly discussed different sexualities but 6th grade me didn’t think anything of it.
Flash forward a few years and all the girls in my class have crushes on boys and start dating. I was never interested so remembering the 6th grade discussion I just thought I was asexual. Problem solved.
And then I started watching Ellen and figured out she was gay. It took me a while to get the internalized homophobia (and hell I don’t even remember where that even came from in the 1st place.. probably that my dad hates everyone who’s not “normal”) out of my head. But once I realized that people are gay and that’s fine I realized that that’s an option for me to. And there was this big ohhhhhh… Moment where I finally realized.
I then ignored that for another few weeks or months and then wrote about it in my diary. Immediately after I sent it to my internet best friend. She was the only person I trusted enough to tell and I knew she wouldn’t be very judgmental. And I guess the whole internet friendship aspect helped too. It’s easier when you don’t get a response to a text for a few days than it is being ignored irl.
So I sat there anxiously waiting for her response… And she didn’t read it for a while. But when she did read it she responded in the best way imaginable. And that meant a lot. It still does.
Months go by and I wanna tell my friend group that’s around me in school as well. But that involves 3 people. If you tell one.. you gotta tell everyone.
And it was a bunch of times that I was almost at this place where I thought I’m gonna do it. But then one friend (we’ll call her Sally)made some slightly homophobic comment or whatever that most likely meant nothing to her and I was back at zero. I did that a few times.
Finally, summer 2018 after 10th grade I was on vacation with my family. It was the last day of pride month and the next day was my birthday. So that day I gathered all my courage and over WhatsApp told the friend out of the group that I knew the longest and trusted the most(we’ll call her Lina). Her response was positive too.
2 weeks of vacation go by (yes, tactic that in case she reacts badly there’s time ’til we next see each other) and I’m back home. During the following week we met at the pool with another person from the friend group (we’ll call her Anna, not the judgy bitch). I was joking about this one guys hair bc he was relatively small but he had dreads which made his head look huge in comparison. She then asked me if I was into him or something. Both me and Lina giggled. Anna then asked what’s going on as she was very confused. Lina pushed me to tell her but I just couldn’t.
After we got home that day I took to WhatsApp to explain. I know I’m a coward but I can’t handle that much rejection. I get enough from my dad. Lol.
So I explained and she was very cool and understanding about it. So then it was time to tell Sally. Also over WhatsApp. And although she seemed accepting and all… Looking back hell no.
A few days later I met up with her at the pool and we were just laying in the sun talking when all of a sudden she asks me if I could really imagine fucking a girl. I at the time was totally flustered bc baby gay but looking back.. that’s such and inappropriate and dumb question.
Starting 11th grade I was out to my closest friends and so I felt okay about maybe slowly but surely telling other people. Meaning basically everyone but my parents and anyone who’d tell them.
Classes changed and I met a bunch of new people. It didn’t take long and I had queer friends. And that was amazing. Because all this time I thought I was alone… Yet to realize that wasn’t true at all.
One of them (Nick, if you for some reason ever read this, Hi) moved away after 11th Grade but he’s still one of my best (queer) friend.
In 11th grade there was this incident where Sally was showing me a chat with her boyfriend where he basically said he wanted to punch Nick because he’s gay and wearing makeup. She found that funny. And for her it was weird that I didn’t. Then she explained the back story which was apparently supposed to make it funny. Spoiler: it didn’t. It only made it more disgusting and horrifying to me. She never understood why I was offended by her boyfriend being homophobic. And her too.
I’m still very uncomfortable around him. Even tho I barely ever see him. Luckily. And she’ll be the 1st person I’ll cut off when I’m done with school.