Community Rainbow Waves

Lesbian

i guess i knew i wasnt straight when i was watching greys anatomy and started liking amelia shepherd and lexie grey a little too much. i sort of obsessed over them and realized that wasn’t a thing straight girls did. i tried calling myself bisexual and it worked for a while, but eventually i realized i didn’t really like men the same way i like women. i told one of my close friends, and she encouraged me to tell my other friends. a year and five months ago i came out to my sister, and she said she wasn’t surprised. two weeks later i started dating one of my best friends, and we’ve been together for a little over a year and four months. then, 8 months ago, i came out to my mom. she wasn’t thrilled about me dating at 14, but she really didn’t care that i was gay. now she makes gay jokes with me and tells me to invite my girlfriend over for dinner. i’m glad i got the courage to come out, and im insanely grateful to my family for being so accepting and okay with it. so here i am, typing my story into a website. my name is hannah, i’m 15 years old, and i’m a proud lesbian.

Ana

Hii, so, what a beautiful place to be in sharing just a little bit of my story. 🙂 I won’t take too long, I wanted this to be short but truthful. Just like Dom reiterated with her story. Well, yeah, I’m queer too I guess. I never knew this about me, and maybe when I was younger I did shove it in the little dark corners of my heart. But I won’t anymore. I started to question the heteronormative narrative about my sexuality when I started to think too much about a girl I met unpretentiously when I was 18 years old. What I keep asking myself is if I had felt this way before, but I just didn’t recognise this when I was younger, and only now I do. What helped me see this in a better light was a friend of mine (my best friend now) and she had already been dating a girl for 6 years, and they themselves overcame some pretty rough things. Still, till this day I can’t really help but feel disgusted by what they’ve gone through. But anyways, this ain’t about them. It’s about me. And when it comes to it, THIS is all that matters, guys. After starting to feel things for girls, crushing really really hard on them, I kept asking OTHER PEOPLE for their opinion. Well, now I know better. They did help me A LOT, but at the end of the day I think what matters is that yes I don’t like only boys, I like girls too.
I don’t really feel the need to come out in a huge fashion, I think people suspect this of me, and I have been bugging everyone about Kat and Dom, and Melissa, and Katie and Kristen Stewart, and Caity and Jess and a loot of actresses, so there’s that as well. But I hope people won’t give me too much of a hard time once I start dating, if it’s a girl and not a boy. I lke to think that they won’t. I will nevertheless still love them even if they don’t understand, I guess for some reason we should be understanding. Fight like hell to end LGBTQIA+fobia, but be understanding, as well.
Thanks for reading.

A butterfly who loves flowers

When I was 5 yrs old I had a huge crush on my female teacher. I knew it was different because I felt butterflies in my stomach. It was way different from my admiration to boys. After that I had another crush on a 6th grader when I was in my 3rd grade. She didn’t like the attention and the fact that I had a deep admiration to her so she ended our friendship. I was so heartbroken and confused. What did I do wrong? Why can’t I just like her? Then on my 5th grade I had a 6th grader gf whom I invited to go to my house. My mom was open about it and made a joke of how weird and abnormal I am. I think my family knew I am into girls since I am more boyish than girlish. I love playing ball games, wearing shorts and big shirts. They even call me “Cathy Boy” for standing up to boys (who bullied me and some girls) and for just being me. I haven’t had any struggle coming out with my family probably because I have a colorful family (gay aunt, sister, and cousins).

Though I am fortunate of having a family like them, I had difficulty coming out to the entire world. Coming from a Catholic and patriarcal country like the Philippines, it is still a big deal if you’re part of LGBTQIA++ community. I could remember back in my college days that some of my friends lectured me from acting on being gay. They told me that it is a sin to engage into sexual lesbian acts but being one is not. Some told me it is just a phase in my life. So back then I had few experiments. I tried dating and kissing men for a week or two but it didn’t work out. I knew there was something wrong. Something lacking. SPARK! It is different when I kiss a woman. There is magic. There are butterflies in my stomach. There is fire. There is passion. There is care. There is love. There is happiness.

It’s been more than a decade since I decided to just be me regardless of what people say. All I know now is that I am proud of being me and for being in the LGBTQIA++ COMMUNITY.

Lesbian

I was bullied all through school even before I 100% knew what I was or felt. I thought I’d keep trying to be “normal” by dating lads but it just didn’t feel right to me. I finally started dating a girl and I just felt like this was who I was. I came out to some of my family at the beginning and they were great especially my nan. But when my parents found out they weren’t 100%supportive of me. They insisted this was a phase or that I was atleast bisexual. I’m now 24 turning 25 in July and only recently got my parents to understand that I am a lesbian and just because I am a lesbian doesn’t mean I won’t get married or have a family. I’m happier in myself, I’ve been through a journey of up and downs with it all and having 0 confidence but I’ve met great people and have family that are in my corner .

Lesbian

I have known I was gay my entire life. I grew up with an accepting mom, but the rest of my family was not as accepting. I didn’t tell a soul until I was in middle school. I told one of my closest friends, and she was very accepting. This was helpful for me but unfortunately she left the school a few months after I told her. I felt more alone than ever. My mental health was horrible. My anxiety was out of control and I become quite depressed. I was ecxited for highschool as I thought it was going to be an opportunity to finally be myself. Unfortunately that ended up not being the case. I become friends with people who were not accepting of the LGBTQ community. This largely affected me as I started thinking I was wrong for liking girls. I tried really hard to like boys. I coundnt think about anything else, I started self harming. It was the lowest point in my life. I then met a girl who changed my life. She was in the same grade, and we become close friends. We spent all our time together. I realized I had feelings for her but was ashamed. One day she told me she had feelings for me. I was so happy that she felt the dame way. We started dating, and finally told my mom everything. I hit help for my mental health and made a decision to be myself no matter what. I git friends who accept me for me. I am now the happiest I have been in my life. I realized that I am me, and that j can change who I am. I also want to add in here that Dom has helped me greatly. I have looked up to you ever since I saw the first episode of wynnona earp. You are a truly beautiful person who is saving peoples lives. I hope my story can help someone as I wish I would have had someone to help me.

I’m Lesbian

Forgive me but I don’t speak English very well.
Since I was a little girl I had attitudes that couldn’t tell you otherwise, like playing with children and despising “little girl” games, like getting away from soccer or toy cars just to go with the most beautiful little girl in the neighborhood! Of course at that age I didn’t realize anything and didn’t pay attention to it but now I remember that I really thought that little girl was beautiful and that’s why I wanted to be near her.
Growing up, I was always the little girl who defended her friends, who took care of them, who did the heavy work for them like carrying the heaviest backpack or opening jars, who accompanied all of them to their homes and then came back alone… But yet I was getting engaged to boys, admiring the billboards of shirtless boys…why? Because it had to be that way!
I slept with a few guys and every time I was disappointed with the feelings I was feeling, I thought he wasn’t the one… I would try again to be with another guy but nothing!
At the age of 17 I realize that I feel a strong attraction towards a friend of mine, to be jealous in an abnormal way for a friendship! So I decide to try to understand more by surfing the internet… and at the vision of two girls kissing I feel much more sensations than those experienced in bed with a man… so I understand that I am a lesbian!
My coming out happened only after I suffered from panic attacks, every time I talked about myself… I remember that, one day I got so strong, that I called the ambulance and, the paramedic, after giving me an IV of tranquilizer, told me that the only cure was to talk about what I had inside with someone. After that day, I decided I had to do that starting with my friends…. I remember when I told my best friend… it took me half an hour just to be able to say “I like girls”… she burst into tears and called me an idiot because I had made her worry and she had come to think of serious things such as having suffered violence! I had taken a huge weight off my shoulders… so, if my best friend didn’t see anything wrong with it, I wouldn’t have minded anyone else’s judgment! I decided not to hide it anymore and to admit my homosexuality!
Fortunately I have parents who have never given me any problems… my mother, when I told her, made me understand that she thought it was just a phase, but she has always known the girls I have been with, treating them not as my friends but for what they were: my girlfriends! Now, after having brought a lot of them home, seven years later, I think she has understood that it is not just a phase 😅!
I have always been free to be myself thankfully!
However, I too have been through horrible situations recently… i.e. not being accepted by my current girlfriend’s family, being insulted by her mother and sister with phrases like “what is this crap?!” “if you are like this it’s because your mother wasn’t close to you but I was close to my daughter so I don’t accept this crap!”… or, something even more painful, that even now, a year and a half later still hurts so much, being beaten by her father claiming that I was ruining his life and family! Or, when they sent my girlfriend to the other side of the country to try to get her away from me … but I, after a month, I went to her, making her a surprise and I found the aunt angry that did not stop insulting me … who told me “but look in the mirror … do not you disgust you?!” “I’m going to slap you” “who knows what kind of person you are”… instead she should thank me because I was too respectful and polite, unlike her… if I were not a good person, I would have slapped her!
In this whole situation I have suffered too much… even going against my principles, when I didn’t denounce them!
Now we have been engaged for a year and nine months… they haven’t made any more scenes like that but they don’t want to have any kind of relationship with me… and this hurts me so much every day because I don’t understand how they don’t want to know the person who makes their daughter happy and I don’t understand how they can’t give me the chance to show that I am a respectful, polite person with great values.

Forgive me if in the end instead of telling I ended up venting….

I’m 19 years old and I still don’t really know what I identify or should identify as. I know that I’m into girls but I’m not sure about “the boy part” yet.

I started to realize that I liked girls a very long time ago, around the age of 12 maybe. Looking back I had thousands of girl crushes from movies or series which now makes it very obvious. I remember the day, the thought of being a lesbian crossed my mind. It was awful to me. I remember thinking I would rather live unhappily forever than telling anyone about my real feelings. Today I feel ashamed that I thought like that but I was young and scared. Years passed by and I tried to push my feelings away, kind of like Dom did. It took me forever to finally accept who I am, even though I still don’t know who I am because I don’t know how to label myself (I know I don’t have to). I’ve been into girls but I never been in love with a guy. I only feel attracted to some guys. That’s what confuses me a lot . I turned 19 over a week ago and still never told anyone about my sexuality and its personal struggles as well as fears. I often feel anxious and ask myself when I’m finally ready to talk about it. I don’t have answers to this. This right here is the first time writing about it and it feels very relieving . And I feel empowered after reading Dom’s message. Im so happy for her that she can finally be her true self and I can’t wait for the day that I can say this ,too. Until then I’ll wait and I’ll keep supporting the LGBTQIA+ Community as an “ally”. In addition to this, I want to encourage everyone who seems to be in a similar situation like I am, to be patient with yourself. Your days will come and you will shine. Keep fighting .You are beautiful!

I am a female

I am 14 but i noticed may of 2019 but came out in July of 2019. My mother was supportive and so were friends but the rest of my family kind of looks down upon it.

The boy I’ve always been

Since I was Young I’ve always felt like the term female never suited me and that is was weird that people would reffer to me that way. I remember that when I first learned from my teacher about the genders she would point to me and call me a girl, I looked at her with a face painted with hurt and said “I’m a boy” She laughed and said no you’re not sweetheart. Through the years that little moment always has been there in my mind, it was the moment I already knew that the body I was born with wasn’t the body that was actually meant for me, just looking in mirrors just made me wanna puke, seeing a too feminine body just didn’t fit with the gender and person in my head.

Around 7/10 years old I kept saying to other people that is as a boy just born in the wrong body, they would laugh at me and say that something like that just doesn’t exist, but yet I stayed strong and kept living with the idea that I knew who I was and that something about my body was wrong. It stayed like that until high school, people started to bully me way more than before, saying I looked weird and that if I didn’t change into a normal ‘girl’ my life would get worse and worse, I didn’t want that I was done with all the bullying and pushing around, so I changed into the person I wasn’t, a girl, wearing skirts and dresses cause others expected me to wear those. While pushing the thoughts of me being a boy aside I found myself having anxiety and depression.

The depression lasted for years and my friends kept telling me it will be alright and everything will change when I just find out who I rlly was,
So I did just that I went online and began my research with transitioning and being a transgender once again but this time I didn’t let anyone hold me back(I was 14/15 here).

Even though my hair was still long and my body pretty feminine I went back to the all boy-ish clothes and found my self getting happier but not happy enough, my 16th birthday came around and I wanted to have one thing, a binder, my parents were confused but still bought one for me, when I got it I Immediately put is on and I cried, I cried for at least an hour or so, not because something was wrong but because I was so happy. A week after my birthday I came out as transgender to my parents and sister, my mom hugged me and said she already had a feeling that I’ve always been a boy, and she was happy I finally found the person I was (I’m currently crying as well).

After I came out as transgender‍ I cut my hair and bought more boy clothes and threw the girly ones away my friends at school helped me change my name and gender in the school system, and that was a year ago, I’m currently 17 years old a happy trans boy (as far as my happiness now can get) and I can’t wait to begin my next chapter in life, which is going to be testosterone shot.

It helped that a lot a people around me also just accept and support me.(btw my whole family accepts me)

So here is me a trans guy who’s still pre everything but happy and excited to see what else is about to happen In life

-JaeJae-

Homosexual, Panromantic

I come from a religious family, practically raised in a church. I had gay family and in my head with my teachings that was fine for them to live that way but I could never choose that because it was wrong. I had thought it was a choice. Until the 8th grade when my best friend came out, and slowly through conversations she had made me realize that I too was possibly part of the LGBTQA+ community. Even then some part of my brain desperately wanted to be straight, knowing that my family likely wouldnt accept me. I’d pray and I’d pretend that if I just didnt act on that side of me then it would go away. In high school I became friends with somebody who was pansexual, lots of people actually but this one happened to be a senior while I was a freshman. She asked me very outright while we were alone if I was attracted to females. This came as a shock but I found myself answering yes. Still believing myself to be bisexual. By the end of the year I had wrote a poem about my sexuality, and posted it over Facebook. Surprisingly most people were incredibly supportive. However, my aunt had called to tell me how proud she was of me and ended up outting me to my mother. Who was less than understanding, I was grounded and forbidden from hanging out with friends the night of prom. (She wouldnt allow girls to really sleep over anymore either.) It took until senior year for me to come to terms with and realize that I was just simply not physically attracted to men. Which is when an uncle I had only met as a toddler came up. He came out to my father, and then proceeded to out me. My father is very religious and often used gay, queer, and fag as insults. He never talked to me about it, but I noticed he changed his language around me. When we accidentally ended up in the middle of a pride event he kept bringing up how love is love. I guess subtle support is better than none. My mom still doesnt fully accept it. Over the years I found myself having emotions for guys, but never being able to express them, cause the physical attraction just wasnt there, and I believed it wasnt fair for either me or them to be in that type of relationship. The ones I attempted always tried to get me to be physical with them anyways. It took a lot of time researching the different types of attraction for me to understand who I truly am, and I still dont really discose it unless I am totally comfortable with somebody. Or just dont care how they feel about it.