Community Rainbow Waves

Lesbian

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

A transwoman, finally able to be herself

I first realized something about me was different when I was about 14. All the boys in my religious private school, which was gender segregated, started noticing girls. I noticed girls, and boys, but more importantly I wanted to be the girls. This was during a time when it was very much not acceptable to be trans. And in the religious community where I lived, even more so. I was told, “a person can either be queer, or they can be Jewish. They can’t be both.” And the Jewish community was my world, my life. It was everything I knew.

Over the next few years, I struggled with myself and my identity, up-and-down and up-and-down. I tried to pray the gay away. I tried being hyper masculine, to offset what I knew was the real person inside me. Nothing worked, nothing made the pain of living a lie go away. And I would spiral up-and-down and up-and-down. And then I couldn’t take it anymore.

I sat my spouse down, and I explained to her how I have been feeling and how I was not the person that she thought she married. I had my bags packed, and I fully expected her to throw me out. And to my utter surprise, and as I started sobbing common she didn’t. She hugged me and said “OK. Let’s deal with this together.”

Since then, I have come out, I’m living my truth, and I could never be happier. I’ve met family members who I never knew before, and found the family of my heart. And I could not possibly be happier. My wife accepts me for who I am, my children accept me for who I am. And that’s all that’s really important.

Anonymous

i was standing in line at an Amanda Palmer concert, and a female presenting person in front of me made me go: oh. girl-types are pretty too. i havent looked back except to realize how much this reveals about my adolescent interactions with certain girls that i didn’t recognize because they were different than my crushes on boys.

I am a lesbian.

Hi, I’m Helen and I knew I liked girls to a different level probably in my 7th grade. I knew something was off and fell in love with one of my close friends during high school. At the time I didn’t know the word lesbian (I’m from Cambodia and only knew the word ‘gay’ which I thought can only be use for boys who love boys). So during college I met with my first girlfriend, we met through Facebook. We were together for two years then I broke up with her because I was too scared to get caught and also my parents at the time was forcing me to get married to a guy and I was fucked up inside the head. And I gave in to my parents and agreed to get married at the age of 25. I wasn’t happy, not at all. I lived my life in pretending to be happy. Then I got pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful boy. I got divorced when my son turned 3. I couldn’t stand living with a man anymore. My parents didn’t say anything to me but they are embarrassed that I became a widow. Through all these years I still don’t have the courage to come out. I’m now 28 years old and still living in fear of rejection and judgment from my family if they found out that I’m a lesbian. I don’t know if I will ever be brave to come out. I don’t think I can have a happy ending in this life. This is my story.

Trust your heart if the seas catch fire (she/her)

I never knew I was gay when I was growing up. I had a conservative family who never talked about love. I was extremely in denial and extremely obsessed with boys. But, I met a girl when I was 15, at school. And we became fast friends – we were exceptionally close. I thought all friendships were meant to feel like that – warm, safe… slightly obsessive. And then one day she wanted to kiss me, and I was so confused because I didn’t like GIRLS??? And it took me a long time to come around, but she became my first girlfriend and it was the biggest scariest secret I had to keep. We went to an all girls school and she was incredibly affectionate so it wasn’t long before people started talking about us behind our backs and suspecting. I got tonnes of anonymous messages online calling me slurs and asking if we were dating. Keep in mind it was 2012, things were very different than they could be now. So finally after months of rumours about us being “dirty lesbians” and snide comments in class I decided it was time for me to just say it, because I was tired of awful made up stories about me floating everywhere. So I made a post on Facebook telling everyone to stop – stop calling me a lesbian, stop making things up. And I told them that I was bisexual. I received over 300 likes on that post. And somehow, magically, all the hate whispered behind our backs slowed right down. Because nobody had anything to talk about anymore. Because I confirmed the truth, we weren’t hiding anymore. That relationship lasted 18 months and I’ve had many long term relationships with women since. My label has changed over time and I now feel that Queer most describes my sexuality but I also identify with pansexual and bisexual. But for me, my sexuality doesn’t feel like it is just one thing. I feel fluid, like I have the capacity to love anybody. My story has many, many more layers as do all of ours. This is just one short version of my story, and how I became a part of one of the most wonderful communities on earth.

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 !!

Remy

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

I live in a country where homosexuality is punished by law – up to 20 years in jail and whipping. The government and religious bodies here are against the ‘lifestyle’ and want to ’guide people to the right path’. I have seen a member of my family spit at an interracial straight couple. My best friend is of mixed parentage, and I have received so much pushback from my family to stop being her friend because of this reason. I come from a homophobic, racist, narrow-minded family. And my mother abused me growing up – physically, emotionally and mentally. I also come from a minority racial group, where in my country we are second class citizens. We do not have equal rights, this is the law. Imagine all that and going through a sexuality crisis at school all by my lonesome.

My life was very sheltered. My mother had her own values that I didn’t agree with. She would call me useless, unwanted, heartless, ungrateful and a pariah everyday. For no reason, or a very small mistake like not completing a chore before she got back home from work, she would make me squat outside the house in the dark facing the wall for hours not knowing if snakes, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, rats or cockroaches were approaching me from behind. For hours. And over a span of years, this went on. If I opened my mouth to protest, I would get a caning, and still had to do the punishment.

I became a loner. I didn’t talk much. I tried to stay away from home as long as I possibly could. I would give excuses like I had extra classes or after school activities. During these times, I would take walks and sit by the paddy fields across the road from the house. Just thinking. Because on top of all these things going on in my head of being just a complete useless person, I was also dealing with my sexuality. I didn’t have a sense of there even being such a thing as lesbian or bisexual. I’ve never heard of these things, coming from a fishing village. In the small amount of time in a week that I did watch television, there was no representation of such things. And there was no Internet back then. Therefore there was no awareness.

So when I started developing crushes for other girls, I felt like I was doing something so wrong. I felt dirty and guilty and shameful of myself. But I couldn’t stop these feelings. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t talk to my parents. Not even my dad because he was too afraid of my mother to say anything to me. I certainly couldn’t talk to my school friends. They were an immature bunch of kids who just wanted to talk about fun things like the latest pop music or television show. I don’t blame them, they were happy kids from happy households. Our priorities were different.

Things got a little bit better when I started college. My parents moved to the town where my college was in. So I continued living with them. This is the culture in my country. Kids don’t move away from their parents at 18, we stay together as long as possible. Therein lies my problem. Because until today I have to take care of my still abusive mother who is now 81 and immobile. I have put aside my life for her, but that’s a different story. In college, I had access to the Internet, and with that came the awareness of the LGBT community. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I didn’t feel like I was wrong. And I started a relationship with a girl I have been crushing on for a while (turns out she had been crushing on me too). We were together for about 4 years, in secret, until her parents got her married off to a man and they moved to a different country. It broke my heart, but it also opened my eyes to the awesomeness of being in a relationship with someone you love.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I thought I’d just share with everyone that things are bleak sometimes and it may seem like there is no hope. But in all that craziness, there will always be a small sliver or light you can hold on to. Life gives you that much. My situation is still shitty at best but I choose to believe that things will turn around for me. I did not become like my mother, and I am proud of that. I chose kindness and compassion and tolerance over what I have been taught and shown my entire life. So I know there can be some good in this world that rubs off on you and sticks with you because you know it feels right for you.

Lesbian-Gender Warrior-Relationship Anarchist-Eco Rebel

CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT SELF-HARMING BEHAVIOUR AND SUICIDE.

I usually do not write on any type of website like this but found myself encouraged to do so here.
I knew I was different since I was 6 years old. I did not have a name for it, and I grew up in a strict Catholic environment so forget asking any type of questions. It was not, until high school that I was exposed to the concept of gayness through homophobic remarks toward someone who had graduated. As I realized I might be gay the local college library became my haven for information or should I say misinformation. There were no role models or mentors. All information stated being gay was a mental illness. I did not see myself anywhere in the world, my home was not supportive, and I felt alone in the world. The result left me depressed, isolated, and feeling ashamed of who I was.
This left my young adult years coming out as a lesbian fraught with self-doubt and battles inherent in the cultural norms of the 70’s. I suffered the wounds of alcohol/drug misuse, suicide attempts, rejection from family, dysfunctional romantic entanglements as well as harassment and discrimination from the world around me. One of the worse being the murder of a friend for being LGBTQ.
And yet these experiences built a resilience in me that offered a guide to my own awakening. To remember who I really was and discover my voice. After Charlie was killed the dam broke and I came out all over the place. It was then I became an activist and educator around LGBT+ and diversity issues in higher education. I did not want anyone to experience what I had as a young adult. Thank god for gay bars and dances, as I found sanctuary in the only places to be out and safe.
As the 80’s and 90’s went by it was during my work on college campuses that another layer of my closeted life peeled away. Supporting young adults would in turn give me permission to acknowledge I am a non-binary queer woman. All along, I had thought since I was clear about my sex as assigned by birth, I could not be trans. This was my mistake and the personal work I had done prior assisted me in stepping into the acceptance of a deeper awareness of who I was. Gender queer.
So here I am a 64-year-old lesbian gender queer woman continuing to stand in a place of opening to the soul of who I am. All those years impacted by trials of the world’s norms and judgments contributed to a lack of confidence in my ability to know love and I longed desperately to experience it. During the last twenty years I became a Druid Priest of nature and dived into the guidance of my dreams as a path to healing and wholeness. To find and heal the darkness which clouded my access to feeling love. The land is so forgiving and calls to all of us to remember the heart of who we are as one planet, one being, and we need each other to survive and thrive. In listening to spirit I have now been guided to creating Dreaming Back to Earth. This is the gift of opening my heart.
Unexpectedly along the way of remembering I have become a relationship anarchist believing there is no hierarchy, state of control, or norms that drive loving and being loved with others and in community. It is a beautiful reflection of how to live within this earthly planet. And my dreams have offered the guidance to remember this within my soul and body. The key is to be willing and open to challenge my beliefs, face my traumas and open my heart to love in all its forms. This is some of my story.
Every day, I learn and shift. I am not perfect in the process and have made mistakes. I am not done, never will be. What a life. Thank you.

Bisexual

I’d always known I wasn’t into boys. I appreciated them, got along with them, played sports with them, but I didn’t like being in a relationship with them. I spent a lot of my time watching old classic movies as a kid and watched how gentlemen treated women, and knew that the only way I or any other woman was to experience that in this day and age was to treat a girl like that myself. I had come out to my friends when I finished school at about 18. I didn’t get the opportunity to be with a woman till I was 22, and all it was was a drunken kiss, but after that, I knew for sure there was no going back. I had started a friendship with a girl I was working with at my local horse stables and after a few months of giving her chocolates and flowers, she came to stay at my place. During the week she stayed with me, she and I both opened up and told each other things we had never told anyone else. Our dreams, our hopes, our pasts. Nothing was off limits. The day before she went back to her place we spent the day just lounging around in bed, and for a brief moment, I thought she might kiss me, and as quickly as I thought it, she quickly moved away. I should point out at this stage that this woman had never even thought about being with a woman.
That night I went to stay with my ex, a guy, and told him of my feelings for this woman. He told me I was being ridiculous and no one would ever love me. The next night I went to stay at her place while her parents were overseas.
She taught her horse riding lesson, and we went home. We had showers, then went and laid in her bed. She had been quiet all day and I had started to worry I had scared her the day before, but suddenly in the darkness, she turned to me and told me she was confused, she didn’t know why she felt the way she did or what was happening, but she told me all she wanted to do was kiss me, and asked if I would be ok with her doing that. She kissed me, and the rest is history. Two weeks ago we celebrated out two year wedding anniversary.
My mother didn’t and still doesn’t accept our marriage, but the rest of my family love my wife to pieces. And why? Because she makes me happy. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters, is happiness and love.

Love Conquers ALL

I was quite young when I started to realise that I didn’t love in the same way as my friends or most of the people around me. Growing up I had never really felt like I fit in – there always felt like there was something, perhaps a part of me, that was missing or undiscovered.

When I was around 13 years old, thanks to social media and other resources that exposed me to a whole community of kind, loving and accepting people, I started to view myself and the feelings I felt differently. At first, I was absolutely petrified of who I was; one of the memories I remember most was lying in my bed crying and whispering to myself over and over again ‘I’m not gay, I don’t like girls.’

Thankfully, I came to the realisation that it was okay to like girls and to be gay. In June 2016, I came out to my friends on Twitter as bisexual. I stuck with this label for almost two years because it felt ‘okay’. I still felt like it wasn’t correct but it sure as hell felt a lot better than trying to convince myself that I was straight.

The first time I came out to somebody in my ‘real life’ was in April 2018. She was one of my best friends and we were out at a park doing a photo shoot for one of my photography projects. We ended up staying on the park swings for about 3 hours, just talking about sexuality and my experience and such. This was the first time that I had said that I didn’t actually know what I wanted to label myself as, I just knew that I liked girls (and that I liked them a lot more than boys).

In June 2018, exactly 2 years after I first came out on Twitter as bi, I came out again, but this time as a lesbian. It was one of the most freeing feelings I have ever felt because, FINALLY, I could identify as something that made me feel authentic and true to myself. It took me a while to feel fully comfortable with the label because of the bad rap the label is given as it is fetishised by the porn industry. But today I can easily, and happily, announce that I am a lesbian and that I am proud of that.

Throughout the 2 years since coming out to my friend in 2018, I have come out to so many more people. Old friends from secondary school (actually, most of my whole year group from secondary school through a post to my Instagram Story) and new friends from sixth form.

But the most recent person that I came out to is the one that makes me proudest. In February of this year (2020), I came out to my older sister. I couldn’t say the words out loud so I just sent her a link to a YouTube video of a ‘coming out’ song that somebody had made for this particular situation. I sobbed and she held me close when we hugged. She told me that she loved me and that she didn’t care who I loved. I can’t remember if she said so or not, but I know that she is proud of me.

The only other family member that knows is one of my cousins of the same age but I know that one day I will be able to fully be myself in front of all of my family and that this is only the beginning.

As part of the LGBTQ+ community, we are always coming out. Whether 2 days down the line or 10 years. Even so, the feeling of relief and joy that we experience when we tell somebody who accepts it without question is something that I will never forget or take for granted.

As I said at the start; I don’t love in the same way as my friends or a lot of the people around me. But that’s okay because love is complex and it comes in so many different forms. And every single one of them is beautiful. Because love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love.

I finally feel like I fit in somewhere. I have finally found the missing jigsaw pieces that make me, ME.

I am a lesbian, I love girls.
But, most importantly, I am ME.

-Lily

#Loveislove #LoveConquersALL