Community Rainbow Waves

Lesbian

When I realised I had feelings for a close friend and freaked out. At that time, I already had another friend come out to me as bisexual so I knew that there was hope of me still being normal even though I was not straight.
I was forced out of the closet after I tried giving a family member some advice who then outed me to their homophobic parents. They threatened to tell mine unless I told them first.
I hope we can continue to spread love and acceptance to all and that we’re able to create more safe spaces. Thank you all for the work you do

A non binary man living free.

I was born a girl. I was always kind of normal person, as a kid, but a lot masculine. At the age of 12, I knew I was gay and at the time, it was a society that wasn’t very ‘welcoming’ to gay people and I experienced that. I didn’t make a coming out to anyone, I just joined with a lesbian friend and people start assuming I was gay too. I noticed my closest friends being weird with me. At school, when we were in gym class, the girls, my friends for ages, would hide changing their closest next to me, and with the time, they started ‘getting away’ and talking behind my back. So, by time it was high school, they all went to the same school and I decided to change to a different school a bit far.
I wasn’t always very good at making friends, so when I lost everyone, I got really scared that I was gonna be alone. But then, about 2 days at high school, a group of girls came to me and asked for me to joined them. They didn’t asked anything about me, they just accept how I was and they loved me. And that was the best time of my life. There, I made friends for life!
By the time I went to college, I had a girlfriend, that in a year in college, we broke up.
I had a really hard time in college, I didn’t have anyone, I was completely alone. And that started to get to me. I had a depression, really bad, I just really wanted to die. I tried. But something at the time told me to hold on a bit more.
I got help and I got better, for a while. And 2 years into college, I had no high school girlfriend anymore and I had a few friends from my class. But I decided to focus and end college.
And now I did, I’m 22 years old and I just ended college.
Buuuut, this was only my story about being a gay women.

At the age of 14, I’ve always knew I was different, I felt different. I always hated my body and how it was. And at that time I discovered ‘trans’. I started searching about it and learning more, how it was done, how much it costs. And in Portugal (that’s where I live), the costs were a lot! I couldn’t afford it, not until I was like 30 years old. So I made a plan. I promised myself that I would end school as fast as I could and I would go to another country and there work and pay for surgery and hormones.
But – and this is an important part for everyone in a similar situation -, things on my head started getting worse. The profound hate with my body was awful. I started to cut myself. In my head, doing that was like a way to get to my really body, that was underneath the one I had that I hated. I also had depressions and 2 suicide atempts.
But one day, November of 2019, a friend of mine – not very close at the time – asked my if I ever thought about transexuality. And I told her the truth and my plan to finish school and go away to become me. And she was this amazing person that said ‘are you crazy?! you gotta start that s*** right now!’.
The first step was to come out to my parents. I came out to my sister in 2016 and she was okay with it. And then I came out to my mother in December 2019, and she was.. . okay…, I understand it is hard for parents and loved ones, but I only want them to be the same as they always were. My mom said that, if this is something I feel and want, it was my path, I need to so it alone. And that okay by me, that’s acceptable.
So, because if the incredible women that supported me and helped me to come out to my parents and ‘ordered’ me not to wait anymore, I started my transition.
Now, I’m about to start hormones and I’m working to get money for my surgery. And I’m happy! Really happy, for the first time in my life!

For anyone it a situation similar – don’t give up! Don’t wait!
If you love someone, go get them, no matter the sex or gender!
If you feel your different, don’t hide it, live your true self!
I know we still don’t live in a society that’s free and that accepts ‘different’ people. In this century, we should not have to hide and we should not have communities. We should all be one. But the world is this not and this amazing community will stand by you and help you and support you all the way and all the time!

We are united as one!

Kaleen’s Journey

Your personal journey to finding yourself¬–whether you’re queer or not¬–is a universal thing we all experience. As unique and individual those journeys may be, the feelings and emotions are something we all share, and I find that to be so beautiful!

Love is love, hurt is hurt, heavy is heavy, hard is hard, joy is joy. Remember we all experience these things together and no one should judge anyone’s story and compete over struggles, but rather find connections and how much we all share as people. Let’s all continue to grow, love and support each other and continue this wave of self-love and discovery!

So that said, I would love to share my experience publicly for the first time, in the hopes it helps someone else find their truth. <3

I’m Kaleen and I identify as lesbian, queer and gay. I am 28 years old and I’m an art director and actress in San Francisco. For me, and I’m sure many of you, finding myself and accepting myself are two very different things and came at very different times in my life. Next week, I proudly celebrate my 4 year wedding anniversary with my amazing wife (we’ve been together for over 8 years) so my story has a very happy ending! But it definitely didn’t start that way.

For most of my life, I did not realize I was gay. I didn’t even consider it as an option. I grew up in a religious household with a mother who I believe after years of therapy to have Borderline personality disorder (BPD). It was not a healthy or emotionally safe environment for me. I truly believed that I was just an amazing Christian who was waiting till marriage (for you know)… but waiting was super easy for me because I had ZERO desire to be intimate with a man. Even when I had boyfriends and would kiss them, I would find myself counting down the seconds till it was over. I truly thought everyone felt this way and it was something I would learn to like and we all just have to get over that hurdle of disgust. I would see my friends falling head over heels for their boyfriends and wonder how they got over that hurdle, and think I’ll get there soon too… that day didn’t come for me.

Knowing myself now and looking back, there were so many “clues” that I was gay, but it still did not cross my mind. I remember watching the show House and there was an episode when Olivia Wilde’s character, Thirteen, came out as bisexual. The scene where she kissed another woman, I remember rewinding and watching it a few times. This was one of the first times I’d seen this on T.V. and it was the start of my eyes opening into what is possible. This is why representation is SO important!

Fast forward to college. This is when my life flipped on its head! I found myself in a relationship with a man and we got engaged (for his privacy, I will call him John). He was a wonderful human, and I truly thought I was “in” love. I did love him, but just not the way he deserved to be loved, and not the way I deserved to experience it. At this time, I also built a wonderful friendship with a girl and we became best friends. When I got engaged to John, something in me snapped because my mind knew that eventually I will have to have sex with this person. This tossed me into a deep depression and in doing so, also opened my eyes to a past I had bolted shut. I realized all in one moment, that I was gay, in love with my best friend, and I also had PTSD with memories of being sexually abused by a family member for half my childhood flooding my mind, all while going to school full time and holding a job to pay rent. It was a lot to discover all at one time and I felt completely overwhelmed and alone. The only person I felt comfortable sharing all these pieces of myself with was my best friend Kay. Little by little I had to confront and try to accept all these things happening in my life.

At this time, I asked John to give me space. He understood that I was having trouble with my PTSD and needed to distance myself from him. We were fully separated for over 3 months with no communication as I worked to find myself again and heal from my past.

Kay was patient and helped me heal, and through all this we became unbelievably close. At this time, she was not out as gay either. Funny enough, we did not even realize that our relationship was different than other girl/girl relationships because it felt so natural to the point we didn’t stop and ask ourselves if this was “normal”. Needless to say, we figured it out together. At this point, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to allow myself to live an authentic life because I knew in doing this, I would lose family. Before I said yes or no, I gave myself one day to openly (in the privacy of my home) love Kay and acknowledge how we felt for one another. We spent the day just holding each other, laughing, and enjoying how we felt. As the clock drew near to midnight, our hearts began to sink as we knew we only had this moment. To this day, I can’t watch All Dogs Go To Heaven because that was on in the background. We shared one last amazing kiss and then walked into separate rooms. Oh, did I not mention we were also roommates! Yeah… that made things even harder!

Days turned into weeks of me pretending like I could live without her, till I just couldn’t take it anymore. I decided I would let myself be gay if, and only if, my sister could be ok with it. Lucky for me, she was open to trying to understand. It was at this point I officially ended my engagement with John. I returned the ring and we had a wonderful moment of thanking each other for all the good times and wished nothing but happiness and healing to one another. A few months after this, I began my first true relationship with Kay.

I came out to my family and my father and stepmom were amazingly supportive and even helped pay for my therapy during all this, but my mother would not accept my truth. She said to me “I would rather you be unhappy in this lifetime, but forever happy in the kingdom of god” and asked me to deny myself love and live alone. I gave myself the best gift I could and will ever give and decided to fully embrace my love for Kay regardless of what this person thought. It was hard, it’s still hard to think about, but it’s what was best for me. Years later when we became engaged, my mom officially removed herself from my life and we haven’t seen or spoken since.

Like I said in the beginning of the story, Kay and I have now been together for over 8 years and we are about to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary on April 2nd. She is my absolute best friend and I don’t have words for how much I love her. She is the first time I have experienced unconditional love, and I value her with everything I am. Deciding to accept myself and live an openly gay life is the best decision I’ve made for myself and it’s a privilege I will never take for granted.

I wish everyone who reads this love and acceptance within themselves. You are love, you are here and you stay. Xoxo

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

PD: Dom. I am so happy for you. I would like to thank you for always inspiring me. Your light makes others shine.

Start the wave.

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.

Well I’m gay…

Hello first. I am an 18 year old girl who is gay. I come from a Jewish family from Berlin. My parents are Russians, so they’re not the most open people anyway. Actually, I knew pretty early that I wasn’t really into boys, but my whole environment was absolutely against lgbt +. In general, everything that was different. So I hid my feelings and was very unhappy. Until I started looking at wynonna Earp and saw how many people had feelings similar to mine. And then I finally came out. It was very liberating for me, but the reactions were really not great. I mean my parents yelled at me first and called me a disappointment. Some of my siblings had no problem with it, but some kept their distance from then on. When I told my best friend she didn’t really have a bad reaction (I thought). but suddenly she blocked me everywhere and never spoke to me again. But it was worth it. I found new friends who accept me for who I am and I never have to hide again. I thank you Dominique. I don’t think I would have had the courage to come out without you , the show and without this community.

On my way, hoping to get there soon…

I guess I always knew way back when I was a kid, but I had no idea what it was and why I felt that way. I just wasn’t what was deemed “normal”. I started acknowledging it for myself as I was going through adolescence and all throughout college and then sort of embraced it after graduation. But to be honest, I still don’t feel safe or free – as I wish I could be – to declare my truth. To some I am able to tell them, while to most I keep quiet… either way, I am never without fear of being rejected or seen differently, like I become a different person from the one they’ve come to know as soon as I confirm what they probably already thought. I still fear that I will never be taken seriously professionally or deserving of the same respect as a person just because of who I am. I am still afraid but I am also hopeful that one day, I’d get there – where I am free to just be me and no longer afraid.

I am me!

I always knew i was different but i didnt know what that meant. I grew up in a very secluded rich neighborhood where being straight was all there was. I was in high school when i met my first gay person and a light went off and everything just clicked. I finally knew who I was. I became me.

Sunflower in a Rainstorm

Being apart of the LGBTQ+ community is never something anyone could ever plan for. At first there is usually some form of confusion and shame. However, every single person has a beautiful story on how they have persevered through. Here is my story.

My coming out story started in the 7th grade with a girl who had beautiful blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. I knew at the time the feelings I had for her were “wrong” but there was always this gravitational pull toward her. Being that this wasn’t a “normal” feeling to have, I didn’t give into my urges because “girls are suppose to be with boys” and “everyone will think I am a freak.” Because of those constant reminders of social normalities, for the next few years I was on and off with boys. I never really had a dislike to boys but girls have always caught my eyes. All through middle school I was extremely confused with my own self identity. However, everything changed when I got to high school.

I have always been an athletic girl so I decided that I was going to go for the varsity basketball team. I successfully made the team as one of the 3 freshman players. At first was quite intimidating playing with 17 and 18 year olds, until I became close with Raquel. Raquel was another freshman who had always played a few grade levels up, therefore, she already knew the entire team. Trying to fit in I latched onto Raquel to get my in with the upperclassmen. However, the more I got to know Raquel, the more it opened my eyes about myself. Raquel has identified herself as a lesbian and has been out since she was in 5th grade. She has had multiple girlfriends and always talked about how experienced she was. Fascinated, I continued to hang out with her to learn more which allowed me to feel more like myself. I never before knew a real life lesbian.

In the beginning of our off season we decided to join the University of Florida camp tournament where we would stay in dorms and train with the woman’s basketball team. Unfortunately, Raquel picked to room with one of her upperclassman friends so I roomed with the other freshman. During the day, we had groups separated by position, which was great because Raquel and I played the same position. The camp was 4 days long and every day was a different activity that would completely drain all my energy but I got to be with Raquel. The only time that really sucked was night when I couldn’t see her. But I would wake up every morning excited to get another conversation in with her. On the last night, I was getting ready for bed when I got a text. It read “Meet me in my room in 5 minutes xx-R” Super excited I threw on my sweats and waited outside her room. My heart was racing when she opened the door. The room was pitch black and our other teammate was already sleeping. Raquel motioned me to get into her bed so we squeezed into the tight double bed. Silence surrounded us and Raquel was pulling me in closer to her body. My heart was thumping but my eyes stayed locked onto hers. After what felt like forever, Raquel finally whispered “I know what you are” and kissed me. Her lips were magical, nothing like I have ever felt with any boy. We continued holding each other and shared a few more kisses until it was time for me to sneak back into my room. When I got back to the room I finally knew. I have finally came out to myself.

Finding that ground of who you truly are is probably the most scariest things that anyone in the LGBTQ+ community has to go through. Not knowing who is going to accept you or understand you is a daunting feeling which can make you feel alone and isolated. But I just want you, the reader, to know that I understand and I accept you. A quote that has always stuck with me is this: “Not all those who wander are lost.” Be your own truth and know that you have an entire community behind you, supporting you. I love you and we are in this together. #StartTheWave

E

I have been struggling with my sexuality a lot recently. Dominique’s story really touched me in that I understand the struggle and confusion that often goes with coming to terms with who we are and how we want to identify ourselves. I did not really think about my sexuality until college and then it hit me one day that my feelings were probably not those of a person who would identify as straight. I am still not out and the only person I have told about my confusing thoughts and feelings is my therapist. I want to be brave and live my truth but that is so scary to do. I am still so confused about everything but I am hoping that with time my feelings will become more clear. I am so happy that I have found this community through being a relatively new fan of Wynonna Earp and I am blown away by the support and happiness that comes from the cast and the fans. Thank you for creating a platform where everyone feels welcome!