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It took me a long time to realize I was gay. I came out to my sisters 4 years ago on March 22nd. I was so nervous! But I couldn’t deny I was a lesbian anymore after I was thinking of Alexandra Daddario the way I was. I realize that finding men attractive didn’t mean I wasn’t gay it just meant I had eyes. Coming out later on is so strange because tv makes it seem like you should have things figured out in middle school, but it’s different for everyone. And I’m glad I can be myself.
The first time I probably really started to consider my sexuality was maybe around 3-4 years ago when I discovered the characters Beca and Chloe and then the ship {Bechloe} but what really helped me was Choni from Riverdale – Cheryl Blossom and Toni Topaz – a couple years ago i talked with my cousin through snapchat and then i told my Dad and Mom that i was bi in our back room before one of my brothers basketball games; i told people online who i trusted, that i was bi as well. Then early on in 2020 or late 2019 I discovered that i was just into females so earlier on i wrote a rough draft to some of my online friends and even went on a walk and called one of then and then came June of 2020; i went on a walk (yes, that seems to be a reoccurring thing i did haha)with my two best friends to my elementary school and i made a group chat with my Dad, Mom, and two older brothers and sent them what i wrote firstly to my ibf’s (internet’best’ friends) and they were all supportive. So although i may be out, i am still not 100% comfortable for some reason shouting who i am from the rooftops, everyone’s story and process is different, i know i’ll get there eventually, but all we can do is try our best to be our most authentic comfortable selves. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter, your mind can change and you can love whoever the heck you want to love.
Growing up in an academic focused, traditional Asian family, my ‘path’ had always felt like it was mapped out for me. I knew who I was suppose to be the minute I knew how to walk. I was a pretty sheltered child and didn’t even know what the term “gay” meant, let alone understanding it. Moving to San Francisco for college was the first real introduction I had to the LGBTQ+ community. Once learning more about the community and understanding my thoughts and feelings, my whole life made so much more sense. I understood why I was so angry at my best friend in high school for hanging out with her boyfriend instead of me. I understood why I go out my way to make certain girls happy. I finally understood why and that scared me. I was different.
I first came out to my college friends as bisexual because I felt like it was easier for them to understand and accept. I wasn’t honest with myself even then. I’m very thankful that I had a group of friends that were very open minded and supportive. Living in SF at the time didn’t hurt either. I eventually came out as a lesbian to my best friend, crying my eyes out because I was finally allowing myself to admit it. Life at that point was good and I was embracing myself and experiencing this new me. But I soon realize I was living a double life. When I’m home I become someone else. I was out to everyone but my immediate family. I stumbled out of the closet to my mom when I was 21 and she kicked me out of the house, claiming that I was disgusting. She was my hero. I thought she going to understand. She didn’t and it broke my heart. I lived most of my life trying to make her proud and I failed her because I was being me.
I went through some of the darkest times of my life then as I was done with this life and it’s disappointments. I wanted a different kind of out. I try to end it all but I survived and that was my true awakening. I started on a whole new journey in finding myself and to be my most authentic self. During this journey I found the love of my life, a smart and beautiful woman who I asked to marry me. Now that I’m older, I decided to give the conversation with my mother another chance. So last Christmas, I came out again to my mom and asked if she would be at my wedding. Her answer was no. It hurts. It’ll always hurt but I came to the realization that I’m not going to sacrifice my happiness for anyone anymore. At the end of the day, I have to be able to live with myself and the person I’m becoming. I’ve learned to be brave and face what’s coming my way with kindness and compassion. Not everyone will understand my truth just like I might not understand theirs. We as human just need to help each other learn the different truths. Hopefully one day, my mom will understand mine.
But I’m now 31 and I’m the happiest and most free I’ve ever been.
Took 10 years but I’m queer, I’m here and that’s MY truth.
Much love, always.
Sandy
I first acknowledged I was into women in the 5th grade. As a kid I was pretty sheltered so I didn’t actually know what gay/lesbian was, but I did hear about the word bi – so that’s what I called myself. When I told my mom she explained that all women know that other women are beautiful, but that it didn’t necessarily mean I “liked” them. Now, I can acknowledge a good looking dude, don’t get me wrong, but I knew I could never love a man the way I could love a woman. By the time I hit middle school I came out to a few friends who were incredibly supportive. And when high school rolled around, I finally accepted myself enough to openly live as a lesbian. I got very little flack about it thankfully (IMO it’s because of how much larger I was than my peers) but I never truly accepted the part of myself that could be attracted to men. As confusing as this sounds, I still identify as a lesbian because of my previous statement about falling in love. I am lucky enough to love a woman who understands what this means and accepts me for who I am. Unfortunately, our wedding was postponed because of COVID-19, so although I can’t quite call her my wife, we have proudly and affectionately adopted the title of “almost-wife” for each other. Because of my family (who is extremely supportive btw), friends, and the love of my life I am enthusiastically proud to be a part of this wonderfully supportive and kind community. And I am so friggin excited that Start the Wave has joined with the LGBTQ+ community so we can grow and learn and love one another the way that we all deserve!
I don’t think there was ever a specific moment that made me realize I was gay. I’ve always known, whether it came to my childhood crush on Mulan, my adolescent obsession with Kristen Stewart, or my teenage love for my best friend. I came out to my friends my freshman year of high school, my mother about one year later, and am yet to come out to my father several more years later. He’s in his mid sixties and dead set in his ways, though I suspect he knows. Being gay is something that hides in the shadows if it isn’t directly addressed when you’re growing up. You can have your parents never speak out against the LGBT+ community, and still feel as if you’re living a lie. I’ve been called snowflake, baby, sweetheart, sinner, and many more by people who know no more about me other than the way I held the hand of the girl I loved. The world is changing, and we can hope it changes for the better, but hope means nothing without action. I live my life fighting in public for the rights of people like me, marching the streets, signing petitions, and I in fear at family dinners, too scared to introduce my own father into the world I’m a part of. The world is changing, and we’d better hope that we can keep up with it.
I’m 25 from Norway and I’ve been out for awhile now. I first realized there was something different with me when I was 10 years old. Back then I of course didn’t think there was anything wrong with what I was feeling, cause honestly how can a child who’s really open-minded not realize this isn’t “normal”? I noticed I was attracted to girls the way I should’ve been attracted to boys. When I got older ( I believe i was 12/13) i started to see that maybe this wasn’t as normal as I thought at first. That’s when the fear hit me. That’s when I saw that who I was and who I wanted to be was not accepted in the society. So I did what I had to do, hide my sexuality. For a long time I thought I was bisexual, I mean how could I not be? At least I could be into boys, right? I could have a part of be that was “ normal” and I didn’t have to tell anyone about my attraction towards girls. Time went on and I kept dating boys and I kept getting more depressed. I was 15 and I met the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. We became best friends quickly and my feelings only got stronger. It got harder to hide what I was feeling. Everything was so much harder. That’s when I knew I HAD to come out to someone. So I took a few of my friends aside and told them that I was bisexual ( obviously I was lying) and they took it fine. But it didn’t stop there that wasn’t the real me, I wasn’t out as a gay. I kept dating boys, I was still so scared and I still tried to deny it. I knew I had to come out to my parents at some point. By the time I was 17 I have had crush on many girls without anyone knowing. I started to accept myself slowly and I was meeting my fear, I started to realize maybe I wasn’t as weird as I thought. Or maybe people didn’t judge me as I thought. I got my first girlfriend when I was 18 without anyone knowing. That’s when I decided to meet my fear and tell my parents. I wanted to be me and I couldn’t hide it any longer, my friends had known for awhile. I first told my brothers and then my mom, then my dad. Everyone took it amazing except from my dad. I’m not gonna go into details cause it’s complicate but he learned to accept me eventually. I told the rest of my family when I was 21, I felt so free and so happy. I’ve never felt better. I’m never going back and I’m never going to lie about my sexuality again and I’m not gonna go back to being scared and afraid of who I am. I’m so freaking proud of who I am and I’m loving my life now. I don’t miss being in the closet at all. Now I stand with LGBTQ+ and I fight for our rights. Everyone should be able to love who they want no matter sexuality they have. Love is freaking beautiful
I love who I love.
Growing up I knew I was different. I was a bit of an introvert. Didn’t want to be around anyone. I felt awkward. I always wanted to please my family. I wanted to leave my little town and never look back as soon as I graduated. I joined the Marines. But I still felt like I needed to please my family. Long story short, Two crappy marriages later (and two wonderful children), I decided to do me and not worry about anything else. I have found someone that truly makes me happy. And my family loves her.
We will all have our ups and downs, but that’s love/relationships.
Be you no matter what. Love the one who loves you.
When I was younger, all my attempts at imagining myself marrying a man felt… off. So naturally I assumed that I just wasn’t someone who wanted to get married.
On my facebook account that I started at the age of 9 (dont arrest me) I had mistaken the sexuality question on the profile description as a question about what friends I would like to make. My facebook profile read “I am interested in girls” for everyone I know to see. I was 9 and had no clue what a lesbian was, but I certainly pretended to know when everyone at school started calling me that.
There were countless times where I would think to myself “the next boy who walks through the door will be my crush” just because I was so tired of my sister asking me if I had any crushes on the boys at school. In reality, I had no interest in them at all. In fact, I didn’t have any crushes on anyone and didn’t even feel attracted to people, which was very confusing and made me feel somehow defective.
Both of my sisters had relationships and crushes on guys and talked about how people were attractive but I just didn’t get it.
The first crush I had was in middle school, and it was my best friend. I still had no idea what was going on at that point, and only realized until it was too late and she had moved away. I put a lot of effort into research after that. By high school, I knew for sure that I was gay. Luckily at the school I attended, almost everyone in my friend group was part of the LGBTQ+ community and I even had the opportunity to join the LGBT club there! For the first time I felt seen by the people around me. There was no stress on coming out because we were all growing up with the same pressures and expectations that we hated. ‘Be normal’ ‘Be straight’ ‘Do what you’re told.’
My research also lead me to the asexuality spectrum. An infinite spectrum of the gray area of sexual libido on which I have come to fully recognize I will never find my exact place. However, knowing that my lack of sexual attraction was not some kind if mutation but instead just the way my brain worked was more than I could have ever asked for.
I felt safe to be who I was at school without the fear of being called names or being bullied for it (not to say I wasn’t bullied for other things, of course).
Coming out to my parents was not hard. For a while I felt bad or somehow inadequate because I didn’t have some tragic story, but then I realized that it was a fact that I should be greatful for.
My parents aren’t the only republicans in the world who are accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, but it is not common to positively associate those two things together.
I came out to my parents as graysexual the week after I did extensive research on it. It was a non-issue. My gayness, however, I kept hidden for four years.
Not because I purposefully hid it, though. Not once did I ever tell my parents “I like boys.” I never in my life wanted to ever have to LIE about who I was to anyone. They simply did not ask about my sexuality.
Except one day when I was 18, while I was sitting outside with my mom, she finally had the thought to ask if I liked boys at all.
I was nervous; caught completely off guard with the question I had never expected her to actually ask (despite the fact that she has previously asked about my gender identity and pronouns). Shakily, but nevertheless determined, I told her the truth.
“No, I’m gay.”
She seemed shocked at first, and asked me if I was serious (because sarcasm is a true commodity in my family). After I told her I was serious, she smiled, shook my hand, and said, “Alexa, play ‘I am Woman’.”
I distinctly remember the corner of my lips trembling anxiously as I tried to fight the smile that wanted to break out across my face. I had never been so open with my mother before about anything, and it was an odd feeling to feel accepted by her.
The rest of my family soon followed. My older sister thought I was joking and wasn’t paying attention the first five times I said it, so I had to grab her by the shoulders and say it directly in her face. She quickly hugged me and congratulated me then.
I told my dad, eldest sister, and her boyfriend all at the same time after hearing my sister’s boyfriend sing “I’m coming out”. I thought, why not? So I told them right then, and my sister said she already knew because she had seen all the gay shit I watch on my netflix account, haha.
I got hugs from all of them, and felt proud to be part of such an accepting family.
I did not know then that coming out was not an isolated experience. It is a constant task. A box that needs to be checked every time you make a friend. By the time I got to my third semester of college, I found I was tired. I wanted to see what it was like to not come out to friends for once.
Really long story short, I didn’t come out to a group of friends that I had incorporated myself into and I ended up accidentally going on a date with one of the guys who probably didn’t believe me when I told him that I’m gay. He then outted me to the entire group, and they proceeded to question if I really was a lesbian or if I just didnt want to date that guy.
It made me feel so inadequate. As if being a lesbian is some kind of last resort to get out of a bad date.
I started to feel very insecure about myself and after that incident I stopped hanging around those people, bought a ton of rainbow-themed clothes, and wore my rainbow bracelet obsessively for nearly a year. After that I never purposefully hid my sexuality again. I had seen the other side and the grass was putrid and yellow.
Due to some amazing friends and supportive family, I have become proud of who I am. I don’t hide anymore. I advocate for who I am and who I want to be. I get angry when things are unfair. I get sad when people are being hurt. I feel happy when I see part of who I am on TV more and more often as the years pass.
Other people have it a lot worse than me. Many of those people are my close friends, and it breaks my heart.
What my experiences have shown me is that I am lucky. Every day, I have people who support me and love me for who I am, and I am so damn grateful. I hope more than anything in the world that I am that person for someone else.
I developed my first ever crush on a girl October of 2019, in my second year of high school. I’ve only ever had one crush before, and it was on a boy. Liking this girl scared me more than anything else I have ever known, and I still like her. I didn’t really know what to do, but I eventually told a friend who it was and I felt better. What’s weird is that I ran away before I could see a reaction. I guess I thought she would be disgusted. But she wasn’t. I then told my best friend because I felt like it was eating me up inside that she didn’t know. We were hanging out and she was talking about this boy she liked and the whole time I was thinking it’s now or never. I told her I like someone, and of course she wanted to know because I never like anyone. I almost started crying trying to tell her, hoping it wouldn’t change anything between us. I finally told her the name of the girl and she just smiled. She wasn’t mad. I was terrified. But she was okay. And I am okay. I told another friend a few weeks later. I was insanely nervous about this one because I honestly felt like she would become immediately uncomfortable. I was with the first friend I told and I kept avoiding it. But I did it.
Last week however, I decided to tell my sister. This TERRIFIED me. My sister is not at all homophobic but I felt like I couldn’t breathe just by thinking about telling her. She kept asking who I like, and I finally said it. It was weird. It still kind of is. She doesn’t treat me different or anything, I just thought we would talk about it a bit more. But it’s okay.
And that’s it. I am out as a bisexual to the 4 people closest to me.
I am on my mid-30s, have been married to a man for 10 years, have 2 young kids and have just recently begun to come out. It’s in some ways a sad journey because it marks the end of my marriage to a truly amazing man who gave me the security and space to find myself, but it is not the end of my family. I feel an incredible sense of relief at finally being able to love and accept myself and live an honest life. My children will be better for having a happy mother, and they still have 2 loving parents who love them very much.
Announcing your divorce and your queerness all at once is quite a lot, but I have been so lucky to receive nothing but support from my friends and family.
I think part of what scared me for so long was being defined by my sexuality, but we are all so much more than that aren’t we? I am a mother, a friend, a damn successful businesswoman, a sister, a daughter…and I happen to also be a lesbian.
