Community Rainbow Waves

Bisexual

This isn’t really the most interesting coming out story in the world but I thought I’d contribute my story anyway.
I figured out that I was attracted to girls in the seventh grade. It wasn’t so much a “Oh shit! I like girls! I’m not straight!” as it was a “Oh, so the magnitude of my fixation on *insert any female actress* is NOT experienced by everyone”. However, I didn’t really process what that information meant until one of my classmates had offhandedly mentioned that she had a girlfriend and that she identified as a lesbian. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew that people could like someone of the same gender identity, but the meaning behind being queer held no weight to me until someone put a label onto it. It sort of clicked in a way that made me realize that maybe I was bisexual. Because of that realization, I did the obvious thing and took hundreds of “What is my sexuality?” quizzes and found solidarity and comfort among the dozens of famous or slightly relevant LGBTQ+ Youtube videos and Youtube series’ that were available in 2014.
Before my descent down the rabbit hole that is the numerous quality LGBTQ+ media available to the public, I decided to come out to one of my former best friends. She did not realize that was trying to come out to her, and I had to come out to her again 4 years later.
It took me 2 years after I had realized that I wasn’t straight to actually come out to someone, 1 year to feel comfortable with a label, and like 1 month to decide that- if someone asked me what my sexuality was- I would tell them the truth. So basically, it took 2 years for one of my other best friends to outright ask me if I was asexual before I could say that I was pan/bi. It took me a year after that to come out to my best friend since elementary school. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to hide my sexuality from her as it was that it wasn’t something I wanted to be defined by, nor was it the most important detail about me. Despite my resolve to just come out to her if I ended up liking someone who happened to have the same gender identity as me, I panic texted her. This was after a friend of ours asked me if I was straight while my best friend was sitting there with us. I ended up giving that friend a roundabout answer and then came out officially to my best friend at midnight over text.
Now, I am luck enough to not experience extreme homophobia directed at myself and I am extremely lucky to be, and have been, friends with open-minded and accepting people, so I didn’t really consciously feel internalized homophobia/biphobia until years after I realized that I was indeed NOT straight. I didn’t feel that way until I was asked by my mom to warn her if I happened to be attracted to a girl or, better yet, just not like girls at all. Because of that, I grew conscious of the underlying yet ever-present homophobia found in my relative’s uninformed opinions about the LBGTQ+ community. I wasn’t afraid that my family would disown me or stop loving me, but I became afraid that I would have to compromise who I am in order not be seen as an outlier by my aunts and uncles. Honestly, I was more afraid because I wasn’t sure how my parents would react. I ended up hiding who I am from both my parents and my older sister, who I knew didn’t care and didn’t hold the same “traditionalist” values that my extended family and my parents did. I was too afraid that, if I told her, my parents and extended family would somehow find out. I made the same resolve that I had made before with my elementary school best friend: I would just casually introduce my girlfriend to her when I eventually started to actually date girls (or people in general). That, however, did not happen. Instead, I came out to her when she asked me how I identified while we were watching Bon Appetit Youtube videos.
These aren’t the only coming out stories that I have, and I definitely didn’t elaborate on every detail, but these were the moments that actually held some importance to me. Each time I came out to someone that held/holds an extreme amount of importance to my life, none of it went as planned. I had to take a leap of faith and trust that I was loved enough that, a detail about who I was, wasn’t going to change how my friends and family viewed me. I’m still not out to the rest of my family, but knowing that I didn’t have anything to hide from my sister lifted a weight I didn’t even know I had on me. Even without me coming out, my parents have started to become more welcome to the idea that girls like girls and that’s okay.
Just having even one person to talk to, who knew I liked girls, helped me to become even more comfortable with my sexuality. Without the positive LGBTQ+ representation in the media, I would have felt alone before I even knew what I identified as. I was okay with my sexuality until I wasn’t, but, even then, I had enough support to continue to take leaps of faith.
I don’t think there’s really a right way to come out, nor do I know when the right time to come out is. However, I do think that having even one person (whether it’s someone online or someone you know in real life) know and support you for who you are is by far the most freeing thing in the world.
I’m out and proud to the people that I get to choose to include in my life, and I am so excited to see the world continually progress and become a more accepting place (with better LGBTQ+ and PoC representation in mainstream media)

JuliaAKANikki

Where do I begin? I first realized that I was Queer when I was in elementary school. I always felt like I should hide it so of course that’s what I did. When I got into high school it then got real. I started crushing on the “pretty” and “popular girls. Rumors started flooding the school. Oh she’s the “gay” girl dont talk to her. She will get a crush on you. So I did what anyone else would do I denied it. When I got out of high school I started dating a guy to prove everyone wrong. To try and make myself think I was normal, what my parents expected. We dated on and off then it took a turn of abuse. I felt like I deserved it because of the feelings I was hiding. I finally came out to my mother 2 years ago at the age of 25 and I didn’t get the support I hoped for but I got what I expected would happen. It was on Christmas eve. I just came out and told her. She went into the bathroom, shut and locked the door. Slid 50 dollars under the door said Merry Christmas and I dont want you here on Christmas day. I was devastated. Over time she has come to support me. I openly dated a woman last year and I’m proud to say that it’s the most comfortable I have ever felt in my 27 year’s of life! It took time, and all sorts of emotional turmoil. But I can proudly say I’m here and I’m queer!
#OutIsTheNewIn

I am a 25 year old Gay Woman – content warning: this coming out story contains discussion of an abusive relationship

As a teenager I always thought that something was amiss as I used to enjoy the company more of women than I did men. I could have a laugh more with guys but with women I connected more with them and was always so shy whenever someone would speak to me. I pushed my feelings down as I thought I was pretty young and just concentrated on my schoolwork. It wasn’t until I started football (I live in England) when I was 14 and was immediately drawn to one of the girls on my team. We used to speak constantly outside of football and always be at each other’s houses. The feelings grew more and more and when I couldn’t see them, I used to wonder why I would get so upset about it. It wasn’t until a few months after playing football that I realised I liked her more than a friend and lucky for me she felt the exact same. But because we were so young, we wanted to keep it to ourselves, from our families and our friends. At first, I was completely ok with that as I was coming to terms with it myself and was getting used to being with a woman for the first time. After 2 years of being a couple in secret I felt I was ready to tell my family and friends as everyone always used to ask me if things were what they seemed, but I used to deny them. But she still didn’t want anyone to know and I was in a different place to her as to how I felt, and this caused a massive problem for us both to the point she no longer wanted to be with me. This break my heart, but it also made me stronger as I had the courage to tell a select few of my closest friends what had been happening. I cried to the point the literally just kept hugging me saying everything was going to be fine and that they accepted me for who I was. It wasn’t until a year or 2 after this that I came out to my parents, in the meantime I was dating and got used to this new normal for me. I had a bad relationship after who was controlling and turned me into a person that wasn’t me. This was when me coming out to my parents happened. I was friends with two people who had recently split up with each other, one of them was with me and other came round to give them something of theirs (I was the one to open the door) as I came back in my dad was sat next to my friend and he asked me if that was my girlfriend (trying to have a joke) I replied with no. He then asked me if I was actually gay after asking me a million times previously and me denying each one, and without any hesitation or thought process I literally said yes. He thought I was joking at first and I said that no I actually am. My sisters came running downstairs at this point with pure excitement because I had finally admitted that I was gay. Everyone was so supportive and the only things my parents said to me was they were disappointed I never told them before. It was such a huge relief to have such a positive reaction. All of my family followed with me coming out to them and one by one they all said they already knew I was but was waiting for me to say something. After this I was relieved, I could finally be myself and express myself in a way I have always wanted. I was able to talk about things more and not have to hide any part of me from the world. It hasn’t always been plain sailing as my previous partner who I was with for three years, I was blind to see was abusive in many forms. Mentally and towards the end was physical. Still till this day has had lasting effects of me having to go through countless therapies to get myself on track and recover from having anxiety and depression ever since. I am finally on the mend and I am now with my amazing partner who everyday helps me heal and encourages me to go for my goals that I set out for myself. She continues show and give me the love I have always wanted. Its been 11 years since I first knew I was gay and I’ve never been happier.

My name is Melissa, I’m 20 and this is my Rainbow Wave

I always knew that I was different in many ways : I wasn’t thin enough, I wasn’t “girly” enough, I wasn’t quiet enough, funny enough…. As a child I was proud of what make me different from the others, I was a little girl who loved biology and astronomy, who loved to read everything that fell in my hands. I practically grew up surrounded by boys so I acted like them and loved the same things that they loved : I loved playing soccer, playing in the grass and mud, jumping in puddles and climbing in the trees. And of course the women in my family (my mother, my godmother and my grandmother) disliked it. They wanted me to behave “like a girl”; for them it was not get all dirty by playing in the mud, sit correctly and straight, and most importantly I didn’t have to be loud. I believed that in order to fit in I had to stop being myself. As I grew up and went to middle school I started to shut myself down, I would stop going outside to play with other kids and instead spend hours in my room, reading books and creating stories with my imagination. I became quiet, I barely talked anymore… I kind of disappeared.

I was in 8th grade when I started to question my sexuality. I was never really interested in boys but seeing as every girl was, well I forced myself into being interested. I even had a boyfriend for a few months. So at the beginning of this new year, with a new class I met new people. And I remember noticing this girl in my class. She had the most beautiful eyes I ever saw, they were as blue as the summer sky and I couldn’t stop thinking about her, about the sound of her laugh or the way she smiled when she was talking with her friends. Of course at first I didn’t really thought much about it, I assumed I admired her and just wanted to be like her. Then I realized that I was becoming strangely obsessive with her (not in a weird way, just in the way of a middle school girl with her first crush), I started to look for her in the crowd of middle schoolers and every time I would spot her, I was flustered and lost the track of whatever was happening around me. That’s when I realized that I had a crush on her. At first I tried to deny it as much as I could, but even with all the will in the world, I couldn’t fight these feelings. I was scared and didn’t know what was the meaning of this or to who I could talk about it, so naturally I decided to hide it as best as I could.

Then one day, I was talking with my best friend about this new TV show that we discovered a few weeks ago. She wouldn’t stop talking about this one guy that she find cute and also really hot and I was like ‘Meh I guess he is ok, but like have you seen her ?!” and I launch into a huge rant about this other character. As we join others friends, my mind started to wander back to this conversation. I realized that I talked only about female characters while my best friend talked about the male ones. I thought back on other conversations and I came with this same conclusion every time : I couldn’t stop talking about girls. Later that day at home, I started searching for answers on the internet and fell into the many LGBTQ+ websites and articles. As I learned more and more through different stories of people and put the pieces together, I understood that I was a lesbian.

I came out gradually to my loved ones when I felt that I was ready to share my truth. I’m lucky to have many people supporting me and it helped me accepting myself and be comfortable in my own skin. I learn to be more loud and proud of who I am, to embrace all of what make me different and to make the little girl I once was, proud of the woman I became.

What I want you to take from my story is that you should never let anyone tell you that you need to hide who you are in order to be more like anyone else, because our differences are what makes us beautiful and what make this world so interesting. Even if sometimes things are difficult and you think you will never be able to be yourself, you need to keep going, and be as true to yourself as you can because in the end everything will be worth it. My mom often says “Everything happens for a reason and it will make sense in its own time”, so remember that you are not alone in this and if nobody told you this yet : I am proud of you.

Bisexual

I knew I was different when I was about 11. Didn’t realize it until I was in my twenties.
I was reading fan-fiction one day and started talking to the author of the story and she told me that she was gay and how she came out and was proud of it. I told her what I had been feeling and came out to her as bisexual.
Then I had to buck the courage to tell My best friend of 20 years at that point. But she had pointed it out to me one day after my conversation with the author friend.
She told me she always knew because I looked at girls differently than I do guys. She wasn’t put off because she has a gay family member.
I told my husband and he smiled and said I still love you.
The hardest one to tell was my other friend. She wasn’t too keen on gay people as In she just didn’t get it. However now we play “couple” together when we do go out to the bar for a girls night. She’s fine with me now. Just blindsided her.
In a manner of speaking I haven’t totally come out. I’m terrified of telling my family. My dad I’m sure knows I’ve hinted at it and he goes with it. But it’s my mother. She’s called bisexual people greedy. And it’s stuck with me. She’s called me a butch since I cut my hair differently. Or how I wear my clothes. She says you dress like a dyke. I get annoyed and ignore her as best as I can.
It hurts. It will always hurt. But Dominique you inspire me. So here is my truth. I am a bisexual married woman. I love the heart not the parts type.

Luisa- CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT DEPRESSION

I had felt “different” from others since I was very very young, I didn’t necessarily understand that I liked girls but I knew I didn’t feel for boys the same way my friends felt for them.
Growing up, being gay didn’t even cross my mind until I was maybe in high school and all my friends had crushes and boyfriends and I felt pressured to have a crush. It never occurred to me that I had crushes because they were not boys. I felt like I needed to like boys so I “tricked” myself into thinking I did.
The fact that I had never seen or known any gay people or specifically any lesbians and the fact that I started listening to some homophobic things from my friends and family made it difficult for me to get in touch with this part of my identity. Deep down I always felt I wasn’t allowed to be myself and I didn’t want to tolerate that.
So fast forward, I graduated high school I moved from my home country of Colombia to Argentina, went to university there and started meeting so many different people from all walks of life, straight, gay, bi. People who accepted and loved me and made me feel safe and seen. The 4 years I lived in Argentina where some of the hardest years I’ve had yet. I was diagnosed with depression and was really struggling to find my voice. After many years of therapy and working on understanding myself I finally realized and accepted that the reason why I hadn’t had any romantic relationships with men wasn’t that I was unlovable or ugly or not girlfriend material but because I wasn’t attracted to men. I was 22.
I felt like the weight of the world had lifted off of my shoulders and I wanted everyone to know that I thought girls were beautiful. I came out right away, I felt like 22 years was enough time to hide this and feel ashamed, and I didn’t wanna do it anymore. I was lucky enough to have friends and family who opened their arms to this part of me and still loved me for all that I am.

My name is Luisa and I am a Lesbian. 🙂

Carolina, 20, just trying to find out who I am.

Since I was 15 years old I thought there was something wrong with me. I never had a boyfriend in my life and it always made me wonder if there was really anything wrong with me. All the people around me were getting into relationships and I was still alone, because no one interested me or was not attracted to anyone (especially boys, which was the idea of ​​what I liked at the time). I started to question if I really liked boys or if girls attracted me more, but by putting that idea in my mind I knew that there would be a lot of people talking about me and making jokes about it and then immediately exclude that idea from my head , forcing me to be attracted to boys or the idea of ​​being with boys.
When I was 18, there was a boy who became interested in me and I, convinced that I had to convince others around me that I liked boys, ended up being with him for a month without feeling anything. It was nothing more than a friendship, but I wanted to deceive myself.
I spent the worst 4 years of my life hiding the pain I felt at not knowing what was wrong with me or who I was. It was the worst years I’ve ever had. I was lost, aimless, without anyone.
When I was 19, when I went to college, I completely changed my group of friends and started to get along with a lot of people from the LGBT + community and from then on I started feeling confident to start discovering who I am and I started to feel a little happier. I think that realizing that those people would never exclude me if I liked girls, made me start to question who I really like. I started to open up by talking to some people and clearly that I was attracted to girls. But I also continued to be attracted to some boys. And it was then that I realized that I could be bisexual. It was a difficult year, with many ups and downs, to discover who I am. My family has always given me the opportunity to like whoever I want, nothing would change with them if I liked girls and that made my life easier.
Nowadays, I still don’t really know what I am. I like boys and girls and that’s for sure. But, deep down, I think I like people for what they are and not for their gender. Therefore, I consider myself a path to my happiness and I just let love speak for itself.
My next step will be to come out to everyone who likes me for who I am and then to come out to the world. And when I find a way to do it, I’m sure I’ll be much happier.

A bisexual woman and proud

My story is a little backwards! I thought I was gay when I was about 13, I had a few crushes at school (I went to an all girls school, so there were many). I didn’t tell anyone until I was in my last year when I started to go out with this girl. She however was uncomfortable dating girls so it was a very secretive relationship.

At a party one night she kissed some guy and I got really upset and ended up kissing one of my friends boyfriend (I know stupid). Anyway that ex-friend then phoned my parents to tell them I was gay and bullied me for saying I was, not fun. Thankfully my parents were supportive, but being a family that don’t talk about relationships I had no idea how they were going to react.

I am so thankful to come from a supportive family, and to have had some supportive friends who helped me through this. It was a traumatic experience for a 17 year old.

Anyway, when I went to uni I feel in love with a guy, which was definitely a shock for someone who thought she was very gay. I had to then come out to all my friends and family again it was pretty funny! I had never really thought of bisexuality as a thing until then!!

I identify myself as a lesbian

Deep down I knew I liked girls at a very young age; but I didn’t know that it was a normal thing…that it had a name for it. I was probably in preschool about five or so when I had my first crush. It was on one of the ladies that worked at my preschool. I remember being on the swings and her pushing me. And I remember thinking Oh my what is this feeling? I really like this girl. My little five year old self just confused not knowing what it was just let it be. Now going through elementary I had “crush’s” on a few boys thinking yeah I like boys. But now looking back on it I just wanted to be them because it was normal for them to like girls. I wanted to be “normal” so yeah I tried to like boys. In the fourth or third grade I was playing outside at recess when my older sister came up to me and introduced me to her girlfriend. I was confused and asked her what she meant so she explained. After doing so I had so many questions wondering is this okay? Is this normal? Is it wrong? What are people gonna say? Knowing more information then I did before on sexuality’s I still didn’t think anything of me liking the lady from preschool. So I kept thinking for some darn reason I like boys that I was straight. I guess I was scared of people judging me and that no one would want to be my friend. Then middle school came I was doing great, back with my old friends after moving schools for the millionth time. A few months in and then again I was going to a new school. Yep the new kid yet again like always most of the boys came rushing towards me to ask me out. As always I said no because I wasn’t really ready for any of that. So I’m in the sixth grade and I’m with my new foster family watching Camp Rock in the living room and then I see Demi Lovato. Thinking wow she’s amazing I want to be just like her. I admired her so much that I start to watch camp rock like all the time. Finally I realized omg I have a crush on Demi Lovato. Still scared of what people would think I told no one. Seventh grade came around and I had a crush on one of my best friends now. We weren’t friends at the time but we shared a friend so we hung out together at recess. Me being the flirtatious person I am started to doing things that I guess got people questioning. One day I heard from our friend that we shared that she was starting rumors about me being about me being a lesbian. I was very upset and even though it was true I denied it. I cried that night and prayed to be straight because I was scared of what others thought of me. Now when the eighth grade came I only told a few of my closest friends that I liked girls. When they found out they were very supportive and I was glad. Later towards the middle of eighth grade I hinted to my siblings and foster family that I wasn’t into boys. They eventually figured it out and were supportive as well. During the summer I kissed that best friend and a lot of people found out about it. I was nervous and people asked about my sexuality and I just told them I didn’t feel comfortable telling them. But then later on freshman year I told people. Now a junior in high school I’m proudly out, I mean I’m still a little anxious of telling people but I’m happy to be me. To live life and love who I want to because I know that there are others who support me and love me for who I am.

Learning not to Fight Myself

A lot of people seem to know that they are “different” from an early age.

I never did. Or I didn’t for years anyway.

I had so many other things I was worried about. Whether it was switching schools again, taking care of my siblings that were significantly younger than me, or just trying to settle in to another new place, boys always seemed unimportant, so the fact that I wasn’t interested in them obviously just wasn’t a big deal. “I’m busy,” I told myself. “I need to make friends, get good grades, go off to college, then I’ll have time for that.”

But I was enamored with my girl friends, here and there. They were dynamic, intelligent, powerful, beautiful, captivating. I wanted to understand them, to do things for them, to make them feel like they were seen and they mattered. I would skip out on homework to text them, crawl out onto the roof at night when I was supposed to be in bed to have long phone conversations about our hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities. I would give up sleep to hear more about the complexities that come out of a person in the dark. I resented the boys that made them feel worthless or annoying or not good enough, because how could they be so blind?

When I first figured out that dating girls was a thing that you could do, I was 15. My first thought was, “Oh no. That. I want to do that.”

I made my way through my sophomore year in a blur, for the first time fully aware of a crush while it was happening. I went to prom with a nice boy from my friend group and hid in the bathroom because I couldn’t bring myself to dance with him. I knew I was staring at a friend who would never look at me that way, and I knew I had something to confront.

In the middle of all of it, my parents sold my childhood home and announced that we would be moving from our tiny Midwestern town to a suburb of Denver. I muddled through the year, researching by consuming every piece of lesbian representation that I could find and then promptly deleting my search history. Until the day that I didn’t. Until the day my parents sat me down as asked me about it. And I told them. And they asked if I was trying to get back at them for making me move. And we decided a few months later that I would go back home to finish high school, but tell no one because it would make things too hard. Make people too uncomfortable.

I truly, publicly, came out a month after I graduated. The day that marriage equality became the law of the land in the United States, June 26th 2015, I wrote a long, thoughtful Facebook post for anyone apart from my friends and family I’d already told. My mom called me to tell me that I should have asked her first, because she was having a hard week because it was her 40th birthday. That I should have asked before I celebrated because she didn’t want to deal with questions form the family. That I could still live a life of celibacy with God.

That was the first time that I felt the fierce protectiveness for my community, for myself, for my own worth, swirl and solidify in my chest. The first time that I really recognized that I didn’t need to be my own worst enemy because the world would take care of that. I had plenty to fight. I didn’t need to fight myself. Most importantly, I was strong enough to put myself in front of anyone that wasn’t there yet, and that that’s what this community does. We defend each other. We help each other. We love each other.

Since then we’ve seen the Pulse shooting. We’ve seen half a dozen years of Pride. We’ve seen job discrimination outlawed. I’ve fallen in and out of love and back into it again. I’ve met spectacular women and men and non-binary and agender folks that have taught me the beauty of the spectrum of human expressions of gender and sexuality and love. It’s made me a better person. I’m more understanding, more empathetic, more open. I wouldn’t trade this community, or this experience of myself for anything.