Community Rainbow Waves

Long journey that was sometimes, very difficult and challenging and will likely continue to be so. However, after 20 years of being with person I love, I can be myself.

I think I have always known, but when from a small town with little diversity, you push the feelings aside until you are generally faced with an opportunity to understand more. Much like the founder, I have an appreciation for males and females but my soulmate and best friend happened to be female which all of a sudden made life a bit more challenging and amazing at the same time. I had to deal with an ex-husband, my daughter and family. Was not easy but after nearly 20 years, raising my daughter, having a son together and finding myself, I could not be happier. I am finally comfortable with who I am and always willing to help others do the same.

I’m bisexual with a chick bent.

I’m bisexual with a chick bent. I discovered myself as such when I entered my first year of high school. Our sexual orientation, we’ve had it since birth. It’s just that it can take time to discover ourselves and to assume it, and to say it around us when the urge comes to us. Even though I’m almost 17, I haven’t told my family yet because I’m afraid of their reaction (even if I assume it completely). Only my friends know it and for the moment it’s enough for me. I will surely tell them when I turn 18 with the freedom of a young adult. You shouldn’t deny yourself or be afraid of being because of what you are deep down inside. It is preferable to look for yourself to be the most beautiful person possible. What I just wrote may not be understandable with my spelling mistakes and everything else 😅 but for the moment I feel happy. I hope this text will help other people because time is an eternal present.

Lesbian and human

I knew I was different, in elementary school, but I didn’t know why. As I got older, I started learning about things that were never spoken about in the Mexican culture. I learned about sex through classmates when I was in elementary school. When I came home, I told my mom some of my peers told me about sex. My Mom immediately got upset, she told me they shouldn’t have revealed to me what that was, and told me to never speak to my school mates again.
As I grew older and entered middle school, I was looking for music on a computer. I found a folder that had a name thinking it was a music file and well it wasn’t a music file. As you can imagine, that was a bit of a shock. I shamefully closed the window as quickly as I could. However, curiosity got the best of me and I opened it again, several times. Finally, embarrassed and fearing being found out, I closed everything on the computer. These feelings that I stumbled upon, continued to grow throughout my formative middle school years. I began to realize how much more I noticed girls and not boys.
When I started high school, I knew that I liked women but I dated boys, because I was scared to come out to my parents. I did what I thought I should have done. I lost my virginity to a guy sometime in high school, although I didn’t feel any emotional connection. I did eventually find a great group of friends and we would remain close throughout the rest of high school. I had crushes on two of the girls in my friend group and I was still afraid to come out. The one crush was particularly devastating, as she was taken by my other male best friend. He wasn’t upset but it was still scary to come out because I wasn’t sure what the reception would be. I didn’t want to lose my friends. Not only that I was still questioning myself. I eventually lost touch with my high school friends unfortunately.
I did eventually come out to my parents near the end of high school. I told them after coming back home from a church retreat. I came out and told them I was bi ( I still wasn’t sure of myself at the time) my mom proceeded to call her church friends so they could pray the gay away from me. I complied with my mom’s wishes. I kneeled down and pretended to repent while crossing my fingers behind my back. My mother at one point screamed at god asking why she had been punished by having a gay child. After this we didn’t talk for a while.
Around the same time, I came out to my brother on the same day that he was going to give me a guitar as a christmas gift. I cried and I told him about my situation with Mom and Dad as well as my fear of losing people. He embraced me with the warmest hug and told me that I shouldn’t care what others think or worry about the religious factor. He told me he loves me no matter what. I was relieved and happy.
I was much more nervous to tell my sister, oddly enough she already knew. And we also never spoke about it again.
With Phoenix job corps came many new experiences and new crushes. I felt like I could finally be myself. I came to grips with the realization I am a lesbian and not bisexual. And today I finally find the courage to come out to you all as a Mexican American lesbian and I am authentically proud to be me.

I am QUEER

I was always attracted to both men and women and deep down I knew that I like both men and women as I don’t look them as genders I look them as beautiful heart. I am from India and I never got the courage to share this with my family that for me love is love but hopefully soon I will let them know that I am QUEER !!

I don’t put labels on myself.

Labels make me feel as if you’re putting me into a box to which is yours to stereotype or criticize. I like being free. Being me.

Eleven. That’s when I started to question my sexuality. I wasn’t attracted to boys yet but I found girls so intriguing. I was on a softball team with beautiful girls which made this even worse. I met a girl online that I so hopelessly fell for. I didn’t know that at the time. When I did tell her she ghosted me. Ouch. I decided that it wasn’t real feelings so I pushed it down. Twelve. I found my best friend most attractive than my boyfriend. I didn’t think anything of it. I never thought I was bi or gay. Well I did. I took those “Am I gay” quizzes and chose the obviously straight answers. I was lost. It was really hard to deal with this and hormones. I cried a lot, screamed, pushed the closest people away. I was scared of what they would think of me. A little bit later the girl I was more attracted to than my now ex boyfriend said she thinks she’s bi. I have never been more relived. She reveled that she liked me just as much as I liked her. And three years later and I still call her mine. It was a very long journey to get here. I used to not hold her hand afraid of the looks or whispers. I would cry at night because of that. but now i want to live my life. I want her to be happy and I want to be happy. I put others people’s opinions behind me. Not everyone is going to support it. Her mother. Her mother outed me to my family. I live with my grandmother because my mother died when I was born. My grandma didn’t comprehend when she outed me and still didn’t until the third time her mother decided to out me. My grandma asked me if I liked girls because my mother died. Not the reason why. I hate being different but I am. There is no one I was destined to be other than myself. I am me. I like girls. I know that for sure. I like anyone. That’s me. The messy, crazy, sad, and happy, me.

This is me

I love being happy

I’m going to be with who ever makes me happy

#OutIsTheNewIn

Queer and still working on the proud (but getting there)

I knew I was queer when I was 20. I fell pretty hard for this girl in a summer program I was in while in undergrad but I didn’t let myself admit it for a long time. I came out to myself at 23. For me when I finally let myself admit that I was queer there was this moment where I looked back at my previous relationships and realized all those girls I wanted to be “super best friends” with were crushes. I could admit why I was always seeking out TV shows and movies and anything I could get my hands on that had queer representation in it. A few weeks later I called my friends and came out to them. I told them I was bi but as I’ve come to understand myself more I feel like queer or gay fits better. My friends have been supportive and wonderful. I haven’t been able to come out to my parents yet, but will at some point. They are fairly conservative and right now they are still responsible for much of my financial stability while I’m in graduate school. I’m 26 now and gender stuff has been coming up for me recently. I don’t really know what it is or how I identify gender wise all the time but I’m okay with that. I don’t need to nail it down or put a label on it. I still deal with a lot of shame and internalized homophobia that I don’t always know how to process but I’m working on being proud of who I am. It’s a lot of work and will probably be something I will always have to work on. In the meantime I’m becoming more comfortable with my gender expression and have created a space I can be myself with friends.

Bisexual or probably pansexual?

I am not fully out yet. Sometime, I still need to shield my sexual identity for several different reasons. First, maybe because I don’t really want to be labelled. Second, perhaps just simply out of fear.

Hi, I am from Indonesia. I am at my 40s, and I am a single mom. I had came out as bisexual in small circle of my friends & fam a long ago, but it wasn’t because I was feeling anxious or “awaken” to my queer side. It was purely that time out of curiosity and adventurous sense.

I was in highschool when I read Freud’s. I came to conclusion that somehow everyone born with both male/female potential in them. I began to notice my own, and tried to explore that part by admitting that my past attraction to the same-sex was not mere platonic or so so. It was the same kind with my attraction to the opposite-sex. It also brought me to revisit my childhood girl crush when I was in 2nd grade junior high (12/13 y.o.) which I did not fully aware that I was making a courtship attempt toward her that time.

In highschool, after opening the lock to my universal self – and let me free to identify myself as sexually fluid, I started flowing with same-sex crush, though not doing anything about it.

There was no different, come to think about it now, between my feeling to girl before I am aware of my sexuality and after admitting it. The feeling were the same, but by making a name on myself, I then know how to name the feeling as well. “I had crush with girl”.

Despite so, I did not make any attempt to experience. It was pretty rare for me being bisexual in my small city, with no meeting of the same type of peer, and honestly I didn’t feel comfortable either to be involved or being identified marginal in society.

I am an aquarius, my choice is not to be identified with others, I am just being honest with myself and simply being me. So my sexual identity is MY identity, my choice, my own – yet I didn’t feel the need to act on it.

Later in my life, after my first divorce when I was in my early 20th, I decided to explore the notion of love. I was thinking that I had never experienced feeling in love before, as my head was focused on goal and success. But being a divorcee revealed the need for me to understand love. So again, I made my exploration and adventure. Brought up in conventional and religious environment, I started to experience the pre-marital sex with few men, and I also embraced the feeling of falling in love for the first time with my female friend. Nothing went well (nothing last).

Then in my late 20, I got pregnant. A consequence of my wild free spirited. The guy wanted me to get an abortion as he was married and with me it mere a fling. But never crossed in my mind to take that journey. I was ready to be responsible so I refused. I asked him to marry me instead for the sake of the future born child (as it was mere for legal sake) – he did, for a while, before then he ran away when I was 8 months pregnant.

My course of life changed of course being a single parent. Wanted to build my future success again, I also took a shift in career-wise. I moved to a village as a general practitioner (medical doctor), a stepping stone to collect fund to continue education. I left my son with parents. This decision, would be the milestone of my love life as a queer.

There I met a colleague. A “straight” wife. We found the attraction quite instantly. Divorced her abusive husband, we started “living together”. We had an affair during that time in a scrutinized village environment. I was not scared, I even brought her to meet my family and admitted her as my lover to my best friends. I met her family too, but everything was mere an “unspoken truth” to them.

Not like me, she was not fully embraced her sexuality. To her she was not ready to live truthfully within bigotry society. She chose to leave and marry man.

It was the first time that Love trully changed my life and forced me to go on self journey to find out more about who I am. It was also the first time I realized that I may love woman more than a man. My sexual exprience with her was off the chart. I never felt it before with men. I never realized this before.

When Dom (before coming out) shared her opinion the difference between intimacy with male vs female, I relate to that 100%. It was exactly how I said it a long ago, it was also later how I felt when I finally being sexual with same-sex.

Now, I am just a Self. Enjoying my singlehood. Still looking for my truelove/soulmate/twinflame. Not yet decided for sure if I want to be identified publicly as queer. And fully occupied in planning for my future career as again I make an “adventure” toward it after many defeats.

Nevertheless, I want to send lots of love to people who is unique and marginal. Who are unable to see themselves fit the norm or societal tagged. I believe that we all one, the spark of the Universal Mind, the spark of the Divine Love. I believe that we all chosen to learn and to let others learn about love, inclusivity & diversity. I believe that love is love and that love is “God”.

I wish one day, I gain the opportunity and time to join the “wave”. Be part of the community who fight for the values I mentioned above. For now, I am happy within my shell, watching you guys creating your momentum in life.

Love, light.

Gay and loving it

I first figured out I was different at 17, or thereabouts. Growing up, I was very into church and religion, and I was determined to never disappoint my Grandma. I should point out that I was extremely close to my Grandma, and I wanted to remain one of her favourites.

So I was determined to hide any idea of it.

Anywho, when my Grandma passed towards the end of 2016, I was struggling with a lot (depression and anxiety can be a witch) and I shoved the “I’m attracted to girls, I’m gay” so far down it wasn’t gonna see the light of day for ages.

That kinda didn’t work… (Surprise, surprise)

Following intense medication and therapy, I plucked up the courage to tell my counsellor, while panicking that something was wrong with me (internalised religious homophobia dies that)

My counsellor was great, and helped me to see it was my new normal. So I decided to write a letter to my oldest brother, coming out to him and my sister-in-law. I have never been particularly close to him (there’s 10 years difference) but his acceptance made me cry.

After a while, I plucked up the courage to tell my best friend. Admittedly she already knew. Apparently I didn’t hide it very well.

Thankfully she knew I was would be nervous about telling my parents, more so my mother. We spent weeks dissecting everything, and she gave me the confidence to tell my parents.

Dad already knew (I did a bad job hiding, evidently) and Mum was shocked. It hasn’t been easy, Mum has had to revise everything she thought she knew about me.

Now though, I’m comfortable enough to say, I’m gay.

Lesbian

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

Elizabent91

I was at my Year 7 (middle school) camp when i first noticed that the 3 girls in my cabin were all talking about how hot Tom Felton was. I couldnt care less. I had a few guys that i liked in my early teens, but as soon as i imagined anything phisical happening i would notice again and again that i didnt like the thought. I reached the end of Year 11 (Junior year) and the Teacher for our Communities and Families subject asked us to pick any topic that we had covered that year and do a case study on it. The topic i chose was the only topic i knew little about, a marginalised group in society called Gay and Lesbian (or LGBT). It was only a concept to me, all i knew was that it ment that people of that label had a sexual attraction to the same sex. I knew of a couple of token characters and personalities in the media but nothing significant and certainly no one in my own life. It crept up on me over the course of a couple of months. Luckily my mother didnt care, my 14 year old brother said “so what?” My dad told me he has been friends with the lead of a lesbian band here in Sydney for many years. None of my immidiate friends and family really cared and accepted me fully. Why was it that while i became interested in dating and a relationship at 12, it took me 5 years to fully realise why i wasnt interested in guys? It was because i had very little representation or exposure in the media (heteronormativity)
and in life to different sexualities and genders. The queer characters i had after coming out were nothing like me. Jack from Dawsons Creek, The L Word and Willow and Tara from Buffy. This is my coming out story. I turn 30 in a few months and only now feel like i am represented in the media. Dominique’s work as Waverly Earp and with Start the Wave makes me feel seen. I finally have a place to belong. “To be me.”