Community Rainbow Waves

Proud Lesbian

I came out when I was 16. I was so afraid to tell my mom who are born in the 1940’s but she took it really well and said as long as I’m happy and loved that’s all that matters.

My brother took it good as well and said all he wants for me is a girl that loves me the same way I love her.

My friends at the time is a whole other story. They rejected me started to bully me and hang me out for the whole school. Waited for me after school ended just to beat me down.

It took me a lot of years to finally find some good friends that supported me for who I am. And when you find them don’t let them go. They mean everything for me and we’ve been friends now for over 20 years.

Queer

Even as a small child I knew I felt a strong need to be around certain girls and women. From friends to teachers to celebrities, I would always be drawn to a woman. In those days I just thought everyone felt that way. I knew it didn’t feel especially normal cause I never really saw it anywhere, but I just thought I really enjoyed certain people’s company or really wanted to be their best friend.

It wasn’t until I was 15 when I had my first experience with another girl. It was once again a thing where I naively thought we were just incredibly close and best friends. I knew I felt very strongly for her but I didn’t really make it a sexual thing. That is until she kissed me. Finally everything made sense. Experiences I had kissing and being close to boys never felt right. But just a kiss with this girl sent my heart racing. It all made perfect sense.

I didn’t grow up in a house where LGBTQ+ folks were a bad thing. We were just ignorant to the fact that they existed. I knew queer people and I was friends with them, but I know people would not be kind about them behind their back and they were always a salacious topic of gossip in my very small town. I didn’t want to be the odd one out. I was popular, I played sports, boys liked me, so I just kept this part of me to myself. It always helped that the girl I was infatuated with lived 40 minutes away in a different town. So my worlds never needed to collide.

While that aspect of my life was a roller coaster of feelings, I was good at compartmentalising it. I focused really hard on sports and really didn’t let the whispers of me possibly being a lesbian get in the way. I also still dated boys to keep the rumours at bay for the most part.

It wasn’t until I was 19, dating a different girl secretly, that I was sort of pushed out of the closet. My mom was making dinner one night and she out of nowhere asked if I was dating the girl I was always spending time with. All of my instincts told me to lie. Just say no like I always do and move on. But that evening I said yes. My mom without skipping a beat said “honey I’ve known since you were 10. Nothing is going to change. Now do you want spaghetti for dinner” and that was that. Truly the easiest coming out I could have ever imagined. I actually hold a bit of guilt about that because I know it’s so much harder for so many others. I want them to have friends and family who let them be authentically themselves.

While I came out as a teenager, I think now as a 33yr old I’m realising that sexuality is an ever changing thing. I always identified as a lesbian until 4 years ago when I was feeling attraction to men. Last year I dated a non binary person who made me once again reconfigure my orientation. I feel like queer is a great label that I feel comfortable and proud having. I have a beautiful partner and life really is magical despite all the really tough moments.

To coin a popular term, it really does get better.

Love, light and rainbows to you all

Megan

I truly believe that stories are the way we connect and reflect the bravery, challenges, love, and fear that is this human experience.

I knew I was attracted to girls at the age of seven/eight. Because I had feeling for my friend – I couldn’t name the feeling and it didn’t feel wrong in any way. My friend would sit on my lap and I’d feel so much love for her. As time went on, I released this was not ‘normal’ and no other girls were talking about girls but only boys, so I ignored my feeling for girls for years and years.

I lived in a small town in South Africa and I literally felt like the only gay in the village. If there was any mention of LGBTQI people, it was always in disgust and a negative light. So I was terrified about my feelings. I felt so alone, scared and confused. And then at university (in this small town), I started falling in love with my best friend and it was unbearable. I slipped into a deep depression and started taking antidepressants.

And then something magical happened, I found Youtube but more specifically a LGBTQ channel on Youtube called ‘The Beaver Bunch’ and for the first time I saw real life bisexual, queer, lesbian, trans people living their lives open and proud. I think I watched every single video and keep finding more and more channels. And just like that I didn’t feel so alone and decided to come out. First I came out to the Youtube community in a video and they welcomed me with open arms, love and support. I felt so overwhelming by the support that it gave me the courage to come out to my family.

Coming out to my immediate family didn’t go as well as I had hoped, my dad and sister could care less I was gay but my mum took it hard. She was and is my rock and when I felt her pull away, it broke my heart. I can say now a decade later, she is my biggest ally and supporter.

Besides my mum, all others I came out to were supportive. I feel very blessed and haven’t experience any negative ramifications regarding my sexuality.

I’ve been out for a decades this year and in the same year I came out I met my future wife. I’ve never known a love like I love her. She’s been my best friend, soul mate, and lover for 10 years. But this year just as covid went into full swing, she at the age of 36 was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. To say it’s been a tough time is an understatement, it’s been a living nightmare. All I can do is watch the woman I love and adore fight every day to be here. We exist on the edge of hope and despair every day, and live every day for the small moments of joy that we can find.

So to end, I just want to let everyone know that at the end of the day all we have is love. And love has nothing to do with our physicality, race, gender, or sexuality – but our souls. I hope one day this world will wake up to this and embrace love as the compass the guides us. Light and love to all.

Queer

I knew from a young age I was attracted to boys and girls. I actually had a Backstreet Boys poster and a Brittany Spears poster up in my bedroom and I thought both were cute. I was living in the Midwest at the time and that was a huge no no in the 90’s. Plus I had gotten teased a ton about my mom and stepdad practicing Tibetan Buddhism. I just went along with the other girls gushing about boys, guy celebrities, and such. I had crushes on boys and girls through school, but I felt I wasn’t gay. The only queer women I had been exposed to were very masculine and I didn’t identify in that way. I left home when I was 16 to move to California. I had met my fathers family for the first time and wanted to get to know them. I got involved in their religion, and while I saw the good, I saw so much of what didn’t align with my true self. I struggled for a few more years. I had a few friends come out to me and I was so happy for them. I knew at this point I was queer, I just couldn’t muster up the strength to come out myself.
I eventually moved to Orange County to reunite with my sister and my mom in 2014. I was 23. My mom always knew and kept trying to practically pull me out of the closet, fear had kept me in and so resistant. Eventually my anxiety for not being myself grew unbearable and I had to change that. So I came out at 23. My family was over the moon. Things started shifting for me. My dads family didn’t talk to me for a long time. Things have changed now, we communicate here and there. After my first serious relationship I have found myself in Massachusetts. While my partner and I went our separate ways for personal growth I find myself drawn to help others in situations like me. Be a light in dark times. That along with a spiritual awakening has held me steadfast my efforts and so inline with myself. I genuinely have love and compassion for others and I’m happy to be me. It’s also motivated me to become vegan and environmentally conscious.
So coming out started this beautiful chain reaction for me and I hope to support and encourage others to do the same.
You all are beautiful beings. Let your light shine bright, you are worth it and you never know when that light shines for others in the dark.

17, Bisexual girl i think?

I’ve been reading a lot of the waves that have been posted and my story is nothing compared to that, I don’t really have friends that I’ve had a crush or something. I mostly started figuring it all out through tv, I really started thinking about how much female crushes I have I cannot even think about them all and men are a few that I really find attractive.
It was 2016 when I started questioning myself deeply, I had found out my brother was gay and he was married and I didn’t even know because my dad didn’t want me to know because I guess he thought I would “turn out” gay too, which guess what dad? I am (i’m still not openly out, just 3 friends know and they have been the best about it) anyways going back to the story, I started asking myself if it was just because the actresses were just too beautiful and I wanted to be them or what, so yeah, I pushed it down saying I couldn’t like women because my parents would hate me or stuff like that (internalized homophobia is a thing and I hate it) then I would really started bringing out how hot and beautiful these girls were to a friend and obsessing over a relationship that wasn’t even real to her and she asked me and i was like yeah maybe i really don’t know and she was just really happy that I was even able to “confirm.” She really was the best and I think that if it wouldn’t have been for her I would be still pressing myself over being straight and just that. She was the OG knowing since 2017 I think I don’t really remember the exact year but anyways fast forward to this year. During quarantine I have been spending a lot of time with myself, thinking about a lot of stuff, really learning about the community and I have been having like fantasies about how would be my life if I was with a girl and I really see myself more than with a guy, not saying it wouldn’t happen but I just know I would not just be boys. The thing is that a part of my doesn’t “want” to be gay because my whole family is Catholic, like reaally into the religion, I don’t care about the “god doesn’t love you if you are gay” because I know he does, he has and always will if i keep myself close to him because he lives in my (just my opinion) but I just feel like my family wont accept the union of LGBTQ+ and God since they all are extremist (and when I say that, i’m not exaggerating) My dad has been homophobic to my brother and doesn’t really interact with my brother in law and since I am the only girl, that still can have children, (I have 2 siblings, both male, neither of them want kids and I do so) I feel like he would only focus in the women part and not think about the fact that he would still get grandchildren even if im gay or not. My mom its more “accepting” she does interact sometime with my brother in law but she is more religious than my father so I don’t know how she would take it. From my mom’s side I only have family that is extremists catholics or trump supporters which are a no no too. From my dad’s side I would have it easier but I still don’t know how they would take it.
Going back to the beginning of quarantine, I had a friend who was throwing hints or something through her facebook posts so I reached out to her and started also giving kind of hints even though at that time I still was pushing my bisexuality down, I was able to accept and say I was bi or thought and she started telling me about how she had accepted herself and stuff and that really helped me to really beginning accepting myself. Now 4 months later, all I just can say is thank you to literally all actresses out there, representing the LGBTQ+ community for helping me find myself as they also might be finding themselves or found through playing those characters although im still closeted, I feel like I have came out of my own shell.

I’m Lesbian

Forgive me but I don’t speak English very well.
Since I was a little girl I had attitudes that couldn’t tell you otherwise, like playing with children and despising “little girl” games, like getting away from soccer or toy cars just to go with the most beautiful little girl in the neighborhood! Of course at that age I didn’t realize anything and didn’t pay attention to it but now I remember that I really thought that little girl was beautiful and that’s why I wanted to be near her.
Growing up, I was always the little girl who defended her friends, who took care of them, who did the heavy work for them like carrying the heaviest backpack or opening jars, who accompanied all of them to their homes and then came back alone… But yet I was getting engaged to boys, admiring the billboards of shirtless boys…why? Because it had to be that way!
I slept with a few guys and every time I was disappointed with the feelings I was feeling, I thought he wasn’t the one… I would try again to be with another guy but nothing!
At the age of 17 I realize that I feel a strong attraction towards a friend of mine, to be jealous in an abnormal way for a friendship! So I decide to try to understand more by surfing the internet… and at the vision of two girls kissing I feel much more sensations than those experienced in bed with a man… so I understand that I am a lesbian!
My coming out happened only after I suffered from panic attacks, every time I talked about myself… I remember that, one day I got so strong, that I called the ambulance and, the paramedic, after giving me an IV of tranquilizer, told me that the only cure was to talk about what I had inside with someone. After that day, I decided I had to do that starting with my friends…. I remember when I told my best friend… it took me half an hour just to be able to say “I like girls”… she burst into tears and called me an idiot because I had made her worry and she had come to think of serious things such as having suffered violence! I had taken a huge weight off my shoulders… so, if my best friend didn’t see anything wrong with it, I wouldn’t have minded anyone else’s judgment! I decided not to hide it anymore and to admit my homosexuality!
Fortunately I have parents who have never given me any problems… my mother, when I told her, made me understand that she thought it was just a phase, but she has always known the girls I have been with, treating them not as my friends but for what they were: my girlfriends! Now, after having brought a lot of them home, seven years later, I think she has understood that it is not just a phase 😅!
I have always been free to be myself thankfully!
However, I too have been through horrible situations recently… i.e. not being accepted by my current girlfriend’s family, being insulted by her mother and sister with phrases like “what is this crap?!” “if you are like this it’s because your mother wasn’t close to you but I was close to my daughter so I don’t accept this crap!”… or, something even more painful, that even now, a year and a half later still hurts so much, being beaten by her father claiming that I was ruining his life and family! Or, when they sent my girlfriend to the other side of the country to try to get her away from me … but I, after a month, I went to her, making her a surprise and I found the aunt angry that did not stop insulting me … who told me “but look in the mirror … do not you disgust you?!” “I’m going to slap you” “who knows what kind of person you are”… instead she should thank me because I was too respectful and polite, unlike her… if I were not a good person, I would have slapped her!
In this whole situation I have suffered too much… even going against my principles, when I didn’t denounce them!
Now we have been engaged for a year and nine months… they haven’t made any more scenes like that but they don’t want to have any kind of relationship with me… and this hurts me so much every day because I don’t understand how they don’t want to know the person who makes their daughter happy and I don’t understand how they can’t give me the chance to show that I am a respectful, polite person with great values.

Forgive me if in the end instead of telling I ended up venting….

Still figuring this out

I’ve never admitted it before, ever, to anyone… I’ve spent 15 years feeling like there is something wrong with me! I am brand new to this world and to earpers and I’m blown away by the community feel. I was introduced just a few weeks ago after reading Dom’s birthday post and after reading it I related so much. I was so inspired by her words. I related to the feelings of suppression and putting the part of me I knew to be true to the back of my mind to pretend it didn’t exist. The part of me that I know is also attracted to woman. I’ve got that feeling where my tummy is doing flips by even just typing it. Because I’ve never faced it until now.
I’ve been in heterosexual relationships my whole life and have been in my current relationship for the last 10 years. I have young children who are my everything. This is part of the question that runs through my mind, how can I be in a long term relationship with a man, be a mum and still know that I do have an attraction to woman too? Does it make me a bad person? Or a bad mum? My partner would also likely feel betrayed that I never talked about this. I don’t even know how he would feel about it. There are so many scenarios in my head.
I’m still not ready to verbalise what I am but at least I have finally admitted it to myself. Maybe over time, meeting the right people and continuing to be inspired within the STW community I will one day be at my bravest. But for now, all I know is that Dom sparked something within me to be true to myself. I’m a thirty year old bisexual.

YJT, Taiwan

I’d love to start with the reflection on Dom’s inspiring story. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate … I just want to say that Dom has almost expressed what I had in my mind in the past few years ever since I started dating girls. I come from a family that seems “democratic,” as my parents always put it, but to me, in some way, my family is quite conservative. I don’t blame them. Actually, at first, I blame myself because I’ve tried to live up to my parents’ expectations through my life. I don’t want them to see me differently, ’cause I’m too afraid to look into those eyes, as if telling me that I did something wrong or trying to show me that I just lost myself, got bad friends… you’ll find a better life after you pull yourself back to the “normal” part of the world…something like that. Also, my parents care so much about their reputation and afraid that if there’s “rumors,” our life might be affected in a way they don’t expect. And I can’t bear to see their hurtful expressions. So I just couldn’t…
Nonetheless, after reading Dom’s story, I suddenly felt energized by courage and hopes. The positive values Dom’ shared were mostly what I tried to share with people in my everyday life. And I couldn’t be happier to see people sharing the same positive values, causing positive ripples, since positivity is one of my core values.
So here I am to share my story… even though I haven’t come out to my parents, but I know some day I will…

To most of my friends, I’m the kind of person who brings them joy and be there when they need someone to talk to or rely on. I love to see people smile, laugh, their happy faces, even though I might not be the reason. But anyway, I truly enjoy the moment bringing happiness to others and sharing positivity.
I’m the kind of person who reflects on myself almost anytime, anywhere, especially on the emotional and mental part since I’m kind of a good observer in people’s emotions. I tend to observe people’s expression, gestures, and emotions, whether stranger or not. Then I would start to wonder what caused the emotion. Maybe out of curiosity, or maybe it’s just for the reminder for me to be a better self.
About more than half a year ago, I ended a four-year unhealthy relationship with a woman. Along the way in the relationship, I kept reflecting on the life we lived and the values we shared. It turned out that it just couldn’t work out. But it’s okay. Every argument, every breakdown has led me to see what matters most to me. Even though it’s kind of the hardest moment in my life so far, I’m still working hard to gather myself together while at the same time enjoying bring joys to people around me, for happiness is my motivation to move forward.
After the end of the relationship, the sudden emptiness struck me, which gave me plenty of time on introspection. So I started to contemplate the life I lived in the almost past 30 years (yeah I’m about to turn 30 in April), if I could remember. In the past, like Dom said in her story, I focused on boys, without realizing I’m also attracted to girls. I know I enjoy being close friends with them, but what I didn’t know is that they did attract me. I remembered clearly when my high school classmate, a boy I think I adore at that time, asked me if I was into some girl in our class; I denied firmly and felt hurt. I was so afraid to be labeled as weirdo or someone that doesn’t fit into the mainstream and also afraid of not going to get a boyfriend on the thought of people might think I’m into women. I didn’t know what I really like or want back then.
Now I know, I just want to be someone that can love freely, whether boys or girls, what matters most is I’m true to myself, to my heart. I just want to enjoy my everyday life, make my life as colorful as possible, for I don’t want to have regrets.
I enjoy being myself, no matter when, especially the sincerity people feel in me when we get along. I enjoy helping others, not to expect anything in return, but a happy smile on their face can make my day. 🙂 I enjoy living a colorful life and cherish every happy moment. As Dom said, “When we’re happy, we shine.” I’d like to shine as brightly as I can and bring happiness and share positivity to those I meet. Let’s shine together!

Toni

Hi, my name is Toni I am 13 and I’m Bisexual. I have two very conservative parents who may never support who I am. But, that’s fine with me because I’ve realized over the years that their opinion on my love life doesn’t matter. As long as I’m happy and the person treats me right why should how they identity matter? Being with a woman is a better experience than being with a man. When you’re with a woman, they understand you better, they can relate to all the struggles that come with being a woman. Especially if your a colored queer woman in America. My family has no idea how I feel they won’t accept it but I’ve decided that once I’m 18, I’ll come out to them. That way, they can’t kick me out, by then they can disown me if that’s what they choose, at least I’ll be happy.

As a survivor of 3 years of sexual assault, it’s more common for me to gravitate towards women. It’s ok for me not to be comfortable with a man. Those 3 years of my life were the longest and hardest. It started when I was 7 turning 8 and it ended when I was 11. During the duration of those years, I was very depressed life was so miserable. Then, I meet a girl who changed my point of view of things, she had experienced the same tragedy as me. We were both survivors, we are always there for each other, we make each other smile it’s great. The sad part about the whole thing is the person who ruined my childhood is someone that I will continue to see. My family knows of what happened, but they act like it’s never happened.

Once I came out to the people who genuinely know me, I’ve been living my best life, things have been so amazing, of course, life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but for the most part, it’s alright. I’ve found out that I’m most happy when talking, thinking, or texting a girl. “Wynonna Earp”, Wayhaught’s relationship is so adorable, even though it’s just a show, Dom and Kat’s relationship is just so beautiful and It makes me think “Wow now that’s the kind of love I want, I want someone to look at me the way they look at each other.”

In all, I hope that what you can take from my little story, is don’t be afraid to be you screw anyone else’s opinion but your own. If they don’t like who you are then it’s their loss, live for yourself and who you want to be, don’t let others live through you.

Bi

Since i was a child i love everything that are for boys.
Because i want to be recognize as strong and brave, like a soldier.
(Not discriminating but hey its the prejudice and i was just a Kid)

Then as i grow up i am attracted with girls but when i went to highschool i was attracted with my schoolmate and he was a guy but i thought i just want to be like him if im gonna be a guy i want to be like him. But i was wrong i like him like him. Then when i went to college i have crushes who are guys and gals. But i only have 1 relationship, a relationship that i was so sure, made plans, happy, contented and she was a girl yes was we broke up. I love her so much, love because it never fades out.

I love her with all of me and with everything that i am. I can do and will anything for her. Words cant explain.

Right now im alone. Doing the will of God. Because that is also the reason why we broke up. I hope that our breakup and sacrifices were worth it. And that we can endure till the end.