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I had a feeling I was different many years ago but I did not realize what was different or how I was different form the rest of the people in my class. In 2010, I started develop feelings for a girl and the whole thing made me confused, scared and I had no idea who to open up to about this. At the time I was living in a very conservative country and it was taboo to talk about anything related to the LGBTQ+ (times have changed and the country is a little more understanding now). Since I had no one, I tried opening up to someone I considered my best friend. However, nothing prepared me for happened on March 23rd 2010.
At the time I was still figuring out myself and trying to navigate the feelings I was having but on that day I was outed to my entire class. It was scary because I was not ready to admit to a group of people that I am gay, I was not yet ready to accept it myself. It was all new to me and possibly my biggest secret was out there in the open now. That day I locked away my emotions, built my walls up high and distanced myself from a lot of people. 5 years later I was joining university and leaving the bad memories of high school behind. I desperately needed it as I knew I needed to start fresh and discover myself in a different environment where I wasn’t going to be judged for who I am.
I made new friends but it took me nearly a year to open up to them and show them what kind of person I am. With their unconditional support and patience with me, I started breaking down my walls, showing my emotions, communicating more and most of all, accepting myself for who I am. When I first came out to one of my friends, I was beyond scared because I only had memories of March 23rd but her response was different and she valued my privacy knowing I was still building myself back up again.
10 years on, I have made peace with the events that happened that day but it will always stick with me. Reflecting back I know it made be become more confident in my own skin as well as overall. It made me learn to understand different people and how they cope with different things. It helped me help close friends who are questioning themselves and ask me what my story is.
No one should ever be outed or forced to out themselves when they aren’t ready. It is a journey of discovering yourself and I am still on that journey learning new things about myself. I am proud of where I have reached so far from 2010 and I am proud of who I am.
I’m older than a lot of you but still thought I’d share. When I was in 3rd grade I had a crush on my best friend a girl and also a boy in my class. Well I soon figured out I just liked him as a friend. Then 4th grade we had this gorgeous student helper. I continued to have these feelings as I grew but I hid them throughout high school. I came from a very religious family and you couldn’t do anything worse than being homosexual. It was right up there with murder….! So I dated boys and even married but it only lasted a year we had plenty of issues. It was only after I was divorced at the age of 21 that I met this incredible woman and she was everything that I’d ever I wanted. I allowed myself to feel the things I had hidden deep down and I was flooded with something I’d never known….happiness! We have been married for 5 years now and I’m so happy I was finally able to be me. So coming out is a process that I still do after all these years. My family found me disgusting for many years. They slowly let me back into their life’s. When I work with someone new the question always comes up, so are you married and do you have kids? I tell them the truth which I feel is coming out again and again. At least it’s easier now and most don’t say anything even if they are against it.
I started realizing that I liked girls in grade 7. I always thought that it would go away but it never did. About a year later I realized that this wasn’t a faze I was going through and that this is who I am. I was terrified when I finally realized that. I had no idea what to do or who to talk to. So as a very intelligent individual, I took a million ‘are you gay?’ quizzes. These rarely helped solve any of my problems but now I knew for sure I was into girls in more than a friendly way. I knew I liked girls but I didn’t know if I liked boys. I kept going back and forth in my mind if I was bi or gay. This drove me crazy. By grade 9 I was finally comfortable and satisfied with calling myself gay. I still hadn’t told anyone at this point but the possibility started entering my mind. Whenever I opened my mouth to tell someone my fear stopped me. All of grade 9 was a roller coaster of wanting to tell someone but being to scared of how they’d react and how they’d treat me after I told them. By September of 2019, grade 10, I came out to my brother, full on tears and everything. The way he responded couldn’t have been better. He told me that it was fine and he didn’t mind one bit, and he treated me the same after. That gave me so much courage to tell other people. So, little by little, I told my close friends, then my not so close friends, and then my mom. My step dad was the person I was petrified to tell, because he grew up in a very closed minded family. Every terrible thought came to my mind: “what if he wants to kick me out?”, “what if he hates me?”, “what if he never talks to me again?”. In December of 2019 my mom told me it was time to tell him. So, we all sat down in the kitchen, and I told him. He took it as good as he was able to. He had a few questions and needed some clarification to understand how sexuality worked, and he still loved and cared for me the same he did before I told him. Now here I am, in 2020, out to the world and proud. It was a very long journey to get to where I am now and I know there is still so much exploring to do and things for me to figure out about myself, but I am proud to call myself so so gay. 🙂
I need to start by saying that my story is a cliché, I usually refer to it that way. But I think the good thing about clichés is that they reach people with a lot of truth, because it’s also the story of a lot of people. So come on. I am the daughter of separated parents and grew up in a poor community in northeastern Brazil. My parents split up when I was months old and my mother ended up raising me without my father’s help. I lived until my adolescence at my maternal grandmother’s house together with my mother and an uncle. And after that my mother had a partner with whom we went to live for a few years. It started when I started walking. My mom says that when I started taking my first steps I started going to church. At less than two years old I started going to church. I just went in there and sat down, nobody took me. Even my mother, my grandmother and my uncle I lived with, nobody went to church and in fact they didn’t even like it very much. As it is very hot here most of the year, I would leave the house wearing panties and flip-flops and enter the church at any time, all that was needed was for the door to be open. The first person I attracted me romantically was my Bible school teacher, I must have been about 8 years old. I didn’t know what I called that feeling, I just know that I wanted to be close to her, touch her, watch her and try to somehow look like her or imitate her in some things. In parallel, I was absorbing and learning about sin, guilt and hell. As I grew up, both things became part of me, and as a teenager I had my affective experiences, both with boys and girls. And then at that time I stopped attending church. From there, I started to get interested and research about possible theories and explanations to understand this concept so complex that it is sexuality. I consumed materials from both psychological science, biology and the animal kingdom as well as theories of the Christian segment. Despite feeling trapped and suffocated in that search, I really believed in God and wanted to find positive answers in all of that. When I turned 18 I went back to church, got baptized and tried my best to get close to God. I started to be part of that community. I joined the music and communication group, made myself available to help with various activities, dedicated a part of my salary to deliver to the church every month and help with other campaigns. Sometimes I arrived before the doorman and left with him. I read the Bible a lot, the most complex and contradictory texts, I searched for the original language to understand the most accurate possible translation, I bought several study bibles and biblical dictionaries, I read books and everything else you can imagine. In parallel to that, at the age of 20 I entered the faculty of Psychology, and then I thought: now I will learn and discover many things about the human being, his interactions and his behavior. So I will seek to study and learn about God in the same way, in an attempt to balance things out. But, before talking about everything I lived and learned in college, I need to talk about my faith. I really believed in God. I really enjoyed being part of the church and belonging to a community. I learned many good things there and many of the things I learned with faith helped me to become what I am today and of whom I am very proud. A lot of that universe is really part of me. I met people that I can say that made a lot of difference in my life and helped me when I had several problems and difficulties, and who are by my side today. Despite these things that I see as positive, there were so many others that hurt me too much. There were so many jokes, comments … I saw people being removed and expelled from their activities and positions in the church because of their sexuality. People who had to undergo various rituals and procedures of deprivation of so many things so that they could participate again. I was really reflective on how this topic was always prominent in the church. I heard several messages about it, so many damn jokes that even today I can clearly hear the pastor’s voice in my head with so much irony. It hurt, it really hurt. I started to think about these parallel universes that may exist, like the one in the church, that managed to make me feel small and insignificant, because it seemed that I couldn’t be part of it, even though it seemed to be a very big place, it didn’t have a little space for me. Maybe this sounds familiar. This environment, ideas can even look like something very sophisticated and sometimes I thought that there was only this universe and that I needed to fit in some way, because it was the only one I could see. Unfortunately environments, like churches, companies and even the family can compose an environment that is not good for us and then we need to find ours, because trying to fit in can hurt us and collaborate so that we become someone else or the worst, let to be who we are. And if there is no such place, we may need to create one. I will not lie, it is not easy. But we can find people and many other resources to help us. I found many things, I will tell you. So in college, as you might imagine, it was a long way, from learning, acquiring repertoires about various ways of existing and living. I developed the ability to listen and observe and so many others that promote health and well-being. In my profession I learned about welcoming, understanding and caring. I realized that feelings like guilt and all the actions that can increase this feeling lead to psychic discomfort, mental disorders like depression and even suicide. I learned about relationships and so many other contributions that helped me understand social movements and other such interactions. I learned that the human being is powerful and that there is a potential for transformation. I learned concepts like equity, empowerment, autonomy, and that these being present in the logic of social interaction can bring so much freedom and quality of life to people and result in changing paradigms and transforming worlds. Ah, I learned a lot that made me and still has made me more human, too human. At the same time that I was learning so many things about what was human and what makes us human, I was looking for God. I searched, searched and searched. I looked in the bible, in the church, in retreats, camps and vigils but I didn’t find Him in any of these places. And then I started to arrive at the following conclusion: that the relationship with the divine is something so personal that it is certainly within us. I started to search within myself for the relationship I was looking for and approached an idea of spiritual independence. Gradually and with a lot of reflection, therapy and self-care I have sought to improve myself as a person and in my relationships and to reformulate my faith. But it is in fact a conflict. A conflict occurs when two opposing forces point in the same direction, such as: I have a desire for women, being a woman at the same time that I do everything to make sure that doesn’t happen, because I believe I can’t or that it’s wrong. It’s confusing and it hurts a lot, I know. This can be a sexual conflict, and there are still many others. But we can overcome them. I learned and I am still learning that life is almost never a dichotomy, it is almost never right and wrong, good or bad, black and white, it is diverse, it is colorful and it is infinite. I usually say that since there are more than 7 billion people in the world, there must certainly be more than 7 billion possibilities and ways of being, of existing and of loving. Among so many possibilities, we don’t have to choose between two. I believe that we will not always need to choose one over the other. It is possible to find a middle ground, a balance. I did not leave my faith to live my sexuality nor the other way around, I am working to find a way to live with both of them because these two instances of life, like so many others, make up who I am and made me get here. We don’t need to deny or renounce who we are since this does not hurt us nor does it hurt others. There are several parallel universes, we will all find one. My faith also consists of this, being part of a possible universe for all forms of existence and it also helps me to produce a sense of life and living. Now start the process of sharing with my friends about who I am and have already found a community here where I am accepted. Gradually and gradually, in my time I have gone less to the church I have been attending for almost 8 years and integrating into another community. I have been practicing spiritual independence. Also therapy, yoga and many hot baths. My wish is that everyone can find in themselves infinite reasons to be proud and sensitive and positive ways of relating in an identical way, so that from then on they can start transforming the place they live in into a proper environment for our identity and as these relationships and interactions.
I am sorry if this isn’t what you are looking for and it may not be appropriate for this format but this was the only place I felt comfortable to send this in. This is a small part of my journey and a part that I found not many people openly discuss including myself but I feel its a very part of my ongoing journey.
Confidence……Sexual confidence
Some will admit this, some will lie and some just flat out refuse to talk about it. I annoyingly fall into later category. Sex is important, sex is a large part of our lives, whether we are not having any, too much, not enough, average sex or the best sex of lives. The thoughts about sex are never from far our minds. The real difference is between those who discuss it and those who don’t, its not the quantity or quality, its confidence.
Sexual confidence is not always based on how good you are or think you are its about how feel when you discuss it, if you discuss it at all.
Recently, although not really that recently I have come out and been working through the many phases of becoming comfortable with my new found normal and who I am. I am ashamed to admit that although I have seen many come out before me I never really understood what it meant. That it changes everything, its like hitting reset when your are already halfway through the game. Everything about who you are and the lessons you have learnt and comforts that you have afford yourself are all thrown away. The toughest part is that unlike when you go through this crucial stage of life in your teens most people have already completed these levels and moved on, leaving you behind, constantly both reminding you of the challenges you have ahead and making you feel intimidated at the same time. I have been working through these phases and I haven’t been able to let someone (the person I trust the most in the world) really help me. This has bothered me because why can’t Iet her help me? Why do I feel that I have to do this alone? Why? These were questions I could not answer and it felt like I was in canoe unable to paddle on both sides, around and around I go but never progress up stream. It wasn’t until I was given ‘homework’ from a stranger whom I sought out to help me find a way to paddle on both sides that I realised why.
The stranger challenged me to have fun with it. To have fun with my sexuality. Fun! Really?! Sure no worries, I will get right onto that…..quick question how do I do that?
Everyone loves fun right? We have been doing it since we were kids, the laughter that comes with fun is one of the first sounds we make as babies which is associated with a smile. And yet here I am a 28 year old woman who doesn’t know how to find one of the most fundamental things in life. I sat and thought about this, I went through my life like a rolodex flagging the cards that provided me with smiles and laughter. Fun! I thought about those moments, they included my friends, family and activities that I was good at. Although they were all different there was one commonality in all of them. Confidence.
With my friends I was confident in who I was, confident in the people around me, the people that I had chosen to spend my time with.
Activities I was confident because I was good at was I was doing. I knew I could do it and had a sense of achievement, accomplishment and value in that field.
Family I was confident with them, they have known me for my entire life and in the kids case for their entire lives. Family is a little different because my confidence ebbs and flows with them, sometimes in rare fleeting moments I am at complete ease and find myself smiling just because and in other moments I find myself withdrawing. Withdrawing because I sense unease with who I am and what I stand for. As is the case in most families although we are the same we are very different and this can be attributed to our life choices and paths we have taken. In my family I am alone, I am alone in many ways. My career, my sports, my friends, my locality, my relationship status and…… my sexual orientation. I grew up in a family that replaced hugs and emotional support with sarcasm and sport. I felt this worked until I discovered I was different. Until I worked out that the sarcasm and sport left with me void and sense of loneliness. I sought comfort in tried to fill that void with the other parts of my life that gave me fun; activities and friends.
I moved through my teens and into my early 20’s slowly finding my own path and in doing so I realised that there was people out there who provided love and support to each other. One problem, I didn’t know how to accept or reciprocate it. I did what I knew, I stuck with my sarcasm (which I am rather accomplished at) and developed a somewhat charming manner (modest I know) that made people feel comfortable around me. They were free of judgement and could have a laugh. I built their confidence but in doing so I neglected mine. We would discuss their work, their friendships, their relationships and in turn their sex lives. I was and still am happy to discuss it all with them and even their sex lives but only if they didn’t discuss mine.
WHY?
I enjoy it, I have never had any complaints about it so I must be ok at it so why can’t I talk about it? I get physically uncomfortable and tense up. And now, I cant even have any fun with it. If I indulge myself there is an seem secrecy required and at times bordering on shame.
That strangers home work continued circle around and around in my brain like that bloody canoe.
Then it hit me, confidence, whether it be sexual or otherwise stems from conversation. A sense of comfort and support to have those conversations. Unsurprisingly in a family based on sarcasm and sport open conversations were made in jest not to mention they were few and far between. When they did happen it was uncomfortable and glazed over as soon as humanly possible. I never had discussions around relationships with my siblings let alone conversations about sex. We would sit around the dinner table a joke would be made that would from time to time turn sexual in its nature, we would each jump on it, stacking on each others previous one liner, Dad would just look down and continue eating, Mum with shake her head attempting to stifle a giggle and tell us all to stop.
The was it.
No more discussion, nothing to normalise it not even between siblings. I remember when I was dating a guy and I got the implant contraceptive rod, it was the same time as my sister in laws hens day. My entire family had come together and my second eldest brother saw the bandage that was wrapped around my left bicep. He straight up questioned me in front of everyone; other siblings, in-laws and parents about why I needed it. I got uncomfortable, made a quick retort and withdrew to the corner of the room as my brother made jokes about having never met this guy and reference his skills with a cricket bat. But don’t worry it was over quickly as the footy was on Tv. I am pretty certain that is the only time any of my relationships have been discussed.
Over the years I developed a core group of friends where we would have numerous wide ranging conversations that developed a comfort and support system for me. As that friendship circle tightened we all assumed our various roles and they worked out what I could and could not discuss. They wouldn’t push unless the perfect storm struck were we were drunk and they honestly worried about me. Their questions came from a place of love and support and I was finally able to start to have these conversations and built the associated confidence. I felt like I was building a level of confidence that I was happy with but then things changed.
With increased confidence came an increased sense of self. It was then that disaster struck, I knew I was different. Different from my family and friends. All of a sudden that confidence was gone, I was back to square one.
This sense of disconnection from my family and friends left me feeling like a lone wolf, fighting through the paralysing self doubt, fear and unknown. Not knowing if it would ever stop, the sense of trying to survive the arrows bombarding me from all directions because there was no shelter in sight. And just spice things up a ‘fun’ side affect of rewriting of who you are is anxiety because everything had be reconfigured and required conversations that had previously never been considered.
Square one has forced me to look inwards and have some honest and uncomfortable conversations with myself about my inadequacies and my strengths. Through this I have identified different areas of my life and the associated challenges. I had broken them down into bite sized pieces and slowly consumed them. Now I am back to the same issue that plagued me in my 20’s. Sexual confidence. The only difference now is that my family don’t even know how to make the jokes about it but in fairness I haven’t changed in the fact that i still can’t have the conversation, even in jest.
Request of fun can only be fulfilled once I have sexual confidence to enjoy it again. I have identified why I have this deficient in my personality. I am trying to re-program my brain that sex and relationships are not a taboo topic and that is something everyone does, thinks and fantasises about including me. Relationships and sex are meant to be fun.
Now, how do move out my own insecurities long enough to enjoy it? To find fun?
I first realized I might be gay when I was in middle school, though it was not something I was ready to accept. I have always been a tomboy, and was very aware of gender growing up. While I had an incredibly supportive family and felt that I could live my life without limiting myself to what society had dictated someone of my gender should do, there were times when it was incredibly stressful. I avoided using public restrooms for fear of someone thinking I was a boy and trying to kick me out, I hated when activities were separated based on gender and even lost a friend because he thought I was a boy until we were separated in an activity, and I had another friend tell me he wouldn’t believe I was a girl until I had boobs. Despite all of this, I never changed how I dressed or the activities I was involved in until I thought I might be gay. I felt I was different enough as it was, I did not want to add the stress of being gay on top of everything else. My greatest fear through high school and college was that someone would think I was gay and I wouldn’t be able to deny it. I successfully avoided any formal events in middle school, but in high school I started wearing dresses for the first time since my parents dressed me as a very young kid. I avoided any physical contact with women and didn’t allow myself to get too close to any woman for fear of developing serious feelings I couldn’t deny. In the moment, I didn’t think too much about it, but reflecting back, it was pretty horrible. This lasted until my senior year in college, when my best friend started breaking down all of my barriers. She started hugging me, holding my hand, and cuddling, and for the first time I realized how touch starved I had been. This was great, but also super confusing. I had never had a super close friend or a partner and I did not know how to interpret my feelings for her. She was also in a relationship with a man and was pretty vocal about being straight. Eventually I just had to accept that I had fallen in love with her, and this helped me to start on my journey to accepting my sexuality. It was not until the next year, after we had moved in together and had been living with each other for a couple of months, that I finally felt ready to come out. I told my family first, and they were amazing, and then I told my best friend, who was also amazing. I thought that after I came out, everything would just fall into place, which did not happen. It has been almost 2 years since I came out, and I have struggled a lot. I spent the majority of my life trying to convince myself I wasn’t gay and the deep sense of shame, fear, and anxiety that I had been living with doesn’t just disappear. But I have also grown a lot in those two years. The shame, fear, and anxiety don’t rear their heads as much anymore, and I am starting to get to a point where I can actually have pride in who I am. I even told my best friend that the reason I came out was that I had fallen in love with her, which is something I had been hiding for so long and was a huge relief when I finally released it. There is still room to grow, but I am incredibly happy with where I am now, and for the first time in my life I feel like I can love who I truly am.
I knew I truly liked girls at the age of fifteen (I’m a 28-year-old woman now). How did I know? Well.. I was looking at my favourite poster.. and there she was, Avril Lavigne was pinned on my bedroom wall and there was me thinking “f*ck. I’m in love with you and how the hell are we going to meet?”. Don’t judge me.. come on! I was young and she was a hot skater girl! (she still is hehe). Anyways, that is how my story started.
I can’t complain because I’m aware of how lucky I’ve been during the process. To start, I came along with a girl in high school (just friends) who told me she was lesbian so she had to face the barrage of questions I threw out to her (bless her) to make sure that I wasn’t going through a “phase” of feeling homosexual. She helped me a lot. My dilema in that moment of my life was that I felt attracted to boys as well as girls so.. was I bisexual? Interestingly, I couldn’t imagine myself having a long-term relationship with a boy but I had really romantic ideas when thinking of girls.. (I’ve done spectacular romantic things by the way). I tried to find a label capable to represent me but I couldn’t so I honestly thought; “What the hell, the “label” is ME and if you don’t like it you know where the door is”.
I think that is the point of all this. From my experience, you attract your fears. There is a simple and real personal example (you are allowed to laugh, I know it is a bit ridiculous). I have selacophobia (shark phobia). Okay, I wanted to sound intellectual so I looked up the proper noun and I just pooped myself because there were pictures of sharks next to the definition (not funny). Anyways, due to my selacophobia I see sharks everywhere; people wearing shirts with sharks stumped on them, TV advertisements where in order to sell pills they show a shark swimming (why?? I mean..why??), and a large etc. This situation can be extrapolated to all of your life experiences. If you are scared of people because you think they may be judging you just because you are not “traditional” you will come across with people thinking that way. You have the power to attract whatever you want so be yourself. Mum told me once something really wise; “When you discuss something in front of an audience, 50% of them will agree with you and the other 50% won’t. Therefore, be yourself and you will be surrounded by those thinking the same as you do”.
Going back to the thread of the conversation, there is an important topic to be discussed; Parents. Here comes when everything got complicated. I experienced two very different reactions (my parents are not together).
Conversation with my dad: (In the car. He was driving.) Me: Daddy. My dad: Tell me. Me: I’ve got to tell you something important. My dad: What is it? Me: … yeah well… My dad: … Me: You like women, do you? My dad: Yes. Why? Me: Me too. My dad: Oh. And are you happy? Me: I really am. My dad: Me too then. (Simple and easy. Men style.)
On the other hand, it was completely different with mum. She caught me sneaking out with a girl (everyone knows mothers have superpowers). It was a difficult time for both of us. She loves me so much that she was scared of me being hurt. From her life experiences she knows that there are violent people whose ideals are completely radical regarding the freedom of love. I remember my mum crying in front of me, apologising because deep inside her she wanted to accept the situation without shame, she wanted to understand me but she couldn’t. Seeing your mum hurting that much breaks you heart into million pieces. Then I realised what I had to do. If I wanted her to truly accept me, I had to accept that she needed to fit all that emotions into her heart and I had to comprehend her worries so I told her that it was okay, that we would make it through no matter how long it would take. Time did its job though and now she is completely okay with it so do not give up on people! Everyone has their own odyssey so try to not rush others’ processes.
I know it is hard and sad thinking someday your parents will be gone, that friends come and go but there you are. You’ve got yourself and that is forever. You have to take care of your heart and soul. Good news are that the sooner you do it, the sooner will come the day you will get up and realise how strong and authentic you’ve become. And I’m sure that people around you will be there because they love see you being you.
Now when I think back, I realized that I always felt this way, but growing up in a heavily religious country I didn’t know this was normal. The talk was always “when a men and I women love each other” (fill in the rest). This construct of what love and partnership is supposed to be, leaves no room to be truly open and explore feelings. I thought I was weird, I thought something was wrong with me and so I didn’t say anything to anyone.
On top of that, the message that everything outside heterosexuality as “unnatural and sinful” was present in society and even school. There was no reference to same sex couples, gender fluidity or anything else.
I remember having feelings for girls and when they became friends (that is how I explained it) is friendship and nothing else, but it also happened with boys, which added to the predicament.
Then around grade 8 news about violence against “those people” were more visible (or maybe I noticed more) stories of rape and murder with no one being brought to justice. I can’t like girls it is dangerous…. fear really intensified in me! So I concentrated on the boy part of my feelings, pushing my feelings for girls way, way down!
I didn’t want to admit it but I still felt not quite myself, there was more to me. I didn’t take the time to understand what my feelings really were, there was no language I knew about how to express what I was feeling.
Fast forward and I came to Canada, I wish I could say that I felt free to explore all sides of me, but A new country – culture shock and feeling lost High school while learning a new language Wasn’t a citizen – fear of being turned back
My mind was so busy with, learn the language, pass classes, make money to survive, help mom in everything needed – calls, translation, doctors etc., I didn’t have time to be a teen, let alone revisiting my feelings for people, because no matter how much I pushed them down, these feelings were always there.
I was lucky and towards my final year I made really good friends and things started to look up. Even though there were instances in which I wanted to come out, I felt it wasn’t the time yet.
Eventually my mom started the conversation “Maybe you can find a nice guy to marry and have kids with” I told myself “this is it, this is how I’m going to come out to my mom” I turned to her and I said: what if I fall in love and it is not a guy, what if I fall for someone else?
She looked at me, paused for a couple of seconds (which felt like an eternity) and said “As long as you love and respect each other, is all the same to me, I just want you to be happy” I cannot explain what I felt at that moment I will carry those words with me forever!
Since then I’ve come out on different occasions depending on my comfort level, I know the people who truly care about me will have my back. Coming to terms with this part of me has filled me with a warm sense of community that I didn’t know I could be part of and opened up some amazing opportunities to form new friendships.
Fear can be strong but LOVE is powerful!
I am glad I finally let go, because loving openly brought life to a new level where essence matters more! I now know love is more complex than the narrow narrative I was taught.
Love is universal and kindness is beautiful Let us ascend to new heights together
I am queer and happy to be in this journey I can’t wait to see what life brings! Mace
My name is Melissa. I am a 36-year-old woman and have always been lesbian. My story is slightly different to many of the stories I’ve read on this site and would like to represent the LGBTQ stories that closely represent mine; my reason – I have not yet come across a story reflecting my journey.
My sexual orientation was very clear to me at the age of 5. It wasn’t a case of ‘i knew’, in fact, I had no idea that homosexuality was a term nor that it was deemed unacceptable in many worldly societies. I was simply being me. It was perhaps later when a fellow classmate mouthed a question to me; “What, are you lesbian?” that I realised, ah! people aren’t okay with this. It was not about the words she used but the tone and body language she used to express her disdain. I never hid my sexual orientation; I was far too confident of that. I was so confident that I had prepared myself mentally that when the day came that, I would inform my family and friends, I was ready to leave them behind because I was not willing to sacrifice a part of me for the sake of protecting the dignity and pride of others. At 16, I came out. At 18 I came out to the entire high school and not one person cared that I had nor were phased by the big step; I like to believe it is because I was confident and so in touch with myself that I would not allow the world to convince me that being me was actually wrong. Perhaps they felt that energy, perhaps they respected it or perhaps they really just didn’t care that I am attracted to women – I’ll never know. What I did learn was, always choose you first and support that strongly; there is only one you and for those that do not serve you well, walk away. Speak about your sexual orientation with normality; we attract what we reflect about ourselves to others – everything in life is a mirror.
I grew up in a small farm town in Indiana. Open mindedness was not a thing where I was from. Being raised by older parents and growing up in an closed mindset community, I was raised to believe that those who choose same sex relationships were sinful and “wrong in the head”. I always sensed I was different from about 14 on. But it wasn’t until I was 16 walking the halls of High School thinking I can’t be gay dad will hate me. So….. I suppressed the queer side of me that wanted to be with girls, dated some boys, and tried really hard to be “normal”. Several years of chronic depression and anxiety later I finally turned 21, lived on college campus, and had a mad crush on a girl in my class. Fate, God, the Universe or whatever force you believe in, this girl was also bisexual. And although a relationship never happened, I owe it to her and one drunken night for my official coming out story. I chose to live honestly and came out to my friends and family soon after. Things did not go well at first, but we did a lot of growing, and things did get better. Fast forward a few years and I am now happily married 2 years to my beautiful wife. All of my friends were there and my parents walked me down the aisle. I am so very fortunate to have such a positive outcome. We now live in the same small town I grew up in where we strive to live positive, out, queer lives, and strive to make the world a more loving place. #KeepItReal
