Community Rainbow Waves

Allison

As a queer woman, I have many coming out stories. The fumbling time I came out to my parents in a pharmacy parking lot, the time I drunkenly sobbed it to my best friend at a bar while an 80s cover band performed Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” in the background, the multiple times I came out to myself.

I first realized I might not be totally straight when I was in college. Sure, I had been attracted to other girls before, but I marked it up to general admiration. Everyone had thoughts like this, right? It was during my junior year in 2009 that I noticed a girl waiting in the corridor for our class to begin. There was nothing ordinarily special about her, but the way she carried herself captivated me. So, I kept an eye out for that girl, thinking maybe I wanted to be friends with her. She was sporting a baseball cap with the horrible baseball team I cheer for. That’s enough to want to be friends, right? The semesters changed and I didn’t give much thought to the mysterious girl whom I never ended up talking to; though I continued to work my part-time job at a queer owned deli, telling myself I was just an enthusiastic ally.

As fate would have it, who walked into my senior thesis course the following semester? Why, none other than baseball cap girl! Since there were only six of us in the class, we all got familiar, and for the sake of anonymity, let’s name her Kate. Kate and I became fast friends and the need to be near her became too much to ignore. It was like my true self was festering under the surface, but all the years of my small town, conservative upbringing made me scared of what the outcome would be if I let this part of myself out.

In coming to terms with my sexuality, I did what I always do when I don’t know an answer: RESEARCH. I scoured the internet for any helpful articles, I even got books from the library on human sexuality. I searched for representation in the media to little avail. I wanted to find stories like these, from real people who knew the struggle of accepting yourself. I was lost and confused but finally said the words “I’m gay” to myself, out loud.

Meeting Kate was a “click” moment for me. She was the one who turned the light on in corners of my brain and heart that I was trying to suppress. She came into my life abruptly, threw me for a loop and for that, I am forever in her debt. Though the story between the two of us is a phantom for another day, I will always be thankful to this woman and cherish my memories with her because she helped me see my true self.

Personally, I have never been a fan of labels. I don’t like to be put in a box when there are so many little things that make every one of us unique. I never really referred to myself as a lesbian, but that is what most people I know decided to categorize me under. Again, I don’t care for labels, so I never really minded. Then, a few months ago, I was cleaning up at the bar I work at with a coworker. We were having a pint while sweeping the floors when we started a candid conversation about the queer community. He is an open-minded straight cisgender man, so I honestly answered any of his queries to the best of my ability. It was in this conversation with a friend, that I came out once more, but this time as queer. I told him that though I usually prefer women, I would never close myself off to the opportunity of being with someone based on their gender.

So, in closing, much like the world around us, we are never done evolving. You are allowed to be a work in progress. You are allowed to readjust your labels. You are allowed to unapologetically be who you are, because who you are is beautiful and more than enough. No matter how you identify, you are deserving of all the fucking love in the world. <3 AM

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.

Gay/lesbian

The signs probably started showing when I was 10, but I didn’t have the courage or freedom to admit this to myself until 16. Becoming self-aware was a whole other milestone that caused stress, anxiety and depression because I didn’t know how to deal with it alone.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, the first person I came out to was my brother, and I did it by email when he was in the room next to mine. I remember shaking and crying when I hit send. I told him not to reply because I didn’t want to know if he hated me for who I was, but he stepped into my room to hug me as I broke down. This gave me the courage to tell my friends, who already knew and were just there waiting for me to be ready. I felt blessed and so lucky that the people around me accepted me and still loved me the same way.

So I eventually told my mum, and she cried – not out of happiness, but disappointment. She told me she was disappointed and I can still remember the physically pain that hit my chest till this day. I don’t think I could ever forget the way it made me feel when the most important person in my life didn’t want to understand me. Even now, it’s something we brush underneath the rug and it still destroys me. My own father (who I don’t have a good relationship with) is still stuck in his own traditional ways of thinking. He’s pointed to a TV screen with LGBTQIA+ people and told me that ‘these people are disgusting and don’t deserve to get married’, so I’ve decided he doesn’t deserve to know me.

For as good as the world is, it’s still hard to comprehend that those who don’t accept us are not actually bad people.

Living freely with all my colours

I started to Wonder about my sexuality at around 13 years old, I had always thought that everyone was very attractive? Like everyone whether it was male, female or non-binary i never really cared as long as I liked them.

But at 13 I didn’t know what pansexuality was soo I just thought I was bisexual?

I tried to hide it until I was 16, between 13 and 16 I had been with one girl and was starting to see a non-binary person.

I was so tried of hiding myself from my parents but the thing is that I was SO scared.

I wanted to come out so bad to finally be free and myself, and here in Switzerland they’re pretty nice with the LGBTQ+ community but my family is italian and from where they are it’s not that acceptable..

One day I took my chances and wrote a letter that i left on my mother’s desk and went to school.

At the end of a science class I remember being so nervous to check my phone, but when I did I saw that I had a text from my dad and one from my mom.

I opened them after a little freaking out and they just said that they didnt care and would love me no matter what, and that I’ll always be their babygirl.

And what do you know, today when my mom sees something rainbow she takes a picture and sends it to me which I find very cute.

On the 13th april 2020 it will be my coming out one year anniversary and wow.

Life is so much happier when you’re authentic to yourself.

I am very thankful to be in a very accepting space, whether it’s ALL my friends or my family, I know I am very lucky.

I am so thankful to be able to live the life I live and love who I want to love. But i probably wouldn’t have had the strength of coming out if i had not seen such good LGBT representation, like Waverly and Nicole and others..

I am out and free and I wish you all, reading this, to be happy and don’t forget that you do not owe anyone a coming out. Only do it if you feel like you are safe.

Take care of yourself. I’m proud of you.

Abigail, 24, Lesbian

I remember being in high school and finding it extremely difficult to find a connection with the opposite sex. I was pressured by societal norms and my own family to date men, as I know most women are. In my world, things were falling apart. I was bombarded with questions from my conscience: Why didn’t I feel like every other girl? Why couldn’t I feel something, anything for a man? I felt like something was wrong with me and I isolated myself. I spent a lot of time in the art room devoting myself completely to my work. I guess this was a way for me to get my stresses out and to ignore that part of myself that I was so confused about. I did eventually date men in high school, but I was confirming what I felt was real. It was around my senior year of high school that I realized what was going on. I found myself attracted to celebrities, but of the female type. Haha! And after finding my real self, I decided to go to prom…by myself. A bold move, yes, but one where I could be who I wanted to be. I remember standing in room waiting for the doors to open and my friends talking to me about why I was by myself. I told them that I was gay. My one friend who I didn’t know was listening turned and very loudly exclaimed, “You’re gay!?” Let me tell you that everyone in the senior class was there and turned towards me. My response? My cheeks turning red and my heart about to beat itself out of my chest. But then the craziest thing happened; everyone started coming up to me and hugging me and congratulating me. I have never felt more accepted in my life. After that moment, I finally felt ready to come out to my parents and the rest of my family. I told my mom first and I cried my heart out when I told her. She quickly leaned in and hugged me. This hug gave me comfort and relief. She told me that she did not care who I loved, as long as I was happy. This was the good part. My dad was not so happy, with the familiar statement of, “It’s just a phase.” To those who will be reading this, I tell you now that it is not a phase. Be true to yourself and always pursue happiness no matter how many obstacles you find standing in your way. Now to continue, I will let you know that the journey with the rest of my family was difficult, but over time, they started to see the true me. They accepted who I was and I cannot ask for more than that. It was also helpful that I started to find people out there like me. I knew I wasn’t alone. That is when I knew I was a part of this wonderful community of loving people with beautiful souls. We all know that love is love and we have all been through very dark moments. But it is not these moments that define us, it is how we react to them. Together we rise and fight against the hate. From the words of Mother Teresa: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” So, let’s start the wave. Love you all, from an American soldier, a loving friend, a human – Abigail.

Bisexual

I became aware mostly thanks to a very open minded friend while we were in middle school, she had an account in Tumblr and she recommended the app to me, while she was teaching me how to use it she told me “here we all are anonymous and you can even delete your search history” and this gave me my first step to look for the queer community because I wasn’t being monitored by my parents and there I realized so many people were happy with having different sexualities and I came to realize I liked girls as I liked boys and it broke me at first ‘cus I was already bullied so I didn’t want to add a stone to it, so I mostly just buried it and only made some side comments to the same friend who introduced me to Tumblr, on my last year of middle school this friend asked me if I didn’t have a crush in one of our girl friends and I denied it completely and went home but that comment bugged me a lot so I kind of did a little of soul searching at the tender age of 14 and accepted that I liked this girl and basically cried on the phone while talking with my friend about it and she helped me out to a stand point were even if I didn’t want to make it public I accepted that I was different.
That lasted about 3 months because a guy who mocked me found out by eavesdropping my conversation and he kicked me out of the closet to my whole generation and it felt like the end of the world! I haven’t even come out to my mom and my whole school already knew! Thankfully, no one cared and the ones who cared didn’t have a problem with it and they help me control the panic and the kid was expelled of the school.
After it came high school, I started it being more comfortable with being bisexual and I found this little web series called “Carmilla” which help me see such amazing characters being so casual about their likes that I started to get a little of confidence, then I was recommended this weird series called “Wynnona Earp” and well, the rest is history, I came out to my mom by accident and she had a little melt down for a few weeks but it ended well, she has even come with me to the Pride Parade this last few years, my dad was chill and was just glad I figured out early so I could be happy and my mom told everyone in my family by being overly enthusiastic, at the end I’m just glad I have the support of my family and friends and now I’m 19, ready to face the world one step at a time 😀

Living QUEER without FEAR. I’m Jes.

They say your childhood years should be the best years of your life–little to no responsibilities, innocent friendships and frequent laughter. My story, however, veered into less blissful territory.

I moved in with my father at age 6, which is where the memory of my childhood began. I was happy there. My father, then on his second marriage, seemed to finally be stable. My step mother seemed to be a wonderful woman who really stepped up to raise a growing little girl she had only just met.

A year later, my brother moved in, and my father and step mother tried to establish as much normalcy as possible. We spent time together, going to the beach and playing games. What we didn’t see was the complete unraveling of their marriage happening right before us. My parents efficiently and completely sheltered us from their inevitable demise.

After the divorce, we moved many times. Which of course resulted in different school systems, and different homes, the worst of which were without electricity. Eventually, my father made the decision to move us closer to his family halfway across the country, to the panhandle of Oklahoma. It was there, a year later, where he found the woman who would become his third wife. And as a result, our life settled.

At age 11, my whole world changed into daily physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, by people who were supposed to be safe. Let me be clear that my father has never, aside from punishment, abused or hurt me. But he also profoundly failed to protect me.

At 13, I realized what attraction meant, and recognized I wasn’t like the other girls in my small town. Each of them had boyfriends and crushes, while I secretly daydreamed about the girls I liked. Like many young gays, I tried to date boys to distract or convince my brain I was “normal.” I hid the pain of my abuse and my homosexuality from everyone. I wrestled and struggled with the abuse and my complicated differences for another year, until finally, I was removed from my father’s care, and placed with my grandparents.

It truly felt like a crushing weight was lifted off my chest. It felt like my life had just started. But also, I was broken. I was on a train of tragedy, headed straight for derailment with no idea how to slow myself down. So, in an attempt to have any excuse to run away or escape, I came out to my grandparents. Having already endured what I believed was the worst life could have dealt, I shared my secret with them. To my surprise, I didn’t need to run. They hugged me, loved me, and accepted every part of me. I was finally free. Free from abuse, and free from my prison of secrecy.

I am a queer woman.
I identify as a lesbian.
I have a beautiful family.
I am stronger now than my 13 year old self would ever believe I could be–and I am strong because of what I survived in my childhood.

-Jes.

#OutIsTheNewIn

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.

I’m bisexual

I am bisexual but when I came out of the closet with my parents they didn’t accept it so I had to tell them to “change” but luckily I have people who love me and who support me no matter who I am and encourage me to never stop being who I am.

Libby (she/her)

since i’m still really young and somewhat closeted, there’s not a ton that i can do, but i try everyday to make someone else smile. i make sure that my friends know they’re valid and that how they feel is valid. i make sure they know they’re loved. coming to the realization that i was gay was pretty difficult. especially because i’ve grown up christian, so i just assumed that i should be homophobic because that’s how it works, right? it wasn’t until i hit middle school that i realized that just because i’m christian i don’t have to be homophobic. my friends started coming out to me and i realized that it doesn’t matter that they’re gay because i still love them and being gay hasn’t changed who they are. it’s just given them more confidence and that’s beautiful! by seeing how confident my friends were in coming out and just being themselves, it gave me the courage to explore my queerness. there was a lot of internalized homophobia which made it difficult to to finally just say to myself that i don’t like boys. but eventually, i got there. coming out to my friends was pretty easy since most of my friends were already out to me. the friends i was really anxious to come out to we’re my church friends. i could’ve chosen to just stay in the closet and hide part of me from them, but the more i tried to hide it, the harder it became to be around them. and not being around them really hurt because they’re some of my BEST friends! so one day, i decided to just go for it. i told all of them individually and to my surprise, they were ok with it! they know i’m gay and they still love me! they put up with my stupid gay jokes and all of my weird hand gestures. i am so lucky to have friends like them and i realize that not everyone is this lucky, but if you’re struggling to come out, or you want to come out but you’re not sure of your label yet, this is my advice to you: you don’t need a label to be valid. wait until you’re ready. don’t force yourself out of the closet. wait until you’re sure you’re ready. you don’t have to tell everyone all at once. you can pick just a few people or even just one person to come out to. if that person/those people don’t accept you at first, give them time. think about how long it took you to accept yourself! if they say that they can never accept you, i know it hurts, but remember that there is an ENTIRE COMMUNITY right here who is ready to accept and love you for exactly who you are! for all of my christen queer folks, i know that people often say “jesus said that being gay is wrong” or “being gay is a sin”, but that’s not true. jesus never ONCE said that being is wrong. your sexuality is NOT a sin, but even if it was, god says that all sins are equal! and jesus died FOR our sins! so that they may be forgiven!! you can be queer and christen. god still loves you! (i know this was really long. sorry) i hope this made you smile and/or gave you validation.