Community Rainbow Waves

Bisexual?

This is the first time I have openly written about my sexuality so first of let’s take it back to the beginning.

I have always respected those in the lgbtq+ community, from a very young age i believed that love is love, and when you love you do it loud and proud. I was lucky for believing that statement that love is love. I grew up in a catholic household which isn’t typically an open minded religion from my experiences.

Now fast forward to my high-school years. I was also very lucky to be at a school that was diverse and open minded. We had a gay straight alliance club, I never went because I was scared but everyone loved it.

High-school is when I started watching a ton of shows that had wlw just because It felt powerful. And of course I began taking the quizzes every one takes at some point in their life. Along with me discovering who I love i was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. This took me awhile to come to terms with. Even though I struggle everyday I get back up even on the darkest days where I feel alone. watching those shows gave me peace along with validation.

The biggest influence for me discovering that I loved women was watching wlw couples on TV. The feeling I had when wlw couples appeared on the screen and got more than 5 seconds together was just… I was speechless and overwhelmed with love and support.
By far the most influential part of my journey has been watching wynonna earp.

As cheesy as it sounds watching wayhaught develop into this beautiful couple has just brought me hope. Watching them love so hard and support each other is so powerful. I hope one day to find that crazy love.

Now I wish I had this big “character arch” but im 20yrs old and this is me. I’ve spent the majority of my years supporting the community. And slowly began realizing how I would love to take her out for coffee over him. I’ve never felt connected to men, the way I look at women is completely different, I feel it and just know. Granted I have never been in a relationship with anyone.

The right one will show up when its the right time. As much as I’d love to do cheesy couple dates.

im scared that I won’t be accepted for who I love because I can’t find words to really describe how I feel and of course I feel like I have to explain myself to others.

I hope and pray that one day we can all live in peace.

I want to see a world where love isn’t frowned upon just because who i love and who you love may be different.

It’s okay to be different, that’s your superpower.

I hope whoever reads this is inspired or realizes that they are valid. I also hope reading this that you realize you don’t have to have all the answers now. Because Im still figuring myself out as well. tried writing this as accurately and open as I could, I still struggle to find words to how I feel, but its all a part of my journey. I find it hard to put a label on my sexuality like lesbian or bisexual so maybe I will figure that out soon too

Love Love

Love proudly

Love Loud

All my love and support for you beautiful people

♡
~K

Hannah

When I was 12 years old, I had realized that I had been an oddball for the entirety of my schooling. I was different, almost like an outcast and I didn’t like it. I had realized that I like girls. My parents along with the rest of my family are incredibly homophobic, so I decided to internalize everything. I had done so for 6 years until I got to my senior year of high school. I wanted to start being myself, but I knew I couldn’t as long as I was under the same roof as my parents. Summer 2019, I moved in to college and within 3 days of being there, I had already met a girl. I could finally be myself. My parents didn’t have to know about it, everything was okay. People at college really accepted me for who I was and it was so different compared to high school. However, both my parents ended up finding out along with the rest of my family the day before my 19th birthday. A lot of my family are now hesitant to talk to me. In this period of time, lack of acceptance from them made my motivation decline. I had stopped going to my classes, I stopped eating, and I stopped taking care of myself all around. I ended up having to drop most of my classes as a music therapy major due to failing grades. I lost scholarships and money, but worst of all I had lost myself. When 2nd semester came around, I was excited for a fresh start. However, my mental health hadn’t gotten any better. I ended up having to drop out of college on a full ride in which I had been studying for my dream job as a music therapist. I live at home now with my parents and never stop getting to hear the homophobia. I’m doing my best to try and support myself as well as my girlfriend. I’m trying to get a stable job so that I can move out before the end of 2020 and plan to apply to a 2 year paralegal program so I can have a somewhat stable career. Currently, I’m a full time musician trying to record music and get my name out there for people to hear. All I have ever wanted to do was make people feel good with the music that I make, whether they relate to it or not. I want to make music for people like me, but also for people who aren’t like me. Anything to bring more positivity and awareness to the world.
I usually label myself as a lesbian, but I just want to love who I love and have it not be an issue to others that I just so happen to be attracted to women. I know that good things are to come for me, all I can do is be patient. But I’m proud to say that I like women. I had never had this much pride for something since I started playing music and it’s such a beautifully bizarre feeling. I’m happy to say that I am a 19 year old raging homosexual female.

Bisexual

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

Gay/Lesbian

I am 24. I knew at age 15 that I had an attraction to girls when I had, what seemed like, an everyday interaction with a female friend on my basketball team. It was nothing more than a hug; but during that embrace I felt someone I had never felt before.
In middle school I would tell my friends that I had a crush on a boy, but it wasn’t a real crush. Outside of seeing this boy at school, I would never think about him or feel the urge to talk to him or see him. I told my friends this lie because I wanted to fit in. And maybe on some level I actually believed it was a crush because I hadn’t yet met a girl I felt that attraction for; so I was unaware of what if actually felt like, until a couple years later.
Having that interaction, at 15, that led to me realizing that I am attracted to girls was one of the scariest moments of my life. I remember going home that night and staring at the wood of the top bunk bed from my bottom bed. I kept finding and tracing patterns in the wood to avoid thinking about what had happened to me internally that day.
My mother was a very religious woman. Sexuality was never something that was talked about in my home growing up because it was always just assumed that because my mom raised us “Christian” that we were absolutely straight, or “normal.” My mom was anything but an open minded person, what she believed was right and you couldn’t change her mind, everyone else was wrong. At the age of 12 my mom informed me that she wouldn’t be watching Grey’s Anatomy anymore and that I was not allowed to watch it either. This was because they introduced a lesbian couple into the show. In my moms words, “it’s disgusting and I don’t want you kids watching any of that.” Me, being a curious preteen, would of course sneak to watch it on my own. I wanted to see what was so bad about 2 woman being together, but I didn’t see what my mom saw. And yet it was still another 10 years before I was able to be completely honest to even myself about my sexuality.
I went through high school and 2 semesters of college telling everyone that I was straight, and I got so good at saying it that I believed it and lived it, even though subconsciously I knew I was not.
At age 19, I fell in love with my best friend. I didn’t know it was love at the time, and even when she confronted me about it I denied it, I told her she was crazy and that I just like having a close friendship with her. She did not believe it; she cut me out of her life for having feelings for her, feelings that I had never acted on In any way. That should have pushed me further in the closet, but actually it started an internal battle with myself. I began to question everything I would do, every thought I had, every move I would make. I thought about it nearly every minute of everyday for 4 months. That is when I knew she was right. I lost my best friend over it, but all the hurt from that was able to make me see who I truly was. I had a LOT of shame about who I was, but also about doing everything in my power to hide it for so long. So much shame that I still didn’t come out for another year and a half.
When I finally felt ready to talk about, I sat in a room with my close friend and told her I had something on my mind. She was all ears, but I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I said, “my brain won’t let me say it.”
She said, “how about you write it down and read it to me.” She gave me a piece of paper and I wrote, “I think I might be gay.” I looked at it, I read the words without thinking about what they meant, and that was the only way I was able to say it.
Her reaction?… “that’s it? You built this up so big and that’s all it is? Sarah, I don’t care if you’re gay, I love you.” I exhaled the breath I had been holding in since I read what I wrote and I sobbed.
After that it became easier and easier to tell people. I was 22 at the time, but I did not tell my mom until I was almost 24. The first year of my coming out journey was only telling my sisters and close friends, people who I knew in my heart wouldn’t look at me any different. Since it was still a new thing for me I wasn’t ready to have a bad experience with telling someone. I feared that would shove me back into the closet, and that was the last place I wanted to be.
Here I am now, 24 years old. I have surrounded myself with a family of friends who love me for me, they do not judge me, they do not question who I am.
I can just be me and it is the best feeling in the whole world..

I am enough

I grew up afraid of being myself. Scared to be different, anymore so than I already was. I didn’t have a normal childhood by any means and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. At the ripe age of 5 I remember telling my mother my father was cheating on her and a week later we were moving from Ohio to Florida to live with my grandmother. Fast forward 3 years and two days before my 8th birthday my mother dropped by sister and I off at my grandmother’s house for what was supposed to be the weekend, which lasted for about 9 years.
I remember feeling abandoned, unwanted and unloved by the 2 people in the world who are supposed to be the ones who do that unconditionally and without labels and expectations. Being told at 8 years old that your mother doesn’t want you and isn’t coming back for you, that your father never wanted you and more or less feeling like a burden led to a lifetime of anxiety and insecurities.
The last thing I wanted to be was different in any other way but the universe had other plans.
Being queer wasn’t something I was sure anyone in my family would accept and more or less confirmed after my uncle came out. The first thing that I recall my grandmother and mother saying afterwards to each other was that they didn’t care that he was gay as long as they didn’t have to see it. I was maybe 12 or 13 at the time and knew my saying I love everyone regardless of gender or that I love love would be met with the same mindset by them so I hid who I was. I continued to be the simple self sufficient kid that they didn’t have to pay much attention to since I was the normal smart child who didn’t have any problems or issues she couldn’t solve on her own and I became really good at hiding who I was as well as the anxiety and fear so they wouldn’t treat me any differently.
Growing up my older sister and I were always close and we joke that I was her first child since she was always making sure I had what I needed and was my safe place. She has always known that I always saw love as love and didn’t judge or label people and treated me with the same courtesy. She has always known me better than I know myself even without me telling her I was queer she knew and accepted it when I did tell her finally. I took cutting out toxic relationships, mediation and finally being me for me to come out to her but she told me she knew already and just wants her hippie , peace loving, hates confrontation but will fight for who and what she loves, wants to change the world , wants to make every stray a pet, kind, smart-ass, sarcastic, too smart for her own good, protective, love is love baby sister to be happy ( and yes that is who she describes me to someone when asked). So I may not have come out to my entire family but the most important person in my world knows and accepts me for who I am without labels and with just love

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

Lesbian – my long journey to truth and love

I knew I was gay before I knew what gay was. I remember watching Hocus Pocus as a child and being in love with Alison. I knew how I felt, but remember thinking “that’s not right though because girls like boys.”

When I was 11 and started high school I had 2 friends who soon stopped talking to me because I wouldn’t say which boy in our class I liked, I could have said which girl I liked but I knew that “wasn’t a thing” having still never heard the word gay and with no education on the subject or representation on TV or in films.

I actually can’t remember the moment I found out about different sexualities but I know at some point my understanding went from “girls like boys” to “okay girls can like girls but it’s wrong/frowned upon.” Whatever my understanding I knew that I liked girls, and girls only, but I also knew that I would never tell anyone.

I am a people pleaser, I didn’t want to stand out or ever be controversial in anyway. In fact that’s something I still say to people when they say that being gay is “my choice” – if they knew me at all they would know I would never choose to be something anyone deemed as unacceptable.

I really tried hard to like boys, I could write a book on the disastrous dates I went on when people tried to set me up. I never had a 2nd date with any of them, I’d get home and cry and make excuses as to why they weren’t the right fit. I just thought that was my life, I’d just be on my own, it was easier than coming out and not knowing how the people I love would react.

I wrestled with these demons and never told a soul I was gay until I was 26 years old.

And then everything changed, a new girl started at work and as soon as I met her I was in love, we had the same interests, the same values, we soon became best friends.

We had been friends for around a year and a half when she came upto me as she was leaving work and said “text me when you finish, I need to tell you something.” I didn’t think anything of it, so when I finished I was text her “hey! what did you want to tell me?” She replied with something cryptic like “can you think of anything it might be?” for a brief second the thought flashed in my head “Oh my gosh she likes me” but I quickly dismissed it. Emma was a beautiful 19 year old dancer who everyone was after, I was a 26 year old spectacle wearing lump. So I replied and said no I didn’t know what she wanted to tell me.

Then came the text.

She liked me! It was a long text and I still know it by heart but the gist of it was that she liked me, and she knows I probably don’t think of her that way but she just had to tell me because sometimes she got the feeling we were on the same wavelength.

Well, I didn’t reply for a good few hours, which I still feel bad for. I just led there in bed thinking okay this could go 2 ways, I could reply and say no sorry I don’t feel the same and carry on living this lie without the disruption coming out would cause, or, I could say yes actually, I feel exactly the same and be true to myself for the first time in my life.

Thankfully I went with the second option, the hardest part was coming out to my family and my friends. My sisters were both amazing, my mum and dad took a bit of getting used to it but are now the biggest advocates. I lost a few friends but those closest to me were just so proud of me. Not a day goes by when I don’t appreciate how blessed I am to be surrounded by such an amazing group of people.

So that text from Emma was back in 2014, the 11th of July to be precise, from that day forward we spent every moment together. We lived between our parents houses until we could afford to rent a flat of our own. Then in 2018 we bought our first house together, and now we have 2 beautiful dogs and will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary next month.

If I could tell 26 year old me that in just a few years your girlfriend will be proposing to you in front of your whole family and everyone will be cheering, I don’t think I’d believe myself.

Ours is my favourite love story, I know not everyone is as lucky as me, but it’s important to give hope to anyone who is in the same position I was – it gets better, and being true to yourself is never the wrong choice.

People ask me if I wish I’d come out sooner, the truth is that no, I don’t wish that. I wouldn’t change a thing in my story and risk it being any different than it is now

Caroline P C

when i found out, it was very confusing and when i decided to share it with my friends they super welcomed me with open arms, being just one of my lgbtq + community friendship cycle, i feel welcomed by them and a lucky woman for that

Lesbian

Hi, I’m Zoe and engaged to the most beautiful and inspiring women on the planet. I truly love her with all my heart and can’t wait to marry her.

But let’s back up a bit, before I met her; I was like all of you (those that aren’t out yet) – struggling in my teens coz I felt different about women and I did try to hide it for a while but a part of you, just wants to be free. I managed to conceal it for quite a few years but I guess I came to a point in my life where I just said… ENOUGH! I just want to be me!

There is always going to be that doubt when your not out. Is my family going to except me? What if I come out and nobody likes me? But don’t listen to the negativity and embrace the positivity.

Fortunately my family and friends are very accepting and so it wasn’t that difficult to come out to my parents – I was more scared to tell my nanas. But like my parents and family – they love me for me and are happy if I’m happy.

So I’ve never been comfortable meeting someone in a bar, shop etc. So that’s when I ventured into LGBTQ online dating. I have in the past been on all the dating sites to meet men but this time, it was a brand new experience.
I actually signed up for a site called ‘compatible partners’. Didn’t know what to expect but much like the other websites, it was quite easy to get the hang of.
Talked back and forth with a few girls for about 2-4 months and was feeling like I should start to give up when I saw a picture of what looked like an angel. I just knew I had to message her, even if I got nothing back. Within a week, she replied and we hit it off straight away. We messaged for a while on the website, then exchanged email, Facebook and eventually phone numbers. I couldn’t believe my luck and still can’t every day. I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Back when we met, I was living in north east England and she was living outside of London so roughly 4 hours drive between us. But I thought screw it, I owe it to myself to meet this person because if not I will regret it for the rest of my life.
First date consisted of me driving down to her and turning up on her doorstop (heart pounding & butterflies in my stomach). There was a lot of mixed feelings that day, was I good enough for her? She’s slim and beautiful, what if she sees me and thinks I’m ugly, fat etc? I won’t bore you with it all, but was also so excited to meet the person I’d been chatting too for 6-8 months too. Felt like it had been a lot longer talking and I’d known her my whole life. Up until this point, we had only exchanged photos so it literally could of been anyone when I turned up there. (So girls, be careful!)

Thankfully she was who she said she was and we hit off straight away. We did long distance for about 6 months and then I decided I wanted to move to be with her. I was looking for that change and needed to start my life and move out of my parents, so really she came along at the perfect timing.
The rest is kind of history now. Every day is a blessing with her and I always feel grateful to have her by my side.
We plan to get married October 2021.
One piece of advice to those who who have yet to come out or even out but struggling still…
Don’t give up, your time will come.
Be you. Be proud & trust in yourself.

Thank you

I am OUT!! #OutIsTheNewIn

Bex

I am 32 years old and have been wanting to come out for a very long time but I still have yet to find the courage to do so. I live in a very small country (Malta) where everybody knows everyone and this makes it even harder for me because I know that not everyone is accepting. Looking back, I have been more drawn to girls from a very young age. My first memory is when I was about 8 years old and I had my first crush. It was all so very confusing for me because I was always taught that a woman should be with a man and vice versa. As I grew older I started learning more about what I was feeling but I could never share it with anyone. This made and still makes me feel very much alone. It also brings a lot of guilt with it because I am lying to everyone about who I really am.

Seeing what Dominique did on her birthday brought out so many emotions. Even though she is younger than me, she is such an inspiration and I wish I could have an ounce of the courage that she does.

I will keep trying to find the courage. I just wanted to share my story and show others that they are not alone if, like me, still have not managed to find their voice.