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.
My best hug!
Growing up I always felt different.
This different-ness kept me from having authentic and deep relationships for most of my adolescent and young adult life, before I was even aware of what my “difference” was. I was never fully myself – I had a deep seeded anxiety that I was going to somehow let everyone know this thing that I didn’t even know about myself yet.
When I was 16 I had my first real kiss. I say real because I had kissed a handful of guys and felt a gut-wrenching anxiety before during and after each time. I remember wondering if that’s what the feeling all my friends talked about loving – so why didn’t I love it?
Well my first kiss at 16 told me why. I magically made a new best friend. She somehow rose in the rankings effortlessly in the 3 short weeks that I had known her, getting that coveted “best friend” position. Thinking back on the whole thing makes me smile because as horrifying as it was back then, it’s kinda cute to think about little gay me and how obvious it all was.
At this point I was having fleeting moments of feelings when our hands would touch, or she would lay her head on my shoulder, or she seemed to seek me out the same way I sought her out. These fleeting moments manifested as one of those jolts you get right after you’ve done something embarrassing, or you are carrying a laundry basket down a flight of stairs and think there’s one more stair beneath you but your foot hits the ground too quick. That split-second “oh f***” moment followed by that FULL body halo of heat that disappears just as quickly as it came.
Despite all the signs that were there – I continued to lie to myself and think that these touchy moments and our obsessive need to talk and be around one another and the phone bills from the literal 17,000 texts a month we sent (sorry dad… Also, did I even sleep? ALSO, yes it was long ago enough that you had to pay for texts past a certain amount. I’m showing my age – I digress.) were just the signs of best friendship. So one night she slept over. And as bffs do, we obviously went to bed forehead to forehead holding hands between us because that is just what best friends do, right? Anyway… I could feel her breath on my lips (remember… i was STILL lying to my conscious brain even at this point) and I think my heart rate spiking to the level it did made me actually black out because all of the sudden I opened my eyes and I WAS KISSING HER! I came to just after I had casually kissed my best friend and squeaked out a GOODNIGHT! and rolled over.
I didn’t sleep a M-Fing wink that night. I stared at the wall with my heart in my throat wondering WHY I JUST RUINED MY NEW BEST FRIENDSHIP. Turns out I didn’t. She kissed me the following night and thus ensued a secret 4 year love affair. Yes, I said it… 4 years.
We stayed in the closet together for those four years until I met my first gay friend in college. Coming out to even one person in my life started to make that closet my secret gf and I were in feel really claustrophobic. Eventually we parted ways and I came out to everyone I knew within the next few months. I count my blessings everyday that my coming out was easy for me because I know not everyone experiences it this way. But coming out strengthened my relationship with every single person in my life because the parts of me that no one ever touched were no longer untouchable. I stopped filtering myself (which is also a little detrimental at times) but all of my bonds became stronger because I was letting everyone love me for all of me. All the parts of me.
My story is longer than that but I’ll get off my soap-box for now.
Also to everyone terrified out there – find your one person. Even if you aren’t ready to tell the world and even if it’s a stranger online. Tell your person because even being your true self to just one person can make a huge difference. That being said – it’s okay to not be ready. When you are ready though… you’ve got an army waiting for you.
-Mo
I am a cis female, Lesbian/Queer she/her
When I was very young I always knew I didn’t fit in or feel comfortable with what I was starting to learn was “normal”. I didn’t know why though. I liked sports and I preferred bring with boys, not because I was attracted to them, whatever that meant, but because they got to do all the cool stuff. I was the classic Tomboy. Over the next few years by the time I got to high school in the early 80s in conservative Christchurch NZ , I began to realize there was something else going on, but without the knowledge to figure it all out fully. I went to a very formal all girls school, but only wanted to be friends with a select few. I was an introvert who only came out of my shell when playing sport, and of course I chose softball and cricket, two stereotypically sports dominated by gays. Yeah I know right! Read the room girl!
There had been early crushes but by the time I was about 15 there was one girl who was so different who grabbed my attention right off. Soo baby butch, the older me of course later realized. I just knew I wanted her but also her confidence. However everywhere I went I encountered homophobia even in the sports I played, which to me was scary and confusing, considering how many gays I knew in those arenas. Homosexuality was still illegal in NZ until 1986. Internalized homophobia was looking back at me in the mirror. I always was fighting my mum over my hair and clothing, as I hate dresses and skirts and still do. Even today she hates my short hair. That simple aspect of identity meant it took me too many years to be able to say out loud and proud what I had always suppressed – that I was a Lesbian/Queer and that is my biggest regret. I let the fear rise higher than my bravery.
Once I came out after University and left home, it was like a huge weight had been taken off my chest. I could finally breathe deeply and just be my true authentic self.
Would I do things differently if I could, of course, but cest la vie since I ain’t a Time Lord. I have learnt to live in the moment and be kind firstly to myself, and then to others. I am grateful I took that jump off the metaphorical cliff knowing I would fly or at least glide smoothly to a safe landing and I thank my friendsfor their support. The waves of fear no longer crash over me as I learnt how to run instead. Love of the outdoors gives me peacefulness and mindfulness, the tools of which I am still learning, but I am now happy, healthy. I am definitely still a Tomboy, hopefully a bit more dapper and stylish than the young 10 year old version of me.
Ps I wish I had a show like Wynonna Earp when I was that young teenager but I am so grateful it is there for this generation of queers.
I was thirteen when I first remember becoming aware that I was in some way different to my female friends. While they giggled and whispered about which boys they liked I noticed that I did not feel the same. I reasoned that it was likely because I found the boys immature and annoying; or perhaps I was too focused on my learning to pay them much attention, or perhaps I was a late bloomer. Whatever the reason I chose not to think too much about it.
At fifteen the devastatingly crushing realisation that I might be gay hit me. I say devastatingly crushing because up until then my understanding of the term gay was that it was only ever used as an insult. It was a label thrown around by bullies against the bullied, and it was something you actively avoided being called. I did not want to be gay. However, here I was at fifteen watching a channel 4 documentary about a family based in the city I grew up in, and it was while watching this documentary that I realised the only reason I watched every week was because I thought one of the family members was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. This realisation forced me to reflect on past behaviours and I quickly realised that when watching TV or movies I paid all my attention to the actresses rather than the actors. When idolising singers, I favoured female singers more then male. All this time I convinced myself that it was because I found them talented and relatable, and although that is true, I also couldn’t deny that I found them ridiculously attractive, something I never thought about when it came to men. So, at fifteen I realised that I might be gay. At fifteen I also realised that I needed to hide this part of me at all costs.
I had nobody in my circle of friends or family that were gay, nobody I could look up to as a healthy and real example of what it meant to be gay. The only thing I had was childhood insults and barely any TV/movie representation. Even as recent as 2005/6, LGBTQ+ media representation in the UK was viewed as a salacious thing, something for post-watershed TV that guaranteed to draw in hundreds of complaints if shown and so hardly ever was. I was petrified of what it meant to be anything other then straight, and so began the years of secrecy, self-hatred and nightly prayers for ‘straightness’. It was during this time that I resented the phrase “people choose to be gay” because it was bullshit. I actively chose to be straight for all my late teenage years, I chose to date men, I chose to kiss men, I chose to ignore the screaming voices in my head and feelings in my body that told me that kissing boys felt unnatural and forced. Everything in that time of my life felt unnatural and forced and the constant lies about who I was and what I really wanted started to take its toll.
I remember at seventeen my dad asking me whether I was gay and the reaction my body had to that question was overwhelming; my heart began racing and I started sweating as the fear caused me to adamantly deny that I was anything other than straight. Later that night I cried myself to sleep because in lying to him I had once again closed that door on my cage when there was a chance of being free. I vowed that the next time somebody asked that question I would be honest, I was too afraid to just come out and say it but next time I was asked I’d not lie. I didn’t realise it would be another four years until I was asked again.
By the time I was twenty-one the weight of this burden that I’d been carrying since fifteen (even earlier in retrospect), was so heavy that it had started to affect my mental health. I was dealing with depression, anxiety, deep shame and self-hatred. I still didn’t want to be gay but six years of pretending to be straight and praying to be straight had shown me that this identity was sticking around whether I wanted it to or not. And so, at 21 years old, and while stood in the kitchen with my dad, he asked me again whether I was hiding anything. I think he had sensed my unhappiness in the way only a parent can and was trying to find out what was causing his eldest daughter to be sad. He asked me again whether I was gay. It was clear to me then that my dad likely knew for almost as long as I did about my truth, why else would he ask me the same question twice four years apart. This time I ignored the racing heart, and dry mouth and choking sensation and I said “yeah, I think I am”.
I can’t put into words the relief that moment gave me, as adrenaline coursed through my body I immediately felt lighter. Somebody else knew my secret and the weight of it was shared. My dad was amazing about it, told me he loved me and that it never mattered to him who I loved as long as I was happy and healthy. I always knew deep down that this would be his reaction and I was relieved to find out I was right.
Regardless of whether we think our parents will be accepting doesn’t necessarily matter. It’s the fear that what if you misjudged them and their reaction, what if unknowing to you your parents held strict views against LGBTQ+ people and were disgusted and disappointed in you. The fear that I didn’t know my parents at all was what kept me closeted all those years, the fear of losing their love was enough for me to hide who I was if that’s what it took. I’m lucky that my family were accepting and loving, i know of others that weren’t as lucky. I’m almost 30 now and it’s been 9 years since I came out. I won’t lie, I’m still not fully free from the shame of being gay, I still have trouble coming out to new people or openly showing affection with a partner in public. This shame is something I recognise and that I’m working on overcoming and it does get easier as time goes on. I’m just happy to be free from that cage.
Forgive me but I don’t speak English very well.
Since I was a little girl I had attitudes that couldn’t tell you otherwise, like playing with children and despising “little girl” games, like getting away from soccer or toy cars just to go with the most beautiful little girl in the neighborhood! Of course at that age I didn’t realize anything and didn’t pay attention to it but now I remember that I really thought that little girl was beautiful and that’s why I wanted to be near her.
Growing up, I was always the little girl who defended her friends, who took care of them, who did the heavy work for them like carrying the heaviest backpack or opening jars, who accompanied all of them to their homes and then came back alone… But yet I was getting engaged to boys, admiring the billboards of shirtless boys…why? Because it had to be that way!
I slept with a few guys and every time I was disappointed with the feelings I was feeling, I thought he wasn’t the one… I would try again to be with another guy but nothing!
At the age of 17 I realize that I feel a strong attraction towards a friend of mine, to be jealous in an abnormal way for a friendship! So I decide to try to understand more by surfing the internet… and at the vision of two girls kissing I feel much more sensations than those experienced in bed with a man… so I understand that I am a lesbian!
My coming out happened only after I suffered from panic attacks, every time I talked about myself… I remember that, one day I got so strong, that I called the ambulance and, the paramedic, after giving me an IV of tranquilizer, told me that the only cure was to talk about what I had inside with someone. After that day, I decided I had to do that starting with my friends…. I remember when I told my best friend… it took me half an hour just to be able to say “I like girls”… she burst into tears and called me an idiot because I had made her worry and she had come to think of serious things such as having suffered violence! I had taken a huge weight off my shoulders… so, if my best friend didn’t see anything wrong with it, I wouldn’t have minded anyone else’s judgment! I decided not to hide it anymore and to admit my homosexuality!
Fortunately I have parents who have never given me any problems… my mother, when I told her, made me understand that she thought it was just a phase, but she has always known the girls I have been with, treating them not as my friends but for what they were: my girlfriends! Now, after having brought a lot of them home, seven years later, I think she has understood that it is not just a phase 😅!
I have always been free to be myself thankfully!
However, I too have been through horrible situations recently… i.e. not being accepted by my current girlfriend’s family, being insulted by her mother and sister with phrases like “what is this crap?!” “if you are like this it’s because your mother wasn’t close to you but I was close to my daughter so I don’t accept this crap!”… or, something even more painful, that even now, a year and a half later still hurts so much, being beaten by her father claiming that I was ruining his life and family! Or, when they sent my girlfriend to the other side of the country to try to get her away from me … but I, after a month, I went to her, making her a surprise and I found the aunt angry that did not stop insulting me … who told me “but look in the mirror … do not you disgust you?!” “I’m going to slap you” “who knows what kind of person you are”… instead she should thank me because I was too respectful and polite, unlike her… if I were not a good person, I would have slapped her!
In this whole situation I have suffered too much… even going against my principles, when I didn’t denounce them!
Now we have been engaged for a year and nine months… they haven’t made any more scenes like that but they don’t want to have any kind of relationship with me… and this hurts me so much every day because I don’t understand how they don’t want to know the person who makes their daughter happy and I don’t understand how they can’t give me the chance to show that I am a respectful, polite person with great values.
Forgive me if in the end instead of telling I ended up venting….
My first attraction to a woman was when I was 11 years old (2015) I didn’t really understand what was going on since I had heard something about that in my life since what my family believes and the way I was raised is that it is always a man and a woman so I thought that I had some flaw inside that made me feel very strong emotions towards someone that was not right. When I entered high school (2016) I had already heard and researched more things about the subject, on the one hand my family told me that the behavior of these people was unnatural and on the other hand the social networks began to ask for acceptance with the phrase ¨love is Love¨ which confused me more and more but one day on the program ¨supergirl’ Alex Danvers came out of the closet and I wished I was in his place, At that time I identified myself as a young bisexual woman, I began to watch programs like Wynonna Earp which is also one of the programs that has most marked my life from the way Waverly begins to accept her sexuality to her commitment to Nicole.
The first person I proposed to was my best friend and his reaction was better than I expected since he only told me that he supported me and then proceeded to ask me about her as if she was the most normal thing in the world and I loved that.
At my school I liked to talk to my classmates about it because sometimes my perspective and theirs helped us empathize with each other’s situations.
I hope that in a future there is no more the phrase ¨come from closet¨ and that all this is taken as something completely natural.
I was bullied all through school even before I 100% knew what I was or felt. I thought I’d keep trying to be “normal” by dating lads but it just didn’t feel right to me. I finally started dating a girl and I just felt like this was who I was. I came out to some of my family at the beginning and they were great especially my nan. But when my parents found out they weren’t 100%supportive of me. They insisted this was a phase or that I was atleast bisexual. I’m now 24 turning 25 in July and only recently got my parents to understand that I am a lesbian and just because I am a lesbian doesn’t mean I won’t get married or have a family. I’m happier in myself, I’ve been through a journey of up and downs with it all and having 0 confidence but I’ve met great people and have family that are in my corner 
.
