Community Rainbow Waves

I would love to identify myself as questioning for now while I’m learning more and more about the LGBTQ+ community.

I’ve always wanted someone to talk to and I would say that this is my therapist right now. I haven’t exactly fully come out yet but I came out to some of my friends and my mom. I feel really weird in this place right now because no one really quite understands me and I never REALLY talked with someone about this. I first started to identify myself starting middle school. I saw this beautiful girl hanging out with me and my friends. The more she stuck around the deeper I fell in love but unfortunately she has a boyfriend. I respected her and her boyfriend so I just still became the same. I’ve never felt like this before so I wanted someone to help me but there was really never no one at the time. I have always been hiding every single detail out and been left as mysterious and quiet. No one REALLY knows me until they get me. I hope that one person I need right comes into my life. I honestly wish I had an epic coming out story but I don’t! It’s ok I guess and so I wouldn’t really call it a coming out story. The way I came out to my mom was wrong. I was talking to some friends on Instagram which I was not suppose to have but I was a wee rebel then so I did it. I told them that I love girls the way that I’m supposed to feel about boys and they were supportive but couldn’t tell them the story quite right. I clicked on one of my friend’s live and left my room with the live on to check on my dogs outside. My mom grabbed it and asked me why I have it and I said because I wanted to and not the way you think I said it but yeah. She was reading my dms which I should’ve deleted but didn’t and she kept hinting me that she’ll always love me no matter who I am and I was like ok? And I kinda got the clue but it was too awkward at the time to talk about it. And the most iconic coming out stories happen in the car ride, … no I’m just kidding but this is where she asked me who I identify myself as and at the time I said bisexual but as I grew older I keep questioning it so now I identify myself as that. She asked me when did I know and I told her when I got jealous of a boyfriend from the girl I really liked and I left it at that which was just utter awkwardness and I felt uncomfortable when I should have felt comfortable. I don’t want to feel shamed for I who I am and I don’t want to feel guilty of something so “wrong” and so I hid it. The worst part of that is that when someone uses “gay” as an insult to me I say “no I’m not!” But like in a defensive way which made me feel ashamed of who I truly am on the inside. I never want to feel that way. I want to feel free and expressive. You know, everytime my friends mention the word “boyfriend” I get uncomfortable and fade away into my own world which is something really good. I always feel left out of conversations like that because they think I really have no relationship advice. They go to other people instead of the person in front of them, me. I am an introvert, shy person and I can’t even stand up for myself so I think of myself as weak. I just really want to be sure of who I am you know like to be proud of my identity to what makes me, me. I truly know that this community will make me strong and bold enough to know who I am. I give myself to this beautiful community and truly trust myself that I will know who I am, even if it takes thousands of years.

Bi

Growing up in a catholic community, i had no idea of what it was meant to be gay. Sure, i have gay guy friends, but never girls who were one. I used to not to care of what i wore, cause i didnt have the luxury for new clothes. I only had what i have from hand me downs or ones i got years and years back. I tried to be friends with either gender. I wanted to ba part of something. But there came a time when people judged you for the way you dress and it was just hell for me. I got bullied and i was not part of any group, i was an outcast. It was hard, but a year later, i decided to suddenly blurt out my boy crush (of course i had a crush for boys) little by little, people began to forget the rumors of me being “tomboy”. My new found friends gave me clothes and chose what i should wear and that was it, i wasnt an outcast anymore without that label. In college, when experimentation began. I found that i was attracted too in women, but i hid and hid. I asked myself one time, am i really into women too? So i dated a guy and almost got taken advantage without my consent. Thug life. Men only wanted me for sex i thought, so i started dating women in secret, having relationships in secret. I had bi friends and lesbian friends but i really didnt have the guts to say i was one of them. Even when i started working, i was really scared of that label of that brand that people may say, but i cant stay in the closet forever. Slowly i opened up, whilst told close confidants only, who i trust the most. I felt relieved after all the hinding. I decided then to take a post graduate course, i still had relationships in and out, but more i found out about of myself. Indeed, love takes in many forms. Its in Happiness and sadness, its in pride and self doubt, its in all people. And the one you fall for, doesnt really need to conform the norms of the society. You love the person because of the peoson, not their gender or what others may say. Im just partially out of the closet, sticking half my body out,. Honestly, some of my family knows, but not straight from me. Well, i just hope in time id be able to have the courage to be trully free. I am happy now with my partner, and more comfortable of my sexuality. Greatful for people like you who share their thoughts and experiences.

Take care everyone,
Doc WW

Lesbian

Hi! Well, my story is quit long … When I grew up I always knew I was different from the others, but I only started to realize how around the age of 13. My schoolmates and friends only talked about boys and I didn’t feel any interest in that. At first I didn’t care much and decided that it was more important to focus on school.
In high school I continued not being interested in boys and I had never been with any, I came to the conclusion that I was not made for love… I just had no attraction or desire and so I concluded that I was asexual.
When I went to college I became friend with a boy who was gay and so I started to get along with more people from the LGBT+ community. I became “the straight best friend” who was allied to the cause. Deep down I started to question myself about my sexuality but never had the courage to explore it. I ended up assuming it was just curiosity it was more easy that way.
In my third year I met this incredible girl and then the doubts came back. When I was finally going to have the courage to say what I felt she introduced me to her boyfriend. Well… I ended up never telling anyone.
I was always afraid to tell my family because being the older sister of 3, I always felt that I had to be the role model and always tried to follow a way of life that would be considered perfect. I grew up in a small town where minds were very closed and where nobody live openly gay. I once tried to talk about it with my family to see their reaction. Everything was fine with my mom and siblings, but my father was totally against it and said that those people made him sick, so I never brought it up again.
When I finally graduated and could have my independence, get a job and be able to leave the house, my life took a turn. My father left home leaving his family behind in a very precarious situation. My mom without a job and sick, my sister about to go to college and my little brother studying at a school 70 km from home to be a musician. So I had to take charge of the situation and took over the family.
Gradually life got better, my mom healed and managed to get a job, my siblings started to work and study at the same time and so we managed to overcome the situation together. Even so, at the age of 26, I continued to live in my mother’s house, deep in the closet and limited myself to settling into the life I had.
Recently I decided to review the Wynonna Earp series since the first season in order to revive my memory for season 4. One day my mother passed by when I was watching the show and she really liked it and started to watch it with me. After a few episodes we were watching a wayhaught scene and my mom commented “own look at them, so cute together!”. I paused the TV and asked her if she was serious, she didn’t think it was wrong, she responded NO. So I asked her what she would think if one of us came out as gay, she said that at first it would be strange but that she would accept it because what she loves most in this world are her children and so we continued to see the rest of the episode.
From that day on I decided it was time to think about me, that I would take charge of my life again, my family was all right and I should do what was necessary to finally start living again. The first step would be assuming my sexuality.
One Sunday we were having lunch, the four of us, and I decided to have “the talk”. It went much better than I imagined… my siblings were really happy for me and my sister added that she always suspected. My mother hugged me tightly and said she was proud of me and that she loved me no matter what. It was the happiest day of my life. I realized that day that it was not worth to hide who I am for so long. Life is to be lived to the full and we have to love ourselves for who we are.
I decided to share my story here as another positive example and taking the opportunity to thank Dom and Kat for the excellent work they do in representing Wayhaught, because thanks to them and their pure performance in the series, a door was opened for me.
That’s all falks! Here goes big hug from this OUTED and PROUD PORTUGUESE LESBIAN and don’t forget that LOVE is LOVE! Be BOLD, STRONG, HAPPY and FREE!

Queer

I think I’ve always known I was part different, but growing up in a very small town I did not grow up with anyone in the queer community around me, or at least they were not open.

When I was in grade 8, my mom moved us to the next town over which was slightly bigger. There I fell in with a bunch of misfits, some of which were exploring their sexualities.
At the time, I was still dating guys, although I was tossing them aside before anything could become real.

In grade nine, I finally worked up the courage to tell one of my then bisexual friends that I thought I might also be bisexual. She then went on to dismiss me and said, and I quote “you’re our straight friend”. As you might have guessed this pushed me even further back into the closet, when I stayed until after I graduated.

It wasn’t until I moved across the province to the big city of Vancouver for school, that I actually allowed myself to start to come out to my new school mates. There I met this older Brazilian girl, who was my first relationship with a girl….and wow, eye opener.

Since then I have been dating women, identifying as queer as gay/lesbian/bi/pan feel too restrictive for me. I am pretty open with my friends that I have made since college and new people I have met, I am still not out to my family and a lot of my childhood friends back home.

I’m pretty sure my parents know, I mean I basically dressed and acted like a boy from the ages of 5-11. But I became rather famine during high school. One moment I feel ready to tell them and think they will be fine, and the next I remember and old comment they made or something they said recently that makes me hold back.

I’m 26, and I’m still a bit of a hot mess when it comes to relationships. But working on it.

Queer

I knew I was attracted to people other than boys when I was around 7/8 years old. It was difficult to understand, but thankfully I have supportive family/friends who accept me for who I am. I first told my older sister and she explained to me that it was ok to love who I wanted to. I slowly came out to my parents and although they worried about the struggles I’d face later on in life, they only want me to be happy. I’ve slowly come out to friends new and old and have been met mostly with open arms. Coming out never really stops, but for me, the fear of rejection has subsided. Now, being 18, I’ve developed feelings for many a person, not limited to any gender. I’m proud to be who I am and wouldn’t change it for the world.

Kind-dorky-lesbian-queer-gay

Looking back (on my *very* old and *very* cringe-worthy social media) it seems like I should have known that something was up WAY EARLIER. I always felt more drawn to girls -be that in real life or in characters of books and movies- found them to be more interesting, enticing and mysterious. Beautiful. Next to them my brain equated men with dull, boring and uninteresting. Mind you I value men and I am lucky to say I have some incredible guy-friends and always had them throughout my life. I also grew up in a very openminded and accepting family so my inhibitions and repression truly came from ‚society’. Never in my dreams would I have thought that I would be gay! Where would that thought have come from. I just always thought I wasn’t into relationships. (This is what a heteronormative society does to queer folk!) Turns out I am actually interested in love -what a surprise that was. But my period of self-reflection would never have started had it not been for positive representation in the media I consumed. Most notably Carmilla and Emily Andras’ work on Lost Girl (and later Wynonna Earp) played a big role in that. There were more but non as impactful.
So then I knew. Well I suspected. Then debated with myself for a few weeks and THEN finally I knew. Honestly that was the hardest part for me. The coming to terms with myself. Guess there must have been more internalized issues there than I would have thought possible. Then I told my two best friends -old school style- via actual physical letters I sent them. They were great and I knew they would be. Then came what I like to call my ‚closet-Phase’. It wasn’t long but it was hella awkward. I soon told my sisters and then a few days later I blurted our my truth over lunch to my parents. Not the most graceful move but effective. At this point I would have thought there was no possible way for me to be more openly queer. (I’m talking RAINBOWS EVERYWHERE.) Still I continuously came out to more people in my life. Some were surprised some already knew. Some came out to me in turn as well. On the anniversary of coming out to my besties I got a rainbow tattoo on my ankle. Now I wear a rainbow necklace I was gifted that same year and have never taken off since. My earrings, piercings and watch-band are rainbow. Still some people need to be told. I feel like I will never be done ‚Coming Out’ but I am happy and proud to do it. For all the people who can’t yet themselves live their truth.

Bella-no labels needed

I questioned myself in the seventh grade. I am still not out to everyone I know and I don’t know if I will ever be ready. I am going to love whoever I want to and I do NOT need a label on my sexuality. Like everyone says: LOVE IS LOVE I hope everyone else is staying healthy and safe. I thought that I would just come out on here because I find it easier to come out online than in real life. I understand the struggle of staying silent because I have been silent and I just wish the world and people were more accepting than they are right now. ITS 2020 PEOPLE GROW UP!!!. Now hopefully I’ll be able to come out to everyone and then I’ll decide who is really there for me. Sorry this is so long now.

Lesbian

Oh man. It’s been quite a journey. I guess it started around 5th grade or so. I recognized it and actually began to come out to myself, but in true ADHD fashion, managed to push it to the back of my mind and forgot about it for several years. My sexuality popped up later in middle school when relationships began to bloom and I failed to understand my friends’ obsession with boys. Instead I was thinking about them. I kept repressing it’s and was terribly unhappy up until last year, when I entered my first real relationship. She and I met through school and did not even know the other’s name after 7 months of sitting right next to each other. Finally, she bucked up and asked me out. Then I realized I wanted my parents to know her as my girlfriend. So I came out to them via text while across the street from them. They took it very well and it was immediately seen as just another part of me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. By coming out I was able to understand that I don’t want to hide my love for this amazing woman from anyone.

Bisexual or probably pansexual?

I am not fully out yet. Sometime, I still need to shield my sexual identity for several different reasons. First, maybe because I don’t really want to be labelled. Second, perhaps just simply out of fear.

Hi, I am from Indonesia. I am at my 40s, and I am a single mom. I had came out as bisexual in small circle of my friends & fam a long ago, but it wasn’t because I was feeling anxious or “awaken” to my queer side. It was purely that time out of curiosity and adventurous sense.

I was in highschool when I read Freud’s. I came to conclusion that somehow everyone born with both male/female potential in them. I began to notice my own, and tried to explore that part by admitting that my past attraction to the same-sex was not mere platonic or so so. It was the same kind with my attraction to the opposite-sex. It also brought me to revisit my childhood girl crush when I was in 2nd grade junior high (12/13 y.o.) which I did not fully aware that I was making a courtship attempt toward her that time.

In highschool, after opening the lock to my universal self – and let me free to identify myself as sexually fluid, I started flowing with same-sex crush, though not doing anything about it.

There was no different, come to think about it now, between my feeling to girl before I am aware of my sexuality and after admitting it. The feeling were the same, but by making a name on myself, I then know how to name the feeling as well. “I had crush with girl”.

Despite so, I did not make any attempt to experience. It was pretty rare for me being bisexual in my small city, with no meeting of the same type of peer, and honestly I didn’t feel comfortable either to be involved or being identified marginal in society.

I am an aquarius, my choice is not to be identified with others, I am just being honest with myself and simply being me. So my sexual identity is MY identity, my choice, my own – yet I didn’t feel the need to act on it.

Later in my life, after my first divorce when I was in my early 20th, I decided to explore the notion of love. I was thinking that I had never experienced feeling in love before, as my head was focused on goal and success. But being a divorcee revealed the need for me to understand love. So again, I made my exploration and adventure. Brought up in conventional and religious environment, I started to experience the pre-marital sex with few men, and I also embraced the feeling of falling in love for the first time with my female friend. Nothing went well (nothing last).

Then in my late 20, I got pregnant. A consequence of my wild free spirited. The guy wanted me to get an abortion as he was married and with me it mere a fling. But never crossed in my mind to take that journey. I was ready to be responsible so I refused. I asked him to marry me instead for the sake of the future born child (as it was mere for legal sake) – he did, for a while, before then he ran away when I was 8 months pregnant.

My course of life changed of course being a single parent. Wanted to build my future success again, I also took a shift in career-wise. I moved to a village as a general practitioner (medical doctor), a stepping stone to collect fund to continue education. I left my son with parents. This decision, would be the milestone of my love life as a queer.

There I met a colleague. A “straight” wife. We found the attraction quite instantly. Divorced her abusive husband, we started “living together”. We had an affair during that time in a scrutinized village environment. I was not scared, I even brought her to meet my family and admitted her as my lover to my best friends. I met her family too, but everything was mere an “unspoken truth” to them.

Not like me, she was not fully embraced her sexuality. To her she was not ready to live truthfully within bigotry society. She chose to leave and marry man.

It was the first time that Love trully changed my life and forced me to go on self journey to find out more about who I am. It was also the first time I realized that I may love woman more than a man. My sexual exprience with her was off the chart. I never felt it before with men. I never realized this before.

When Dom (before coming out) shared her opinion the difference between intimacy with male vs female, I relate to that 100%. It was exactly how I said it a long ago, it was also later how I felt when I finally being sexual with same-sex.

Now, I am just a Self. Enjoying my singlehood. Still looking for my truelove/soulmate/twinflame. Not yet decided for sure if I want to be identified publicly as queer. And fully occupied in planning for my future career as again I make an “adventure” toward it after many defeats.

Nevertheless, I want to send lots of love to people who is unique and marginal. Who are unable to see themselves fit the norm or societal tagged. I believe that we all one, the spark of the Universal Mind, the spark of the Divine Love. I believe that we all chosen to learn and to let others learn about love, inclusivity & diversity. I believe that love is love and that love is “God”.

I wish one day, I gain the opportunity and time to join the “wave”. Be part of the community who fight for the values I mentioned above. For now, I am happy within my shell, watching you guys creating your momentum in life.

Love, light.

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..