Community Rainbow Waves

Queer / Lesbian

I think I was 14 when I realised that I was gay. I was watching “Dr House” and there was a kissing scene between two women. At that time I didn’t understand why I was so obsessed with it. I thought about it all the time. And then a few weeks later I discovered a TV show all about gay women. And then it clicked. The thing is at that time there were no representation at all. Of course I knew lesbian existed, but I didn’t know it could be me. It took me a few months to fully accept it, that I was that person. A year later, the day that I started to go out with my first girlfriend, I came out to my parents. I didn’t want to lie to them, it was important to me to be true to myself and to my family. I believe that I am very lucky because I came from a open minded, loving family so it was a relief to come out. I wish that every coming out story would be as peaceful and happy as mine. Love is love. And love is beautiful.

Someone who celebrates love.

ever since I was 10 I knew that I liked (but was super picky with) girls and boys. I’m surrounded by people who are absolutely phased at the idea of that, something different, I live in the south (big surprise). “Strange” (queer) people around here receive stares and hatred, not acceptance. What truly hurts my heart though is that these acts of rejection come from my family and friends, the only people i have. I’ve tried so hard to spread the word that things out of the, what our world has established, “ordinary” (aka anything that doesn’t fit in the little cis, straight, “perfect” box) is okay, but people still don’t get it. So I have realized that maybe one day people from where I’m from might understand, and instead of trying to change the mindset of others, I have to FIND a community that will let me in with open arms and warm hearts, which, I can only hope, will be lucky to find someday. The point is that sometimes, finding “your people” is the only thing you can do, which has taken me years to realize. How do you expect people to express their most genuine selves in a world filled with hate? You don’t. This is why things need to change. The only way our world can have a chance for a better future is if we teach love and the power of acceptance for the generations to come. I find hope in knowing that in the future, I WILL find my people, and a refuge in the community of those who do choose to value, accept, and embrace LOVE. knowing this will be my motivation to come out to the world, and even though it may be a while, a happiness found through the “weird, unusual, and absurd” love that is QUEERNESS will most definitely worth the wait. – Iris, 16.

I identify as a lesbian

My story started when I was in the 6th grade and I’d notice that I was always looking harder and lingering when I looked at women and never paid attention to boys. I could never relate or join into convo when my friends would all talk about their boy crushes and that did put me on the outside of their world in a way but it also made he have a sense that I wasn’t suppose to be in that world. Anyway, this was a Christian private school with closed minded hearts and minds so I wasn’t eager to expose myself until my last year there in 9th grade when I just about did not care anymore because it came down to loving myself for who I was or faking it till I made it and being depressed. I just about had it and wasn’t gonna be ashamed of it. Thankfully 10th grade came around and I switched to the largest public school in Louisiana because I was snot a closed minded private school person and any sense and loved meeting new and crazy people. This decision changed my life for the better, it made me realize that no one at the school really cared because they had bigger things in their lives to think about. I met an amazing group of friends who accepted be fully which I never really truly thought could happen. But , years later and I’m now 22 and I’ve met so many wonderful lgbt people, dating lots , and am happen to be who I am today and I’m grateful for my experiences. Hope this story helps some of you in the aspect that it does get better and you are worthy of love and acceptance. Love you!

I like to identify as Gay / Lesbian

Growing up it wasn’t gay or lesbian. In my house it was “homosexual” and it certainly was not a topic of conversation. Don’t get me wrong, I was never told it was a bad thing. My church didn’t tell me I was going to hell. It just simply was not talked about and according to my Mom it was a mental illness that could be cured with therapy (although it had been removed from the DSM in 1973.) When I think back on it I probably started questioning my sexuality when I was about 12 or 13. At the time, I didn’t know what was happening. I just knew that any time I would talk about having a crush on a guy it felt forced. My budding teenage self didn’t have a clue.

When I first started questioning the only out Lesbians, I knew of was a teacher that used to work at the school where my Mom taught. My mom vilified her and talked about how much she disliked her. The other out lesbian I knew of was K.D. Lang. Again, my mind wasn’t thinking in terms of lesbian or gay. These were unfamiliar terms for me. I had heard them, but they almost felt dirty.

At the same time my brother who was of college age would come home talking about bands that were playing at his college, bands like Indigo Girls, REM, B-52s (yes, I am a Georgia girl.) My brother would also frequently talk about his friendship with Keith. I remember wanting to have a solid friendship like my brother had with Keith. I never had many friends growing up. I was very Introverted, still am, bordering on the clinical diagnosis of shy. My friend was whatever book I was reading at the time and the adventures it would show me.

I had been told by my Mom that it was normal for girls to be curious about other girls. Because my Mom said my feelings were normal, I never really felt like I was questioning anything. I just thought all girls thought like I did, and it was OK. Any time I felt weird about anything there was always an explanation. I would get embarrassed having to change out for gym because I was trying so hard to control where my eyes went. Mom said, “honey that’s normal everybody is embarrassed to change out for gym.” I would get “girl crushes” all the time. Mom said, “honey that’s normal girls get crushes on other girls all the time.” There was always an explanation for how I was feeling, and it was always “normal.”

When I was 19, I had just ended my first relationship. It was my first romantic relationship and the one and only relationship with a man. I was in college living at home. I was being exposed to different things. Indigo Girls where my favorite musicians followed up with Melissa Ethridge coming in at a close second. A friend of mine took me to a gay bar. I was more nervous about using an ID that did not belong to me to get in than I was to go to a gay bar. The ID wasn’t fake, it just wasn’t mine.

Once inside I remember seeing a young man with short blond hair. I only saw him from the back. But from the angle I saw he looked good. I remember commenting to my friend “to bad he is gay, he looks cute.” My friend said, “oh, that’s Chris, I’ll introduce you.” The introduction never happened. I remember being socially terrified and ran to the bathroom so I could hide. Later I found out that my friend had given Chris my phone number and told her I was interested. I was mortified both that I hid and that my friend had said I was interested in her. Chris never did call but I was secretly hoping she would.

As I am writing this and now looking back, clearly, I was a Lesbian. I was so “normal” I just hadn’t figured it out yet. I started to test the waters at this time with the idea of coming out and was desperately looking for someone who I could tell and would help me with my journey. I knew no one. I had always been told anything I needed to know I could learn from books. This was pre-internet. I couldn’t find any books about it. There was not gay/lesbian section in my local bookstore. I was a English major at the time so I used the reference section of my college library to find anything I could about being a lesbian. Most everything I found was related to men and it was some interesting at times and weird at times information. It just never told me what I wanted to know. I tried to come out to a person at my church at the time. I was told she was going through a divorce at the time and couldn’t deal with my problems too. It was probably the best.

Skip a few years ahead, I am now 21. Ellen has just come out. Now I know of three people who are out lesbians. My list was growing. The Internet was all the rage. If you were anybody, you had AOL and you would check out chat rooms to “meet” people outside of your bubble. This is where I ultimately met my first girlfriend. We had been “chatting” with each other for a couple of months before she said “hey, we should meet!” I knew she lived north of Atlanta. I had not seen a picture. I hadn’t even come out yet. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was interested the meet this person I seemed to know so intimately yet did not know at all. My over-protective mother had never allowed me to drive to Atlanta. I wasn’t sure how she would take this news. I knew there was no way I could tell her, “Mom, I’m driving to Atlanta to meet a girl that I think I might like. We have been talking on the computer for months. No, I don’t know what she looks like. Yes, I am going.” So, I told my Mom that I was going to Atlanta to visit my brother and Keith. Yes, they finally moved in together.

I wasn’t stupid, I knew if I was going to some random bookstore to meet someone, I had never seen I should probably tell someone. Just in case. I couldn’t tell my brother. I cornered Keith in their kitchen and said, “Before I tell you anything, I need to know that you and my brother are a couple.” Keith responded with calling out my brother’s name and saying, “get your ass in here and tell your sister that you are gay.” Learning this news opened so much more. It now meant that I had someone I could talk to. I “fessed up” and told them my plans. They were both very encouraging and told me to have fun.

It was on this occasion in October of 1998 that the woman I was supposed to meet kissed me. I had been kissed before but this time I understood what people meant when then said something was magical or they saw fireworks. I wish I could say that this first girlfriend and I fell in love and lived happily ever after. That is okay because eight years later when it was the right time for both of us, I met the love of my life and have been with her for 14 years.

A. Ward – Georgia

It’s only when I saw and accepted who I was that I could really love myself

One important thing about me is that I’ve always loved stories. Novels, movies, series, any story. From a very young age I’ve felt the need of finding inspiration and role models in fiction. When I was a kid, I deeply wished for two things: being a heroine living many crazy adventures (as a mermaid if possible) and finding true love. True love, from what I had seen mostly in Disney movies seemed like the most extraordinary thing in the world. And it was between a man and a woman. At that time, I didn’t know any queer people. I probably knew gay couples existed but I would have never thought of it as a possibility for myself. It was like this abstract thing that was very far from my world.

When I became a teenager, I remember that at a very young age I wanted a boyfriend who would love me. I was still watching Disney, but also teen movies and Romcoms. I remember that I was looking for a guy in my class whom I could have a crush on. And every year or so I would find a guy I would fall for, and secretly admire, wishing for this perfect movie ending.
It was also in these years that I really discovered that lesbian love was actually a thing. First by a Russian band called Tatu (that you may or may not know). This band was formed by two girls who were a couple and it was a huge hit at that time. I loved there songs but I was mostly very curious about their relationship. I became very attached to it, I was buying magazines about them. I remember once I bought one, and there was a poster in it where they were kissing. My parents said they thought it vulgar. I’ll come back to my parents a bit later.

Of course, it was revealed that apparently the couple of this band was totally fake. At that time, I felt betrayed (teenagers can be dramatic, what can I say). But I feel like my admiration for them opened a door that never really closed. I was thirteen when I realized I had feeling with my best friend. I don’t know if it was because of our friendship, or because I actually felt an attraction. In the girls magazine I was reading, they were saying that it’s normal as a teenager to question yourself, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gay. So maybe it was just that, I was confused.

I feel like I was living a sort of double life the following years: as I was still looking for my prince charming, I was at the same time watching and reading everything I could that was including a lesbian relationship. The problem was most of these characters where ending awfully: getting killed, committing suicide, being miserable in any way, or back to straight.

As I told you before, fiction has always been very important for me, to inspire me for what I wanted, for my dreams. I think at an unconscious level I got persuaded that if I was not ending in a relationship with a man, I would be miserable. I realized that everything would have probably been better if I had talked about this to someone. It didn’t even cross my mind, probably because I wouldn’t have known who to talk to anyway.

So for most of my teen and adult life, I lived as a straight woman, in straight relationships. Do I need to specify that it was a disaster ?

I started physical relationships at university mostly. And without realizing it, I developed a pattern: I was always attracted to men I couldn’t have, or didn’t try to have. And I was never attracted to men who were attracted to me, at least not at first. To be honest, I wouldn’t have looked at any of the men I ever dated in my life if they hadn’t show interest in me in the first place. And then I felt so lucky that they even considered to look at me (Hello low self-esteem). And then we were dating, and I was making me falling for them, and I was playing the perfect girlfriend. These relationships all ended in the same way: at some point the guy was losing interest in me and breaking up.

The thing is, even I if I felt heartbroken and bad every time, I couldn’t help but feel some kind of relief at the same time. Like suddenly I got my time, my energy and myself back.

And yes, I kept wanting to have a boyfriend, or THE boyfriend. I felt jealousy towards my friends who were dating these awesome guys who loved them for so long. Why wasn’t anyone loving me? Wasn’t I able to be loved?

In all my early and mid twenties I avoided thinking about my own sexual orientation. But when I was 23 or 24 I met a woman (let’s call her Marie) who was openly gay. We became friends, and she invited me one weekend at her and her girlfriend’s place. As we were watching movies and talking, she said that it was so strange that I was only attracted to men, because even here other straight friends all had at least on same-gender crush (mostly celebrities). I didn’t know what to respond to that. Obviously, I couldn’t be gay or even bi if for Marie I was the straightest of all her straight friends. Since she was gay, she obviously knew better than me.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say that no, no one know who you are, who you love or attracted to better than yourself.

To go back to my parents, when I told them that Marie was gay, my mom answered me with a laugh « as long as you don’t become like that. » It was a joke for her.
That’s the thing with my parents: they are not what you could call obviously homophobic. They don’t insult queer people, they think they should have rights, they have no problem watching movies about gay people (as long as it’s tasteful according to my mom. I don’t know what it means either) and being moved by gay love stories. But they always made me feel like being something else than straight wasn’t right for me. I know that my mom have always pictured me with a handsome guy (and is probably very desperate because it’s still not happening) and I can feel the heavy weight of her expectations. It is probably why even if I’m 31 my parents still don’t know who I really am. I don’t know I’m ever gonna be able to tell them (if anyone has tips^^) or iff they suspect something.

But this story has a happy twist. After a burn out at work, I started a big work on myself, and after my last relationship with a man, I realized that it would be indeed probably the last one. At 28 I was finally ready to admit that I was attracted to women, and guess what, fiction helped again. This is where I want to talk about Wynonna Earp, and Waverly. I saw a lot of myself in her and her relationship with Nicole became very soon my couple goal. It was such a help and inspiration to me, so really, thank you.

At that time, I thought of me as bisexual, but still questioning. I didn’t talk to anyone about it, but once I felt that I wanted to date again, I subscribed to an online dating app for the first time in my life. And I felt SO AWKWARD. I didn’t know how to start a conversation or what to do to keep one active. But this is where I met the woman I fell in love with and still dating today. For the first time in my life, I deeply love the person I’m dating and our relationship. Even if we don’t live in the same country and haven’t been able to see each other for a while because of what’s happening in the world, I couldn’t feel more happy, safe and excited at the same time.

I realized that I was identifying as gay or lesbian (but I still prefer queer), but that my sexuality will stay fluid: I can be attracted to men, but I don’t want to date them or have sex with them. The spectrum is so much wider than I thought before and I’m so happy to be part of this community.

But no matter how I call myself, it’s only when I saw and accepted who I was that I could really love myself and express my true identity. Thank you Dom for giving us this space of expression <3

I’m a bisexual latina

I think that since I was little I always felt that something was off or that I did’t fit with the rest of my family or friends. I grew up in a place where being LGBT wasn’t something that you could be or see on a daily basis. I was your typical stereotype of being not so feminine, loooove soccer and hang out with the boys more so than with the girls. Oh the irony!

I remember that when I was 8 o 9 I had this “competitive” obsession with this girl in the opposite soccer team. I always thought that I just wanted to defeat her in every soccer match and If she didn’t play I would get very upset. Later on you start to see this “gays clues” that life would throw at you and don’t realize. Then, when I was in secondary school and puberty started I had this massive crush on a boy, the pretty boy of the school, so I got distracted for a while but deep down I still felt off from the rest. When I was 13 this boy got a girlfriend and for a while I thought that I was jealous of her but in reality I was jealous of both, at the same time!

Then, highschool happened.

When I was 15 I finally had the opportunity to see “gay people”. Yes, as ridiculous as it sounds. Back then representation was not something you could find in mexican telenovelas o any other type of show broadcasted. Internet was just starting to be a thing and basic education at school never tells you that not being a cis straight person it’s possible. So there I was watching girls kissing girls and boys kissing boys and then I knew that was possible but still didn’t questioned it within myself. I hadn’t realized that I’ve had feelings for girls before.

Not until I was 16.

I’ll never forget it.

I was in my biology class, bored as hell so I started to get distracted and while looking around I suddenly felt that someone was staring at me. So…I turned around and there she was, this beautiful girl looking at me. We shared a look, like a 10 seconds long look!…and I knew. Nothing happened between us mostly because I was scared. I’ll always regret that.

After that, research started, quizes about whether I was gay or not, youtube videos, webseries, Carmilla, clexa, Las Aparicio here in Mexico and eventually I came out to myself.

I was in fact, attracted to cis men and cis women, I was bisexual. So far I haven’t had attrattion towards non-cis folks but who knows?!

It took a while for me to know because my attraction towards men is not as strong as it is towards women so I thought I couldn’t use that label but who cares, I feel comfortable with it and sexuality is fluid. If I ever feel the need to change it , I will and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with it.

Once I figured that out I decided to come out to others.

I started with my bother, who by the way, is also part of the community! I was so funny when we both knew about each other.

Then, my mom. Poor soul, my bother had just came out to her and a week later her daughter as well. She was shocked I can tell you that but with some time she processed it and now she is even asking me to take her to a Pride Parade, gay bars and everything that’s gay because as she says, it’s what makes me happy and “gay people are so funny”

My dad found out because of her, she told him and he was cool about it.
I know that I am lucky to have a family that loves me and supports me no matter what and unfortunately that is not something everyone has but I know the world is slowly changing.

We will make it, maybe not my generation but the future looks better than the past.

XO XO from Mexico.

Lesbian

i guess i knew i wasnt straight when i was watching greys anatomy and started liking amelia shepherd and lexie grey a little too much. i sort of obsessed over them and realized that wasn’t a thing straight girls did. i tried calling myself bisexual and it worked for a while, but eventually i realized i didn’t really like men the same way i like women. i told one of my close friends, and she encouraged me to tell my other friends. a year and five months ago i came out to my sister, and she said she wasn’t surprised. two weeks later i started dating one of my best friends, and we’ve been together for a little over a year and four months. then, 8 months ago, i came out to my mom. she wasn’t thrilled about me dating at 14, but she really didn’t care that i was gay. now she makes gay jokes with me and tells me to invite my girlfriend over for dinner. i’m glad i got the courage to come out, and im insanely grateful to my family for being so accepting and okay with it. so here i am, typing my story into a website. my name is Hannah and i’m a proud lesbian.

Queer/Gay

I live in a pretty open-minded country (gay marriage has been legalized in 2003), so being gay was something people were not ashamed of when I grew up. But as a kid, and even a teenager, even tho I’d heard of the word gay, I only pictured it as the big homosexual man stereotype, the “girly boy”. I didnt even think about girls being attracted to girls, or anything related to the LGBT community other than the “gay best friend”. I was the masculine girl, and Im pretty sure everybody but me knew I was queer. At 16 I discovered Fifth Harmony and I fell into the camren hole. My body was acting weird whenever Lauren Jauregui was singing, or just looking at my soul with her amazing eyes. Deep inside I knew it, and without even questioning myself, I kinda identified as bisexual. Not with that word, but I just knew I wouldnt just date guys in my life. Two years later I was in college, met my best friend. We talked a lot about sexuality, and she told me she was pansexual. The more we talked, the more I realized the queer part of me was not just a little attraction to Lauren Jauregui, it was important. I realized I’ve had real crushes on girls before. I came out to myself as bisexual (again, but for real this time). Then I dated this guy cause he liked me and I couldnt say no. But I had no feelings at all, not only cause we had nothing in common. I jumped from bi to bi into women af, to okay maybe Im gay, to fuck I dont know lets say Im queer. That summer I came out to my old school friends, and my parents. They were cool with it. They kinda knew already.
Now its two years later, Im a gay mess, I’m fuckin into girls, I still have no idea if Im into guys. I hate the word lesbian, even more in my mother tongue, cause I’ve only heard it from straight dumb perv men. I love the word queer, cause I dont feel the pressure to add an explanation to my sexuality, queer is the global term I needed. But gay fits me too tho, most of the time. I just wish the word queer was well known in the hetero world, cause dammit every single person i’ve came out to asked me what the hell was queer
To all my closeted queer folks in here: dont feel the pressure to label yourself, and please, take your time. I know being closeted hurts, and you will get out of it, but only when youre ready. Love from Belgium, one hell of an ally country.

A special bean called the lezbean

When did I know?? I had inklings and moments of suspicion that I was not like other beans in my teens. I was never into the boy beans. But my upbringing was very Christian influenced, enveloped in values that made it really hard for me to grow. It took leaving home for university, going to Vancouver, to open my eyes. I met a lot of queer beans and attended ClexaCon it’s first two years. I started consuming a lot of queer media. Eventually, this gay bean accepted herself for who she was at the age of 21. It’s been two years now and I can honestly say nothing else has ever made me happier than loving women and accepting myself for it.
When did I come out? You don’t come out once in your life. You come out over and over and over again. The first person I told was my dad in the car, on the way to lunch. Then gradually, I told my friends- most of them had a hunch anyway. Everyone I’ve told has been seriously loving. But I’ve consciously kept some people in the dark, like my mother, her being the source of the religious influences in my life. Recently, I moved to Europe. I still go to church and only three of my friends know my sexual orientation there. The first, is a bisexual girl who came out to me drunkenly at a bar. Bless her. The second, is an intern at the church who I asked for advice because I had fallen for one of the girls in our community. I specifically asked, was a relationship with her realistic? And the third person, was the aforementioned girl. She was becoming my friend and if we are to talk about love, romantic relationships, and past experiences openly, then I wanted her to know the real me. She is in fact, not queer, I’ve established. That’s okay. There are other rainbow beans out there.
Being out and openly queer in my country in Europe is very much allowed, but not common, I’ve learned. I’m going to keep my orientation to myself from now on. I fear I’m not strong enough to take on the social obstacles that I might have to face, should my orientation be widely known in my social circles. That’s okay for now. My hope is that… I can live openly one day because I’m not good at pretending to be something I’m not. People like Dom inspire me, of course. I know, in turn, I’ve inspired others as well. If I can keep that going… this nice cycle of receiving and giving, I have a lot of hope that I can get through anything life will throw at me for being “different”.
– a lezbean

I identify myself as a Lesbian Teenage girl.

I’m 15 years old, and i always knew, since i was like 8 years old, that i like girls. I never really knew, that it’s not “that” normal in the society, since i had sex education in school. My best friend back then, knew it first, because i always told her about my Tv crushes who were always girls, and she didn’t even questioned it. why would she? We were kids, that thought, that everybody thinks, that it’s normal(what it should be). After in the 5th grade, i pretended to have a crush on a boy in my class, because i thought, that sow people would find it weird, that i had a celebrity crush on Lauren Jauregui. After a while i told everything a really good friend that was also in my class. I remembered, when she asked me, id i only like girls and i answered with a “yeees…..?” That was the moment, when i really realized it like “Dang i’m lesbian”. After a while, i fell in love with a girl, that was 2 years older than me and the daughter of a family friend. I told my friends, and they supported me and didn’t have any problems with me liking a girl. A year after that, i came out to my parents, and they said, that they’re proud of me, and they fully support it. They even bought me a pride flag. Then i fell in love with my friend(that also came out as bi). We’re still friends, and she told me a few weeks ago, that she had a crush on me back then. And that was my story