Community Rainbow Waves

H. E4L and forever grateful for the Earpers WayHaught

I kind of had an inkling I wasn’t straight back in late 2015. I was really into The 100 and I remember I was unreasonably attached to Lexa and Clarke. It was the first canon LGBT relationship I’d ever seen on TV and for some reason, that meant a lot to me. Then I started watching Wynonna Earp in 2016, because I’d heard about WayHaught and I got really excited that another show might have a canon couple (of course, I got totally hooked on WE within an episode.) And the whole time I’m watching Clexa and WayHaught especially I remember thinking “I wish I had that.” I started seriously thinking about my future and realised that, when I didn’t actively think “I want a husband and kids and etc” if I closed my eyes and tried to picture getting married…it wasn’t always a man. Sometimes, it was a woman I could imagine marrying. And right as I was having that realisation and trying to reconcile it with my religion (Christianity) the whole Lexa thing happened and I got angry. That was one of 2 representations I had to try and figure this out and they just get rid of her?! I decided that I wasn’t going to think about it anymore. I’d kind of figured out I was definitely bi at that point but because of the whole religion thing I decided “hey, at least there’s still a big chance I’ll end up with a guy.”

My nephew was born in the June of 2016 with a serious heart condition and for a decent few weeks, I thought it was God’s punishment. I’d figured out I was bi and God didn’t like that so he punished my family. I was 15 and I didn’t really process things right so I legit thought for weeks that it was my fault. And then I started going online more and I found the Earpers and that whole community made me feel a lot more comfortable. I found people of my faith that weren’t straight and talked to them about everything. And the whole time, I still had WayHaught on Wynonna Earp showing me that girl/girl relationships were alright. Right after the season 1 finale of WE, I told my sister that I thought I was bi. My mum figured it out within a year and told my dad for me. I didn’t officially come out to any of my friends or anyone from my high school until the end of 2019, after I started uni, but most of my close friends kind of figured it out because I stopped fighting it and actively started talking about LGBT stuff.

I was out and proud from my first day at university and that felt so amazing. It was the first time I hadn’t hid my sexuality at all from anyone and that was one of the best experiences of my life. Turned out a decent number of people I started hanging out with, both in lectures and society meetings, were also LGBT+ so for the first time in my life, I had a significant amount of non-hetero friends, one of whom is as big of an Earper as me. I found my people, both on and offline.

Girl that likes girls but loves people

I come from Serbia, country in Europe. When I was thirteen I had my first girl crush, but at first I didn’t admit it to myself. Later I thought I was bisexual, cause it seemed easier. I came out to myself and my family when I was in high school. I am so lucky that my parents and sisters accept my sexuality. As the years passed by, I came out to my friends and became more open about talking about that to people surrounding me. Unfortunately, my grandma and her side of family don’t know so I’m feeling like half of me is still in the closet. I feel like I’m not fully out and that frustrates me. It is hard for LGBTQ+ people to live in my country, but we’re taking baby steps.

Work in progress

Firstly I would like to say to Dom, I am so glad you have found your truth and I wish you all the happiness in the world.

I believe I have also found my truth but I’m not sure if it will ever be uncovered but i’m working on it!

I grew up in the 80s & with parents who didn’t talk about “that sort of thing”

When i was at high school which was an all girls school, I played a lot of sport (& still do) & I was always trying to impress the girls (& still am lol) but I always came back to thinking it was wrong and that it was expected to find a nice boy and get married etc. But that never happened!

I’ve always been very body conscious & so I wasn’t very confident in speaking to men and I wasn’t one for going out much either.

A couple of years ago I came across “Wynnona Earp” & I loved it from the very 1st episode but especially Waverley and Nicole. I’m a little bit obsessed with their relationship & i often think that I would love to have a relationship like that. Think turning 50 also made me realise it was time to think of myself and what I really wanted.

However, I still haven’t told anyone & if i am honest I am scared to. There have been a couple of times that I’ve thought about discussing it with a friend who is gay & also a couple of my best friends but i always chicken out. I am thinking that i will when/if i meet that special someone but until then just keep quiet.

This is the 1st time I’ve really opened up about my feelings & it feels good & I have Dom, Kat, “Wynona Earp” & the fandom to thank for that.

Attending my first ever con last year and being amongst such an amazing community made me realise that this is the right path for me.

Lesbian/Gay

I never did have an eureka moment. That, my god, I think I like girls moment. It always just felt somehow innate, a part of me somehow. A part of me I should always without question hide. As a young adult I thought to myself “ Yes, your gay, but you can never act on it”.

I remember being a very young child. I was looking at a performing arts troupe and I was transfixed at one of the performers. It wasn’t an attraction, I was too young, but I felt like I was in a trance , drawn to her female energy.

And so it was, I knew I was Lesbian but I lived in rural Ireland. The mentality as it was at the time -I believed I could never be openly gay. And honestly I was just scared. Too scared to act , not that even if I was brave that there was any place I could go or people I could talk too. No facility’s , no groups , no gay bars. We didn’t even have internet until I was already an adult. TV barely depicted female or gay relationships of any kind. Any show , any song , books, any films that depicted lesbian relationships I clung too. In secret, I clung to this love I didn’t think would I would ever feel for myself.

I was always a Tomboy , playing with the boys , wanting the boys toys. In adolescence when I was teased with “ Your such a Tomboy “ “ Why don’t you like girlie things ” I began to consider myself somehow wrong. I needed to be more girly to be accepted.
And so as a teenager, I dressed more like a typical girl of my age , faked interest in school boy crushes and ultimately completely lost myself in the process. I was such a outgoing confident child, in my adolescence I found myself quieter, more shy, confused and I felt very much alone. I carried this fear that I would be found out – as if that could be the worst thing that could ever happen. Because at the time, I though it was.

When I was 17 and like some teenage film cliche I fell completely and utterly In love with the German exchange student and we were inseparable for 6 months. She even asked me to kiss her once but I didn’t.

I always suffered from sore throats from childhood into adulthood. One day I was in an angel shop and somehow got talking about this with the lady who ran it. She said to me “ You are not speaking your truth “ and that stuck with me. The sore throats continued for a long time.

I went to college. I remember the day the clubs lined the corridor looking for new member. I waked by the LGBT table, afraid that people would see my eyes dart towards it.

I went out with friends. I kissed boys. I hoped it would one day feel different. That it might click. It never did. I even went on a few dates. Boys even fell for me – hard but I couldn’t explain why I didn’t feel the same.

In Ireland the first question from aunts and uncles mouths are usually “ Any boyfriend !?”
Followed by “Why doesn’t a pretty girl like you not have a boyfriend” It was tiring and I felt embarrassed.

I was 21 when I graduated with an honors degree in law but a superior degree in self denial.

One of my classmates and I went out one night in our final year. That night- she went home with a girl. She came into class the next morning in the clothes we had went out in the night before. Without words she asked me to keep her secret and I did. Finally, someone who might know how I felt someone I could talk too. We went to our first gay bar together and there in the middle of the dance floor for the first time in my life I said “ I’m gay “.

I had kissed girls , friends , straight friends drunk on dance floors, maybe for boys benefit but it wasn’t until the summer after I graduated in 2010 that I kissed the first girl who wanted to kiss me back in an abandoned classroom of the college I had just left. I thought my heart might beat out of my body. She became my first girlfriend and what ensued for the next 2 years was a double life , my ‘ straight acting ‘ life at home and my life with her and my small few gay friends I had gathered. I couldn’t explain to friends /family why I had to keep inexplicable leaving to see this person. I was stressed but in love. In love but oh so naive. She broke my heart and I was crushed. My family wondered why I lost so much weight. Why i seemed so sad.Convinced I had developed some eating disorder. In a moment of heartbreak I told my sister. She was kind but warned me to never tell our Mother.

Through the majority of my 20s i had a few different relationships , but never disclosed that to my parents. They only knew some of me , I had to omit so much of my life , the best parts of my life because it was my love. I left out my happiness. We spoke about surface matters and it became apparent that , that was ok. My father was kind and loving and I never felt it would be an issue but I couldn’t tell one without the other ( I suspect he knew) that my sisters had filled him in. He made efforts to show me he loved me. My mother had once told me “ Never tell me your Gay Anita, don’t ever tell me that . I couldn’t take it” and so I didn’t.

I use to feel uncomfortable at home hoping certain questions wouldn’t come up. I loved my partners , I loved being myself and I could because I didn’t live at home so when I went home a lot of the time I felt repressed , like I was in hiding. Just awaiting a time I could leave and embrace myself again. For a long time I was a stranger to them. I was scared to come out. I honestly thought that my Mother would just preferred for me not to do it. And so that’s what I did for a long time. I came out to friends along the way which explained some things to them. All were kind.

Very slowly my two worlds, my two lives grew together, along with my own growth, my own comfortableness with myself , my self love ignited.

In 2015 Marriage Equality was passed in Ireland and I took to the streets. I saw the glee and the love and I smiled. I attended the Marches and now the celebrations and it had all come full circle. I felt ashamed of the parts of me I still kept hidden away.

In the end I never had that sit down conversation with my parents where I said ‘ I’m gay’- it just naturally transitioned.

Some things I wanted in my life I wrote down on a piece of paper and put it in my wallet, a to do list. The thing I wanted the most was “ a love that even time would lie down and be still for “ I wished for it , every eyelash , every birthday candle blow out. On my list I wrote “ Find a love that makes your heart sing “.

I had loved , experienced great times , great experiences and adventures but always something felt missing.

I have found that love that makes my heart sing , it makes everything sing. My Dad passed away in November 2018 and I’m glad he got to meet her. I know he could tell I was happy. His passing also helped me grow , to solidify that I could never think of hiding that love. When I brought her home , the love was palpable and for the first time any walls that were still up or any withholding between me and my family seems to fall away without words.

I was guilty of being private with my life but we have all let each other in, in a way we never have before and it can only grow from here. Having experience the grief of my Dads death I feel silly for hiding so much of myself from him for so long – a regret of sorts but with every goodbye we learn. I’m happy to be where I am now , happy in my own skin and so very in love with my soul mate. 32 years old and being my authentic self. It took love , grief and growth to get here. The journey is different for everyone. Happy travels.

Lesbian, Queer

I always knew I was different from other girls. Different from my peers. I was an only child who grew up around college professors, spiritualists, and artists. My parents taught me that the most important thing in life was to always seek knowledge. That one of the most insidious dangers was anyone or anything that demanded you to OBEY without asking questions. But that still got buried while I was trying to survive the public school system in Idaho (very conservative).

Teenagers, especially teen girls, can be BRUTAL to anything that is different. I was already weird enough for wanting to do well in my classes, communicating well with adults, and being an artist. Adding “why no I don’t think Johnny is cute but I think his sister is gorgeous” to the mix seemed impossible. Seemed terrifying. So I sat on it. I laughed at queer jokes. I ate the poison dished out by my peers and it made me sick every day. It wasn’t until college that I started feeling more comfortable with being queer.

Coming out for me came in many steps. My first girlfriend in high school. Telling my friends when I needed support because she wanted to stay in the closet and it was killing me. Telling my peers because I was in pain after my break up and I was too bitter to stay quiet. Telling my parents. Telling my coworkers. Turning down jobs that paid more but fostered an anti queer environment that would force me back in the closet. Not lying when someone asked me if I was queer.

It’s still hard, especially on days when I have to listen to someone spewing poison about how much they hate anyone in the LGBTQ+ community. I imagine there will be more steps in my journey but with each one, it gets a little easier.

Blood & Water

Growing up I had an open relationship with my parents, particularly my mom. My mom was a very good listener and had a gift for making her home a safe place for kids. I have distinct memories of my best friends, going through rough times (either life-altering crisis…or in hindsight not so serious teenage dramatics) coming over to feel “heard.” She’d listen and understand and when she’d leave after hugging us goodnight my friends would often say something like “I wish my mom and I could talk that way.”

Fast forward to the summer of my senior year in college. At the time I was in a 2-year relationship with a beautifully kind guy my family, and heck myself thought I’d marry soon after graduating. I was taking a summer course and decided to live in the dorms with one of my best college friends and teammate, “Bell.” (for purposes of this story) Her best friend/partner, now spouse, was bunked up with a girl that would end up playing a pretty big role in my coming out story. “Bell” was pretty involved in the LGBTQ community as her partner had at that time recently come out as trans. By then they had fought through most of what would be their uphill battle as an LGBTQ couple at a very Catholic school. This context is important because by that summer I had introduced them to my mom. She was kind and treated them like any other person I cared about. This little detail will throw me for a loop later…

One summer night a group of us decided to go to a Gay club. It wasn’t my first time going, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say some part of me knew something was going to happen. The night ended with me kissing the girl I mentioned and making the conscious decision to see what sleeping with her felt like. My understanding of my sexuality at that time was that I enjoyed having sex with men, I loved a few along the way…and if I ever found myself being attracted to women, I’d simply add them to the list of people I was also into. I’d say I had a very matter of fact feeling about my sexuality. Love is Love… and I’m straight.

My mom called the next morning and I answered, “Hi, I’m hungover as hell and a girl kissed me last night.” I remember her laughing and asking if I was going to tell my boyfriend. The conversation went on and now that I’ve since been to therapy (which rocks btw) I can clearly remember the sound of how casually I lied to my mom. The truth was that I was interested in this girl since summer started, I leaned in first, she leaned in back, we kissed, and I made the mental call to go home with her that night. I realized I was slightly full of shit when it came to honesty. With others…and myself. Sure, I kissed girls in High School on “dares,” but never admitted I liked it and maybe… (not so maybe) put myself in a position to take those particular dares on purpose. I told myself, my parents, and friends what made sense about boyfriends I genuinely loved as people, but possibly never really liked as partners.

All in all, the open relationship I thought I had with my parents wasn’t so open. And that was on me. However, the fears that kept me from being honest then and now (still healing) were realized when I broke things off with my boyfriend and called my mom to tell her I was, “pursuing a relationship with the girl” I had told her about. She screamed, my parents cried, they cancelled my phone plan, closed my bank account, sicced my very Mexican very old school grandma on me, and of course, “cursed the day they spent 6 figures sending me to a Catholic school to become a lesbian,” etc. I laugh at this all now (again… thank you therapy) because it was the swift kick in the ass I needed to start “adulting,” but I’d be remiss to say it didn’t crush me. A. because I was surprised, they reacted the way they did given how open they had been with my friends and their experiences. (Although clearly my subconscious was on to something lol) B. I began to associate my self-worth with monetary value. Money and acceptance were twisted into a very messy and conditional thing that I would later need to work out. Money of course screaming PRIVELEGE. (Insert: Unlike a lot of my LGBTQ family I am a white passing, middle class, college educated women, and because of these things I was born into I was in an ideal position to get back on my feet, quickly.) And acceptance of course being something too many of us struggle with on a daily basis.

Fast forward to ending a very toxic and abusive relationship with the girl from the gay bar, moving into my own place (parents eagerly paying for the Uhaul when I announced I had left her… there’s an ironic gay joke in there somewhere) and meeting my now wife amid the chaos. At that point I was out to my friends and sister but had never said the words “I’m Gay” to my parents. Sidenote: I never said those words to my friends or sister either, beautifully enough I simply told them I’ve met this amazing girl and it’s going well…they didn’t need the labels.

After 6 months of dating my then girlfriend I told my parents I was in a relationship. Fast forward another 6 months of my dad telling me they weren’t ready to meet her I decided to propose knowing I couldn’t wait for them to come around. We got married a year and a half later and they didn’t show up to the wedding. We’ve been married for 2 years and are now trying to start our family!

They probably won’t ever meet my wife, and our future kids, but I’ve learned that coming out and coming into myself was something I did unconditionally. A sort of promise I made to myself and the world (Insert: source or the universe, g.d, or whatever works for you) that I would dedicate my authenticity to the balance of justice and harmony. And although that balancing act is sometimes very hard with people like my parents it makes for clear boundaries… simply put, seek justice when the rights of others are at risk (i.e when I don’t stand up for myself, my community…or other marginalized peoples)…and seek harmony when recognizing one another’s humanity will birth compassion and perhaps strides towards progress and understanding. (I struggle with the latter)

The last and most important thing I’d like to share, and the gift of my life is my chosen family. It may be cliché and an unfortunate necessity for many of us in the LGBTQ community, but the friends I have found and the family I have built is more than I could have imagined. I have a sister that walked me down the aisle, best friends whose parents showed up to celebrate my engagement, witness my first look with my wife, celebrate my marriage, create and celebrate new holiday traditions, and last but not least show up for every major life moment no matter the miles between us. I’ve found friends and bonus parents that will help raise my children and teach me how to be a wife, mother and the best version of myself. Sure, there is pain, but like many quotes that are historically misinterpreted, “blood is thicker than water,” really means that the blood shared on the battlefield is thicker than the water of the womb. And trust me the people who have chosen to fight for me and those I’ve chosen to fight beside are sure as shit there. Always.

For anyone needing to hear this: “You are loved, and it gets better.”

Christine

When it comes to coming out, there is no such thing as “too late.”

For me, the time came during my sophomore year of college (only two years ago, though it feels like a distant lifetime ago now). Up to that point, I’d scarcely given a thought to my sexuality, let alone my gender. Sure, I’d had friends who’d come out as bisexual and/or nonbinary, I’d had 3 a.m. conversations with these friends about gender and related topics, and I supported those friends and tried to learn about the LGBTQ+ community as best I could, but as far as I knew, I was a cisgender heterosexual guy, and that was that.

Except, of course, it wasn’t.

Coming out, for me, took breaking away from so many of society’s expectations and perceptions of transgender people especially.

In the early months of 2018, the questions started to gnaw away at me, lurking in the back of my mind, ever-present even as I was just trying my best to make it through the rest of the school year in one piece.

Slowly, the questions shifted from “is it possible that I might be a girl?” to “is it okay for me to be a girl?” to “how much do I stand to lose from living my life as a girl?”

As if that struggle weren’t enough, I had to contend with one extra train of thought that complicated matters that much more: “I’m probably a trans girl… but I still like girls.”

There are so many stigmas that society places on transgender people, and what society had taught me was that if you were a trans woman, you had to have figured it out when you were young, you had to be into men, and you had to be as stereotypically girly as possible.

And so I held back. I suppressed as much as I could and tried to go on with my everyday life… until, finally, I couldn’t. The end of sophomore year came, and with nothing else to preoccupy me, the questions drifted back to the front of my mind, and I had no choice but to face them head on.

So, as many of us tend to do in this day and age, I took to the internet looking for answers. Slowly, I started to learn that everything I knew was wrong, and those answers I found smashed through the mental barriers that had held me back.

YES, you can be a trans woman and a lesbian. YES, you don’t have to figure out these things so soon in life. YES, you don’t have to adhere to society’s expectations. YES, you are valid.

By the end of May, I’d come to terms with my transness, though the goals I set for myself changed rapidly. At first, I’d thought I would hold back on coming out and transitioning until later in life… before long, that changed to “within a few years,” which soon gave way to “I’ll come out after I graduate.”

Eventually, I realized time was of the essence, and the last thing I wanted was to look back into my past years down the line and see nothing but regret. Living my life as my true self was the only way forward.

And so I started to make plans. I was going to come out by the end of that summer, and nothing was going to stop me.

I planned my coming out meticulously, because I worried endlessly that my parents, my family, wouldn’t accept me for who I am, that they would try to hold on to their perception of me as their 19-year-old son. I needed to be prepared, and so I took drastic measures. I wrote letters, and I made plans to leave them at home one day and then drive away for a few days to give my family time to take it all in, because I was so scared they would take out their emotions on me.

I remember leaving the letters and a poem explaining all the feelings I’d dealt with over the past months one afternoon in early August, and I remember how long that 90-minute drive to the next state over to stay with a friend felt.

It. Was. Terrifying.

My family’s panicked reactions that first night only made me more scared. I remember the frantic yelling over the phone, I remember the shock my family felt, and above all, I remember the fear I felt, with very few things to take my mind off of it. There was a part of me that worried I would never be able to go home again.

But to my relief, things got better. Within a few days, my family came around. I was able to go back home to a family that resolved that no matter what, they would learn, love me and support me (even if there were things they didn’t quite understand — I still remember the confusion in my dad’s face as he realized I was now a girl who liked girls, which, yes, made me a lesbian), and in the year and a half since my coming out, that hasn’t changed.

I’ve had the chance to well and truly find myself, and I am unabashedly proud to be who I am today. I finally feel like the woman I’m meant to be, and I am so much happier for it.

The road to finding yourself can be a long one, and oftentimes, it can be fraught with struggles, both internal and external. But as I look back at who I used to be and think of how much things have changed for the better in my life since then, I firmly believe traveling down that path has been worth it, and I hope that so many more people will get the chance to take that journey in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

Lesbian

I fell in love with my best friend but came out to my stepdads partner before my parents they was all supportive couldn’t of asked for more.

Queer / Non-Binary

CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION OF ABUSE, SELF HARMING BEHAVIOR, AND SUICIDE.

Hello, my name is Paula from Brazil and my coming out history is a little confusing, so I’m gonna try to resume it as possible as I can.

Why is it complicated? Because a huge part of my childhood was erased from my mind, or at least for a long period I had these huge blanks in my brain, consequences of child abuse suffered from my 8 until my 12 years old. So when my teens came up I was struggling with a lot of stuff, so my orientation and sexual identity was on the surface of all my internal problems. Such as depression, substance abuse, ODs, attempts of suicide, and hospitalizations.

But at the same time, I was quite different and I was pretty conscious that I had attractions with girls but also with boys. Although with boys I was feeling guilty as well. Because I was constantly feeling all this overwhelming hate. Hate of the world, hate of myself, and hate of all men… almost rage if I’m being really honest. Probably, that’s why I was constantly close to dying because I wasn’t giving a fuck about anything.

My brother and best friend (RIP) was the first person I’d come out. I was 14 years old. But is funny though, because was him that asked me with I was gay. And was ok with all my family, as a matter of fact, everybody embraced. Honestly, I didn’t have a problem with the girl’s attraction part, I’d always felt comfortable and safe with them. My struggle was accepting that it was okay having attractions for boys as well. That only took 10 years of my life, even though I was able to have sex experiences with men I’m still having trust issues, emotionally speaking.

Only four years ago I could see other questions tagged in my mind. Questions about my identity, am I trans or not? Because I never felt comfortable with my body, but is it possible that is my child abuse tricking me? Or maybe I just don’t like labels and have a different idea about what women and men are. Or maybe I just don’t feel like either one of them. This is still a work in progress and sometimes I don’t think if I still have the energy. Or maybe is just fear because I live in a country where LGBTQ people have no voice or even proper rights. Especially trans people. Every day a trans life is taken from just for being trans in Brazil.

Music, art, vegan diet, animal care, and LGBTQ activism. Those are all the stuff that literally saved my life. Because I feel like we are here to constantly changing and to always transcend to a better version of ourselves, and maybe or probably, I’m gonna need another life to discover it. So kills me how the world can be so ugly sometimes.

And that’s why I really don’t know how I’m alive. I’m 30 years now and I look all this stuff I had to survive and deal with. But surprises me every day how hopefully I still am, and surprises me how I can be so fucking positive that annoys myself.
I know that I need to deal with a lot of stuff yet.

But I’m proud to already be so much more.

And especially I’m proud to look backward and access all that pain and suffering but with all the fucking strength of the world.

I’m proud to just be alive, honestly.

Old School Dyke

I came out 40 years ago this August when I was 19 years old. For me, the realization of who I was when I came out was like someone had thrown open the shutters and thrown up the sash and let the air and light into my life. Unfortunately, there was also a great since of fear especially at that time. Short history lesson: Stonewall had happened just 11 years earlier in 1969. Homosexuality was removed from the list of “mental illnesses” by the American Psychiatric Association only 7 years prior in 1973. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was still 14yrs away so they did ask and if you were found out you could not only be disowned by your family, but chances were good you might lose your job or your housing and most of your friends.
For me it was a time of wonder, I was naïve. But I as lucky because when I first came out, I found an older lesbian, who I worked with, that was able to help me navigate this new hidden world and find the community. You must remember that this is long before the internet, so finding each other was exceedingly difficult. She taught me about feminist bookstores, Lesbian Connection (a newsletter that is still published today), women’s potlucks, women’s music and of course the bars, though very few if any of those women’s space still exist. It was all about knowing the code words and symbols: feminist, womyn, potluck, lavender, violets, labrys, etc. To this day I still use “the look” with other women in public that let us each other know that we are the same without words.
Regarding the fear and history there is one story that I carry with me to this day. It was on St. Patrick’s Day 1981 when my older lesbian mentor smuggled me into the Three Sisters bar in Denver. I know they knew I was a little underage, but they also knew that the lesbian bars were one of the few places that was safe to meet other people like yourself. The Sisters was packed that night and the group I was with had been there about 30-40 minutes when across the room there is a face I recognized. Being young, and like I said naïve and feeling invincible I got up and walked across the bar, and bold as brass walked up to the woman I recognized and said: “Hi Miss (name withheld)”, to my high school guidance counselor. She turned and looked at me and said HI back in a very trepidatious way, not using my name and being kind of distant… I was a bit taken aback as we had been close in high school but figured whatever ‘it’s been awhile’ and went back to the group I was with. About a half hour later she came across the bar to me and said, “Hi Jackie” and introduced me to the woman she was with and we spoke for a few minutes. To this day I cannot forget the look of sheer terror that ran across her face when I said her name, it was the first time I understood just how dangerous being out could be. If found out she would have lost her job, possibly her home – everything. She was sacred of me recognizing her in a lesbian bar and it took her over a half hour to realize that if I was there too it was OK, and her secret was safe. I wish I could say that was the only time over the years that I have seen “that look”, but I am glad to say that I see it very seldom now and I hope that this generation and the next will never have to see it.
Thank you for this forum to share these stories. As I get older, I worry that our herstory and where and who we came from is being lost. Hopefully, projects like this will help to keep that from happening and keep our stories alive.