Community Rainbow Waves

“I am made and remade continually”.

For me, realizing that I was a lesbian was probably the easiest part of my identity. I was in 8th grade and came out to my school in a research paper I had written on gender-neutral bathrooms (as one does).

This year, as an 18 year old student nurse, I felt that something about me was wrong.

I began to question whether or not I was a lesbian. I have always had moments where I thought that maybe I just hadn’t found the right guy yet. Eventually, I’d realize that was comphet and that I was very much a lesbian.

This summer, it hit me. It wasn’t the term “lesbian” that made me uncomfy. It was the term “girl”.

I think it would be fair to say that I spent well over 24 hours just scrolling through blog posts, coming out videos, twitter profiles, etc., all with one common topic: Non-binary.

I struggled for a long time trying to accept the fact that I was non-binary. I had always felt a close relationship with my womanhood and female empowerment. But some days, I feel very disconnected from it all.

Realizing that I was, in fact, non-binary was the easier step of my gender exploration.

I cannot tell you how many times I opened my social media accounts to change my pronouns from “she/her” to “she/they”. The tight squeeze I would feel in my throat always prevented me from solidifying that. I had many fears. Can I still identify as a lesbian? I still feel like a girl most days, am I non-binary? What if I change my pronouns back later on and people think I’m a fraud?

Reading it now, I’m giggling to myself at how silly my concerns were. Eventually, I gathered the nerve to come out to my friends, who received it very very well. I have yet to tell my family and, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I ever will. It is a part of my identity that I like to keep to myself. To my friends. I don’t feel so strongly about having to tell my family because I’m still the same person I was before I changed my pronouns. Sure, I’ll tell them if they ask why my pronouns say “she/they”. But I don’t feel that I have to make it well-known that I’m enby. And that’s okay!

So, the point of sharing this crazy story? To remind any of you that you are not alone. Sexuality is fluid. Gender is fluid. Identity is fluid. Feel free to experiment, to change, to find who you really are. Because once you find that part of yourself that just feels so right, everything around you begins to fall into place.

I’m Reagan. I’m 18 years old, and I am a non-binary lesbian.

Kate

It takes a lot of courage and strength to come out, it really does. It’s not as simple as just blurting it out with a smile on your face. I’m not saying that all of us have had a tough time coming out. Not at all. I’m just speaking on my own personal experience.

Coming out was hard for me. I was 15 years old. Even though I knew my mom would be extremely supportive, I was terrified. Not because of my mom, it was everyone else and the scrutiny that I was going to potentially be under. I had to take a deep breath and just say it, or so I thought. But for the first little while, I went to say it and nothing came out. I was truly terrified to say anything. My anxiety spiked. I was scared. Scared to say anything. Scared that I liked girls because I was told there was something wrong with me and to get help. So, I was scared to speak my truth.

I woke up one morning and thought to myself; “Surely it can’t be as bad as I thought!”. Well, I got up and I told her. I said “mom if I like girls, will you still love me? I like girls.” My mom smiled, hugged me and said simply this….”Katie I am so proud of you!”. I was so relieved and her approval was all I needed. So, I thought I am going to be accepted by everyone!

That’s not the way it went with everyone. I was told I was disgusting, gross, taunted, teased, bullied, told it’s wrong and that I really wasn’t and that I should marry a man. I felt so ashamed of myself.

I told my mom what had happened and that I will never be accepted by anyone. I cried. She told me I wasn’t the only one, hugged me and said we are going to go out. She took me downtown to Pride. There were so many people and couples that were actually happy to be seen together and so many colours. My head was spinning but deep down inside I had never felt more alive!

I am proud of who I am. I am a lesbian. I am into girls. I am my authentic self!

Queer

Hello!

I’m Brenn and I realized that I was part of the LGBTIQ+ community at the age of 12 when a girl at school started liking me but I also liked children. For the next 8 years or so it wasn’t a conflict that I liked women, the conflict was that there were stages where I only liked men other times only women, sometimes both and other times no one.

I did not understand what was happening to me, until those stages were over and as I educated myself about the diversity that exists I discovered that being Queer was the closest thing to what I feel and how I identify myself.

When I was 21 years old I came out of the closet with my boyfriend at that time as a bisexual because it was the sexual orientation I knew even though I didn’t feel like I belonged there.

Then I came out at 27 with my parents and brother in a situation that I would not have liked to have happened but it brought my nuclear family to know and they understood the whole situation. Plus they were understanding and took it very well.

So I told my friends, some took it well and others walked away.

In general I always felt that I didn’t fit in anywhere but that also helped me to do a lot of introspection and work on myself, which has made me feel happy with who I am and how that projects on others. It’s true that all those years go by in rather dark episodes but the colors came and now they don’t stop shining and they do more and more.

I live in Mexico in a society in which there is more visibility of the LGBTIQ+ community but there is no education about it, so we have a long way to go but with the hope that we are making a change.

Thank you for everything!

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

A butterfly who loves flowers

When I was 5 yrs old I had a huge crush on my female teacher. I knew it was different because I felt butterflies in my stomach. It was way different from my admiration to boys. After that I had another crush on a 6th grader when I was in my 3rd grade. She didn’t like the attention and the fact that I had a deep admiration to her so she ended our friendship. I was so heartbroken and confused. What did I do wrong? Why can’t I just like her? Then on my 5th grade I had a 6th grader gf whom I invited to go to my house. My mom was open about it and made a joke of how weird and abnormal I am. I think my family knew I am into girls since I am more boyish than girlish. I love playing ball games, wearing shorts and big shirts. They even call me “Cathy Boy” for standing up to boys (who bullied me and some girls) and for just being me. I haven’t had any struggle coming out with my family probably because I have a colorful family (gay aunt, sister, and cousins).

Though I am fortunate of having a family like them, I had difficulty coming out to the entire world. Coming from a Catholic and patriarcal country like the Philippines, it is still a big deal if you’re part of LGBTQIA++ community. I could remember back in my college days that some of my friends lectured me from acting on being gay. They told me that it is a sin to engage into sexual lesbian acts but being one is not. Some told me it is just a phase in my life. So back then I had few experiments. I tried dating and kissing men for a week or two but it didn’t work out. I knew there was something wrong. Something lacking. SPARK! It is different when I kiss a woman. There is magic. There are butterflies in my stomach. There is fire. There is passion. There is care. There is love. There is happiness.

It’s been more than a decade since I decided to just be me regardless of what people say. All I know now is that I am proud of being me and for being in the LGBTQIA++ COMMUNITY.

THE WAY TO YOURSELF BEGINS WITH LOVE

Love for a woman is the most beautiful thing that happened in my life.

I’ve always been a weird kid who wasn’t interested in relationships. I didn’t like boys and I didn’t like girls. I was fascinated by my inner world and the mysteries that fill my life. But I confess: “All my life I have been looking for a friend with whom I would like to share my discoveries.”

At the age of 16, I went to another school and met a girl. It seemed to us that we were once very close, which amazed us. One accident helped me become aware of my feelings. Unfortunately, they were not reciprocal. I was able to suppress these feelings in order to move on.

From the very beginning it seemed so natural to me. The only reason I tested myself for a long time, trying to be normal, is our legislation. Most likely, I will never have a full-fledged family … But it is easier to accept this than to pretend all my life.

None of my relatives know about this. I don’t want to lose my only family. And I don’t want to hurt them. But with close friends, I am absolutely frank. This gives freedom to me and to them. Very soon I fell unrequitedly in love again, but chose a new path.

Once a persone I loved said: “Unconditional love is possible only for God.” And I smiled …

I think that to love a person whom you don’t hear, don’t see, don’t know whether he is smiling now or sadness fills his heart … and even more so you don’t have the opportunity to be near, to bare yourself in front of him … This is the same as to love God.

After all, all you know is that he Is. And at some point it becomes enough for you.

My soul has always resisted the understanding of Love as an internal state. After all, I was sure that love is, first of all, a manifestation … without which any important words lose all value. And these feelings (be it inspiration or immense emptiness) without action are most likely nothing more than a need for acceptance and recognition. Since you feel so important because of the other. And this is actually enough for many people.

But when you Love, one state seems so little. There is a growing feeling of overcrowding. It’s like a cup inside you, which will soon overflow … Or a growing tree, directed upward, which is blocked by a stone roof, not allowing it to become even larger and more powerful.

Subsequently, a moment comes when you lose the meaning of life… It’s scary, hard, and aimless.

Every day the same question: “Why? What is the meaning of everything that happens to you, what is born in you, changes you, inspires you, but also throws you against a concrete wall? ” Even if you do not even have the right to say “I love you” … In any case, in the sense that is genuine.

But you don’t want to get rid of it…

It’s so easy to erase someone from your heart, stifle it in yourself and move on, continuing your search. But only weak people do this. This is the path of those who expect love from others but don’t love others. You know … When you do not want to give up on anyone, consciously dooming yourself to loneliness, the appearance of that very only person gradually dissolves. His figure slowly disappears, but the feeling remains with you.

Now I look into the eyes and find God in them, I see a blurry silhouette, behind which the whole world is.

I was finally able to feel that everything in the world exists as a whole. One soul that knew nothing but chaos until it incarnated in the material world. That is why when you meet a person who seems similar, understandable and so familiar to you, you get the feeling that you have returned home.
It always seemed to me that to be spiritual means to be in such a state of consciousness in which you identify yourself with everything living and nonliving that exists in this world or another.

Now I also identify the people I love with the Universe. They are an integral part of it, just like me. This means that we are all small parts of each other.
This gives so many opportunities for my Love that I have not found before. And if I want to show my feelings, I can do it at any moment, under any circumstances, and wherever I am. Then the world, albeit imperceptibly, will change.

In this moment, I realize that I love life like I never did before. And I so want to know her. Since life itself is Love. Now I listen to music differently, I read books differently, my fingers touch the strings of the guitar in a new way, my arms hug my relatives differently, and my eyes look at the stars in a different way.

These feelings are so pleasant. Something warm and bright shines inside me.

The body seems light, and complex things seem surprisingly simple.

It’s incredible how beautiful everything around me is, and it deserves the greatest love.

So one person becomes the whole world.

I will go my own way and sow seeds, in the expectation that the most beautiful buds will bloom in those places someday. And you will feel their wonderful scent, or you will even be able to enjoy the dazzling colors and amazing shapes.

And I still believe that I will be lucky enough to meet someone who is as in love with life as I am to love it together.

After all, when I am gone, the world will continue to exist. And I want that in this world there would be more Life!

JENNIFER, 19, CISGENDER LESBIAN, SHE/HER

I first thought I might be gay when I was 11 (2011). It occurred to me that every ‘crush’ I’d had on boys had only ever been for show. Boys weren’t something I ever thought of that way unless prompted by peers or parents. I remember thinking over in my head ‘no, Jeni, you can’t be gay. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me’ and then I pushed it far back in my mind for years.
By high school (2013), I started to notice I was different. I happened to be in an all girls class so it was easy to notice. I was spending every day with 30 other 13yo girls and all of them obsessing over boys and I started to feel like something was wrong with me. Funnily enough, 13yo me didn’t even consider that I might be gay, I was just pleased to not be distracted from my school work and went on faking crushes on boys, barely realising that was what I was doing.
It took one of my close friends coming out as bisexual, in grade 9 (2014),to make me start thinking about that again, and I didn’t fully admit it to myself, that I liked girls, until I couldn’t deny my feelings for that friend.
I wanted to tell my best friend first but she was away sick from school the day I planned to do it. It made me sad all day and in English I ended up coming out my bi friend/crush as bisexual. I saw being bisexual as more ‘normal’; I was too scared to admit to anyone or even myself that I didn’t like boys. She took it well of course. I texted my other friend that afternoon and told her and she was supportive too.
The next person I told was my older sibling and they were great about it but warned me that our parents didn’t ‘believe’ in bisexuality.
Those first ‘coming outs’ went down in August 2014 right around my 14th birthday. By that September I told a classmate of mine (later became my best friend, now still a good friend) after she’d gushed to me about the boy she liked and then asked who I liked. And, after some nervous hesitation, I told her. She didn’t even question it she just said it was cute and wanted to hear more about the crush not my sexuality which was a huge relief.
The rest of my family (mum, dad, other two siblings) I came out to that October, when I started dating my bisexual friend, simply by telling them who I was dating. They weren’t not supportive. I didn’t expect them to have any ‘issues’ with it. But I can’t say I was happy about their reactions. All that sticks out to me is my dad joking ‘at least you won’t get pregnant’ (which hurt because I’ve always really really wanted to be a mum) and one of my siblings chiming in with another joke. And I can’t ever complain about that because they support me which is ‘lucky’.
My other friends and peers just found out by seeing me with my girlfriend, from what I remember. We didn’t hide it much at school, but there was still hate. I remember holding hands once on the way to class and some guy called us f*gs.
It took me a couple more years to let myself be just gay. I’m almost 20 now and still struggle to talk directly about how I’m attracted to women, unless I’m saying it in a joke. I still feel a bit ashamed at times when watching intimate moments between 2 women in shows/movies and even when no one else is in the room and it’s just kissing. I still have to worry about how anyone new I meet could be moderately to extremely homophobic. I still feel the need to come out to new people I meet. I still have to hide it from my homophobic grandparents. Some of it just really sucks.
But some of it is beautiful too and I try every day to focus on those parts more. My new goal, inspired by Dominique P-C, is to remind myself daily that my queerness is beautiful.

Kaleen’s Journey

Your personal journey to finding yourself¬–whether you’re queer or not¬–is a universal thing we all experience. As unique and individual those journeys may be, the feelings and emotions are something we all share, and I find that to be so beautiful!

Love is love, hurt is hurt, heavy is heavy, hard is hard, joy is joy. Remember we all experience these things together and no one should judge anyone’s story and compete over struggles, but rather find connections and how much we all share as people. Let’s all continue to grow, love and support each other and continue this wave of self-love and discovery!

So that said, I would love to share my experience publicly for the first time, in the hopes it helps someone else find their truth. <3

I’m Kaleen and I identify as lesbian, queer and gay. I am 28 years old and I’m an art director and actress in San Francisco. For me, and I’m sure many of you, finding myself and accepting myself are two very different things and came at very different times in my life. Next week, I proudly celebrate my 4 year wedding anniversary with my amazing wife (we’ve been together for over 8 years) so my story has a very happy ending! But it definitely didn’t start that way.

For most of my life, I did not realize I was gay. I didn’t even consider it as an option. I grew up in a religious household with a mother who I believe after years of therapy to have Borderline personality disorder (BPD). It was not a healthy or emotionally safe environment for me. I truly believed that I was just an amazing Christian who was waiting till marriage (for you know)… but waiting was super easy for me because I had ZERO desire to be intimate with a man. Even when I had boyfriends and would kiss them, I would find myself counting down the seconds till it was over. I truly thought everyone felt this way and it was something I would learn to like and we all just have to get over that hurdle of disgust. I would see my friends falling head over heels for their boyfriends and wonder how they got over that hurdle, and think I’ll get there soon too… that day didn’t come for me.

Knowing myself now and looking back, there were so many “clues” that I was gay, but it still did not cross my mind. I remember watching the show House and there was an episode when Olivia Wilde’s character, Thirteen, came out as bisexual. The scene where she kissed another woman, I remember rewinding and watching it a few times. This was one of the first times I’d seen this on T.V. and it was the start of my eyes opening into what is possible. This is why representation is SO important!

Fast forward to college. This is when my life flipped on its head! I found myself in a relationship with a man and we got engaged (for his privacy, I will call him John). He was a wonderful human, and I truly thought I was “in” love. I did love him, but just not the way he deserved to be loved, and not the way I deserved to experience it. At this time, I also built a wonderful friendship with a girl and we became best friends. When I got engaged to John, something in me snapped because my mind knew that eventually I will have to have sex with this person. This tossed me into a deep depression and in doing so, also opened my eyes to a past I had bolted shut. I realized all in one moment, that I was gay, in love with my best friend, and I also had PTSD with memories of being sexually abused by a family member for half my childhood flooding my mind, all while going to school full time and holding a job to pay rent. It was a lot to discover all at one time and I felt completely overwhelmed and alone. The only person I felt comfortable sharing all these pieces of myself with was my best friend Kay. Little by little I had to confront and try to accept all these things happening in my life.

At this time, I asked John to give me space. He understood that I was having trouble with my PTSD and needed to distance myself from him. We were fully separated for over 3 months with no communication as I worked to find myself again and heal from my past.

Kay was patient and helped me heal, and through all this we became unbelievably close. At this time, she was not out as gay either. Funny enough, we did not even realize that our relationship was different than other girl/girl relationships because it felt so natural to the point we didn’t stop and ask ourselves if this was “normal”. Needless to say, we figured it out together. At this point, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to allow myself to live an authentic life because I knew in doing this, I would lose family. Before I said yes or no, I gave myself one day to openly (in the privacy of my home) love Kay and acknowledge how we felt for one another. We spent the day just holding each other, laughing, and enjoying how we felt. As the clock drew near to midnight, our hearts began to sink as we knew we only had this moment. To this day, I can’t watch All Dogs Go To Heaven because that was on in the background. We shared one last amazing kiss and then walked into separate rooms. Oh, did I not mention we were also roommates! Yeah… that made things even harder!

Days turned into weeks of me pretending like I could live without her, till I just couldn’t take it anymore. I decided I would let myself be gay if, and only if, my sister could be ok with it. Lucky for me, she was open to trying to understand. It was at this point I officially ended my engagement with John. I returned the ring and we had a wonderful moment of thanking each other for all the good times and wished nothing but happiness and healing to one another. A few months after this, I began my first true relationship with Kay.

I came out to my family and my father and stepmom were amazingly supportive and even helped pay for my therapy during all this, but my mother would not accept my truth. She said to me “I would rather you be unhappy in this lifetime, but forever happy in the kingdom of god” and asked me to deny myself love and live alone. I gave myself the best gift I could and will ever give and decided to fully embrace my love for Kay regardless of what this person thought. It was hard, it’s still hard to think about, but it’s what was best for me. Years later when we became engaged, my mom officially removed herself from my life and we haven’t seen or spoken since.

Like I said in the beginning of the story, Kay and I have now been together for over 8 years and we are about to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary on April 2nd. She is my absolute best friend and I don’t have words for how much I love her. She is the first time I have experienced unconditional love, and I value her with everything I am. Deciding to accept myself and live an openly gay life is the best decision I’ve made for myself and it’s a privilege I will never take for granted.

I wish everyone who reads this love and acceptance within themselves. You are love, you are here and you stay. Xoxo

Im a trans boy😋

I knew I was unique at the age of about 12, I had talked to my parents who had told.me if I was ever “gay” they would kick me out and a year later I ce out at lesbian. I then was like that for about a year and throughout that I was bullied and told I should commit scuicide bc I was a sin in the eyes of God of some shit but I then after several mental healthe issues I finally came out as transgender ftm and im now 19 and I’m the happiest man to ever walk the earth. Thankyou Dom for comming out your role as Waverly really helped me come out to my family and friends. Love.you girly

Bisexual

Hello, my name is Sofia from Peru.

Well, I was really aware of my attraction to women when I started to like a new girl in my third year of high school, at that age I was about 15 years old.
After that I fell in love for the first time, with a girl at the end of that same year, I ended up madly in love with a girl from another country, the truth was I could never reveal my feelings because she could not forget her ex and she needed help from her friends I did not want to take advantage of their vulnerability, despite having many opportunities, we became very intimate.

Gatme, she, unfortunately I waited a long time and fell into the friend zone, ended up falling in love with another girl, something very painful. In the end I managed to get over it, but it’s still an important part of being able to really accept myself as a bisexual girl. The process really took me almost 3 or 2 years.

Now that I am 18 years old, and I start to remember small actions, feelings and behaviors, I realize that I have always been attracted to girls, at least since I was in 2nd grade, I just did not know how to differentiate things.

As I said before, I am 18 years old, I am only openly bisexual with some people … I still do not feel ready to come out, I suppose it is because I am afraid that everything will change with my friends and family. At least my family only knows my brother, but I have not touched on the subject long ago, after all he only knows that I go out with boys, currently I go out with one.

I really hope I can have the courage to tell my loved ones (friends and family) what I feel, what I am.

This is kind of like a super summary Lol.

I’m Lesbian

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….