What was your reaction when you found out your orientation?

Basically all of this!!!! I think I must have cried at first...guilet and denial. I was trying so hard since my teens to rationalize with myself that I wasn't into women, that as it started to become harder to deny it to myself, I became more and more frustrated. Maybe even a little anxious?! I can't quite remember....
but once I I decided to actually accept myself; once I gave up trying g to convince myself I was straight, I was okay. Relieved....

 

Non binary genders, but how would gay and straight fit them, and what's the attraction that fits them?...PANSEXUAL but omg that so fits. #NotConfusedAnyMore. For some reason I didn't realise that I'd get sex-with-pan jokes until I came out.

 

"I can't be a lesbian! Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian and she dresses like a man. I don't want to dress like a man!" I just wanted to be normal.

Thankfully I discovered The L Word and realized that lesbians can be feminine. Oh and I'm a huge fan of Ellen. I know my comment about her sounds horrible but at the time she was the only lesbian I knew of.

 

Well, I live in New York City so you wouldn't think that being gay is SUCH an uncommon occurrence. But there are special circumstances in my case because I'm only 13! Yay! (Sarcastic eye roll) When I first admitted it to myself, I was standing in front of a mirror, looking at my eyes really closely, and I just blurted out, "Shit! I'm gay." It was a mix of realization of what had felt off about my friends gossiping about boys, doubting myself because I'm still pretty young, and terror that I would actually have to tell people.

 

The first time I ever thought about my sexuality I was 8 years old. I had this crush on my bestfriend and one day I got home, sat on my bed, was looking to the wall and this little voice on my head said, " I think I might be lesbian. " and suddenly my mouth opened and I said: " Oh, fuck! ". After that I tried to deny it and said to myself that it was a phase and it would pass.

Apparently that phase it's still not over !

 

At first it was like oh shit I'm gay, but then it was liberating because everything made sense and something clicked inside me.

 

A few months of extreme confusion/denial when I was about 14. Once I accepted it, it made me really happy because it was this huge part of me that I was getting to know for the first time. There have only been a handful of times when it got me really down, but it always seemed to work out in the end. Now it is just common place. It is so much a part of me now that I don't even give it a second thought, it is just automatic.

 

Well I choked up for 10 minutes straight before I could physically aloud say I'm transgender.

After that I kind of just accepted I preferred cis or trans females and would go out with a feminine male.

 

I know that I tried to tell myself that I was still attracted to girls, even though there wasn't even a hint of sexual arousal. I think I came to terms with my sexuality pretty easily - mostly because the people around me were/are very supportive. I think it was obvious from the start as well, so it wasn't really a surprise to me. I was always drawn to those shirtless men in cologne adverts, but was never bothered by similar adverts for women.

 

There was not a specific moment but there were hints and a moment that caused me to explore my orientation. When I was younger I would play with barbies and other stuff like that. I was always jealous when a young boy would show affection towards another young boy when I was young. I always said I liked girls but did not realize that their bodies were not attractive to me until I got older. The moment that made me explore my orientation and started the what seemed like a long journey was when I was at a baseball game when I was about 13 and saw a gay couple and was thinking their cute together. That lead to me thinking I was gay and down a journey of questioning and acceptance.

 

Age 16- Do I have a crush on J? No way, she's a girl. That can't be right. That's not right.

Age 19- I... think I have feelings for C. How can I have feelings for her? No way. Ok. I do have feelings for her. But I can't be gay, I must be "a little bi."

Age 21-29 Cue heavy repression and denial. I like this guy, I that means I'm straight. Ok, maybe I'm not totally straight. But I still like guys, look everyone, I like guys. It's totally fine if I have feelings for girls sometimes so long as I still like guys, right?

Age 30- Ah shit, I'm probably gay. Cue panic attacks and sobbing.

 

I stumbled upon a 'coming out story' video when I was 16 and my reaction was pretty much "shit am I gay, no I can't be gay". I then tried to ignore it until I was 17 and decided I needed to at least try and work out who I am.

 

Funny story actually. I was in gym class (obnoxious stereotype, I know) lying a couple of feet away from my best friend (who was out to me as bi) when I looked over and felt that "crazy little thing called love" for the first time. Not in a pervy way, more like the cheesy choir-inducing love at first sight feeling that movies somtimes pull. Within about 30 seconds I realized what the heck I was feeling and blurted out "SHIT!" in the middle of class. Which led to best friend worrying, which led to blushing, then I went home and was suddenly very, very happy that my family didn't own a gun, because if we did I'd be dead right now.

 

I didn't react at all if I remember... I just know that I thought "I can't tell anyone at school or at home and that I should keep it to my self".

 

I was really uncomfortable to tell my family. My family are catholic liberals(yes that's a thing, the church has no official stance on political parties), so it really could have gone either way. I'm not 100% sure all of them think that bisexual is even a thing, but they wouldn't say anything to me. My mom's side are Italian Catholics, so to them family is the most important thing. They will still love you no matter what you do. I've had family members who made mistake after mistake, and they are always forgiven.

My dad's side on the other hand I have long since lost contact with. After my parents divorced they never bothered to try and communicate with me. They never really cared about me, once I went to passover dinner with them, and I had a lot of dietary restrictions at the time. They cooked all kinds of things for eachother and gave me a non vegetarian frozen meal and told me to microwave it. They weren't awful to me like my father was, but they never really cared about me because I had a non-jewish mother, and thus could never be jewish in their eyes even if I started going to temple every saturday.

 

I was pretty naive and sheltered when I was a kid. I didn't know that gay people existed until I was seven. When I met a married gay couple I thought that it would be cool to marry a woman instead of a man. I was happy that was an option.

When I was ten I learned that being gay was considered a bad thing. After that I just started thinking my feelings for girls were fake. When I was twelve I briefly questioned whether my feelings were actually fake or not. I was terrified of being gay so I convinced myself I would like boys one day. I did that until I was fourteen.

I came out to a few people when I was fourteen. Everyone thought I was going throught a phase. This made me question myself. That eventually made me have HOCD. I still suffer from it today. That makes it very hard to come out to people. I'm scared that I'll come out as gay and turn out to be bisexual.

 

Basically this:



I was confused, but I initially was okay with it. Then I went to church, heard it was a sin, and it pretty much went downhill from there.

 

I was totally fine with it

Never really thought that I am not "normal", that it is a bad thing or something like that.
For me it was completely normal and okay and just a part of me.
From the day I realised I'm not heterosexual, I was open about it, talked with my friends and I had no reason to hide it.
The only thing that made me feel a bit uncomfortable was telling my dad. It took me some time to take this step.

 

I didn't mind at all. I liked it. It was me and it felt right.

 

I had just had a relationship with a girl end very abruptly and with much confusion, leaving me feeling rather empty and uncertain. I went into work the next day really early so I could just get my mind off of things but found one of my co-workers already there. She and I started to talk and I just started to open up. To this day I can't remember exactly what I said, but all of a sudden she just said, "Oh my God" and stood up and walked over to me. She gave me a very big hug and told me it was ok. As I released the hug I said it out loud for the first time. "I'm gay". It was a moment of absolute release for me. I finally felt free to explore my sexuality without feeling condemned. Over time I came to realize that the "gay" tag didn't quite fit me, but if I hadn't been pushed that far, I don't think that I would have been able to step back and reflect on everything from my past with such an open mind.