My First 13 Years Of My Life

Over the past few decades the lgbt community has come a long way. Being homosexual is not as taboo as it once was. However, there are still many people in the world who are afraid to tell people that they are or may be gay. There are several different reason that someone might be afraid of coming out of the closet. Most of them think that they will probably suffer from some type of rejection. The most common worry is rejection from their families. Mostly young homosexuals will feel pressure from the rejection of their peers. and in general homosexuals will have the fear of being rejected by society as a whole.

Since birth, I was raised a very devout Christian: I spent the school week, eight hours a day, attending a private Christian school from Prekindergarten through the 8th grade; I attended church services all day Sunday, and every Wednesday evening; I had to be skipped into the next age range of Sunday school on two occasions because my knowledge and questions regarding the Bible had gotten too advanced for the rest of the class; by the age of 12, I began doing mini-Sunday sermons before my pastor did his; by 13, I was baptized and began speaking in tongues; throughout the course of public high school, I was a member, and then leader of the Christian Club; I was nicknamed “Preacher Boy” by my fellow church members, with aspirations to become a

My intent was to not flaunt it, but I wanted to be open and truthful fully with my friends and family. It is very hard to come to terms about this huge decision. I remember on a hot and humid Monday morning I decided to tell my best friend. The air was fresh with a small hint of blooming flowers. I pulled up to my friends house in my car, and she was waiting outside on the front-step. I remember the bird were chirping, and there were many lingering sounds of bugs in the distance. I got out of my car and I could sense the feeling of eagerness. With the help of my gut I finally spit out the words to her that I was gay, and she accepted me whole-heartedly. The feeling felt so amazing, like thousands of butterflies escaped m stomach at once. The reason why I was very scared to tell her was because I thought she was against the whole ordeal of being gay. I feel like overcoming that fear of losing a best friend is just a hard decision because you want to be real and upfront with them. With this certain situation I felt like a triumph that I made was conquering my worst fear of not being fully honest with a person. I hate having white lies and making up certain parts of a story to impress someone. Having this mindset led me to achieve the ultimate goal of coming out to

For the next two years I struggled with the concept that I might actually be gay. By junior I was certain that I was in fact all the things that I was called in middle school, but because of the negative memories I decided it was a secret that I was better of keeping to myself. That was until the spring semester of my senior year in high school when I decided that I was going to live my life the way I wanted to. I would no longer allow people to scare me into being anything other then what I wanted to be I would live my life openly and honestly. On the evening of February 16, 2014 I came out as Gay on literally every social media platform I owned. The following morning, to my surprise, my classmates for the most part greeted me with open arms. As I walked from class to class I received a staggering amount of compliments and support. I was quite frankly overwhelmed when I did get a negative comment and a dozen people rushed to my

In the beginning I understood my Christin faith as an academic. I did as I was told, I read my bible, and I followed the Ten Commandments as any teenager does; when it suited me. I wasn’t a horrible teenager, I was raised in a small farm community that really didn’t understand someone with a vole at the end of their name, or someone who wanted to walk to the library and read rather than hang out on the steps of the malt shop/gas station. My formative years were the 1960’s. There was so much conflict and rebellion and hatred. By the time I graduated and was supposed to go out and make my way I was thoroughly confused with and rebellious. Problem was I wasn’t sure what I was rebelling against; the “rebel without a clue.” But, in the end I wound up being a successful trial attorney; I even ran for Congress! I became a Master of the Universe; I was a Goddess that walked on the earth. I believed that God already had enough on his plate, wars, famine, disease, atrocities; why should I plague Him further? After all, the Bible says: “God

Around my middle school years, I knew something about myself was unique, but I could not quite put my finger on it. No one in my family was gay, the word gay was rarely spoken and I did not even know queerness existed. My family lived a very heteronormative lifestyle and I always assumed I would marry a girl and have children. I remember very clearly a day when I was in sixth grade, I was standing in the hallway after class and someone asked me, “are you gay?” I did not know how to react, I did not even know what the word “gay” meant. I immediately replied “NO” as the term gay was always used synonymously with stupid. After school that day, I asked my grandma what it meant to be gay and she described what it mean to be gay. In that moment,

My parents were struggling after my older sister came out a lesbian before fleeing to college. Seeing how hurt they were, I kept my support for her secret. I remember one night hearing my mom alone in her room, sobbing and crying to God. She pleaded with Him, begging “why me?” I could not come out.

As a nine-year-old girl I knew I was not “normal”. I didn’t like boys the way my friends did and I would always push my thoughts about girls away because it was “wrong”. At fourteen I started to come to terms with who I was. The thought of being a lesbian in high school petrified me. I thought I would never be able to openly be myself, I would lose friends and everyone would see me differently. The thought of finding love never crossed my mind because I never knew how I would tell a complete stranger that I was a lesbian. My family was extremely supportive after the initial

By October 11th, 2015, everyone knew of my sexuality. Everyone, that is, except my mum. My mum, who I have long been close to, who I have known longer than anyone in the world, was completely unaware of her daughter’s attraction to people of the same gender.

At the age of seventeen, I was in my senior year of high school and I came out as transgender to all of my friends. I had asked all of my friends to call me Shane and to refer to me as a boy, most of them tried as hard as they could to get it right. They felt bad if they didn't get it right but I understood. I told my parents that I wanted to legally change my name and change my gender but my dad said no, my mom had started to come

The naivety of my childhood caused me to believe that I was not good enough, that I had to change myself in order to gratify the people of my church and maintain my dad’s good image. Whenever I went to church, I felt that I had to completely change myself in order to keep everyone happy, everyone but myself. As I got older and figured out that it is impossible for anyone to fully fulfill the expectations of others, I realized how restricted I had been my entire life. I finally came to the realization that people were putting me in a box unsuitable for me and expected me to fit in

Not only is the process of coming out very freeing, it can also be very depressing. How will my friends and family

My sexual orientation is questionable at this point in my short life. When I was younger, I was in my tomboy phased, where I didn’t like using lip gloss or do hairstyles to look “cute” in elementary or in middle school. I was one of those few girls that I would surrounded myself with the boys, talk about video games, sports, basically anything that wasn’t so feminine. I was raised with two older brothers, so I would play more with their toys than you gay? or Are you a dike?” I wasn’t clear what that meant, I was young and with an innocent mindset. I searched what it meant to be gay. I felt insecure about myself, wasn’t sure how to handle this but to keep saying no. No matter how many times, I have responded "No"to to people, now and then I

For years, I convinced myself that the story of my life began when I arrived in America at eleven months old. I tumbled through the clichéd white-picket-fence childhood, never realizing how impossible it was to completely discard the first year of my infancy. While I had always known about being adopted from China, I did not fully comprehend the weight of this detail until my late teenage years.

These last two years have been the most incredible years of my life. My perspective of the world has drastically shifted in a positive direction the day someone stepped into my life. This special individual shaped me into a remarkably better person. She is my best friend, girlfriend, and soul mate, Jacqueline. The relationship I have with this woman is like no other and I am madly in love with her. Jackie is beyond perfect for me and holds every feature I desire in a woman. To name a few significant qualities, she is beautiful, funny, intelligent, loving, and supportive. Many people think I am too young to know what true love is or even claim that twenty-four months is not long enough to know for sure she is the one for me. I tend to