Personal Narrative: My Journey Through High Schools

Going through high school the days were all the same, except for game days. There was just something different about the culture of the school. You could almost feel the excitement in the air. Every “Good luck tonight,” that was received made it feel like the whole school was rooting for me. This was my senior year and tonight was an especially big game. The game that night would decide if we made playoffs and if I could step on the court as a Hawk again.

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

These had cause me to be cold toward men. I also grow up in a straight community where being different is a taboo and it is often not appreciated by the society. I remember a short dark skin man with a low income who used to live in the same neighborhood as my grandmother, he is gay, many people laughed at him but the way he dress, talks and walks. As a future teacher have to ask me what I will do if a boy come to class wearing a dress, I know many kids are going to laugh and call him names, others are going to bullying him. As the adult I'm going to need to do something to stop it and to help every kid in the class that everyone not feel constable dressing or acting like the society wants. Growing up I don't believe that my parents would had let me be friends with gays and lesbian, they might though it would had influence me in my sexual orientation. Today I have friend that are gay. That have been a challenge to me because of what a was tough. It does not shock me any more like it did when I first came to the U.S. and found out that some of my friend did not felt comfortable being male or

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

Change has been an inconvenience for me the past few years, and even harder this school year. To start, although I talk about this far too much, change first started when I came out. Telling my friends and family was something that was so personal, and extremely out of the ordinary that I couldn’t even think about what it would be like to openly like boys. Now thinking about this, I question: Did I even know myself? Did I even pay attention to people? Because I don’t think I could have gotten any gayer when I was a child. So I assume that means, I wasn’t hiding from people, I was hiding from myself really, because everyone knew I was gay and was just waiting for me to say something.

In response to the despairing LGBT kids who get bullied and harrassed in high school, Dan and Terry share their personal experiences and harsh memories when coming out to their friends and family. The YouTube video intendeds to send a message of hope for teenagers struggling with their sexual identity and telling them that life will get better. Dan tells us about his Catholic family background and how there wasn’t any LGBT kids at his school who constantly bullied him for liking musicals. Terry shares a more negative childhood with ‘kids beating him up, throwing him against walls, lockers, windows, stuffing him into bathroom stalls, and scratching his car.” School administrators were not very supportive to address these issues either. But, thankfully, Terry gives a positive note that life got better for him after high school and Dan added that “however bad it is now, it gets better and it can get great, and awesome, but you have to tough this period out and live your life so your around for it to get better.”

Discovering my sexual orientation was not really a surprise. I always knew, however, the idea that I was considered abnormal was what pushed me back the most. My faith and my parents always taught me it was wrong to like the same sex, and that made me afraid to come out. It made me frightened and anxious to think I wasn’t the child people thought I would be, and how it would affect me in the future. I thought I was a disappointment and I, myself, was a human sin.

still, no-one i associated with in real life was queer, and still no-one could truly understand what it felt like. still, i was detached and isolated and completely and utterly alone, and still i was stuck in a suffocating community of religious extremists and intolerant homophobes. so you can only imagine my ecstacy about a year after i'd come out, when A and i had been speaking into the night about god knows what- and then, and then she'd come out as pan too.

My time in High School was made difficult from the constant strife and conflict between my parents. This made my home an unstable environment not fitted for learning or growing as an individual. As I got older and closer to graduating High-School, I began to find my own voice with the help of my mentor Rahn Fleming, which occurred at the end of my junior year. As a result, I came in control of my life and the constant feuding started to die down. No longer did I have to worry about the next scheduled court date, or the next time I would come home wondering what may await. I felt like I was always walking on broken glass for the longest of time throughout my life, until I began to voice myself and what I wanted. My parents came to realize this

At 13 years old I knew that there was something different about me. Something that made me unique or off. I didn't understand exactly what it was, but I knew it was something. At 13 years old, I had my first crush on a girl, and it was one of the most confusing times in my life. I did have the most wonderful parents ever, but I would frequently pick up on a homophobic slur or derogatory comment from my dad, school kids, and even my mom. They were never comments made with the intent to hurt me, but they were homophobic regardless, and for a kid who was struggling with identity, they hurt.

I came out during the end of my freshman year of high school the way I came out was online through facebook letting everyone all at once that I indeed was dating a guy. At the time I didn’t know what the reactions would be but they were all good ones I can reassure you. My friends were screaming “Who is it? Do we know him?” And my mom was more than happy when she saw and all she said to me was that “You know I will always love you no matter what.” The reason I say that it wasn’t a choice is because you don’t choose to be something that most people in the world hate it’s just not something you do. I grew up playing dress up with my cousin and her helping me put on dresses. I even played with dolls for God sake and my mom never once said a word or stopped to tell me “You shouldn’t be doing those things.” Most people will argue saying that it is a “choice” and most people will say it’s a diese. But there are those few who argue to defend the homosexuals, the lesbians, and the bisexuals there’s a special place in heaven for those good samaritans. My favorite quote to this day will always be “Being gay/lesbian or bisexual isn’t a choice but being hateful and spiteful is.”

Both my parents firmly adhered to the notorious stereotype of each member of the family having their designated role within the familial hierarchy. This notion created a repetitive, tautological cycle, with an apparent recurring pattern: the pairing of a man and a woman. This theme of pairing opposite sexes together set a fundamental understanding of how males like me are supposed to grow into a “man” and fit the description of what a “man” is expected to be according to how my family deemed it. Anything that deviated from these expectations was considered beyond taboo- they were shunned. As a child, this ideology generated a fine line between what was sexually “appropriate” and what was not. I recall a few years back when a close relative of mine, my cousin, and my best friend both came out to me as homosexuals and that they had been dating each other for some time. Hearing them utter the words “we’re gay” as they held each other was so overwhelmingly astonishing that I had dismissed the actuality of the current situation. At that moment, I was stormed with confusion but preceded anyway to congratulate them. Though I was aware of the LGBT community at the time, I did not have any personal connection with anyone from that community until my first encounter with two of the most important figures in my life. After several hours of digesting and

Still, I was not secure and had no idea to what my sexuality was. And with growing up in and with the societal idea that being anything other than straight was wrong and is something that can be vehemently mocked, I left it alone. Yes, I know that not everyone is going to berate me for liking my own sex, love is love after all. But school kids can be harsh and not actually realize the extent that their actions pose on someone else. I may have believed then that I could stand up for myself, but I still was not at a place where I could verbally fire back shots, and being physical was not possible with my stature. I see this now than I did back in 2010. However, I did have people in my life to defend me if I needed it, but I had to find myself and learn how to anticipate others’ actions.

Many use their middle and high school years as a path of self-discovery, whether they know it or not. Like most people, I spent most of my life feeling I was like everyone else that was around me: cisgender and heterosexual. In middle school, I began to learn that there was even such a thing as having a different sexuality, though at that age it was all being ridiculed in front of me, and I shrugged the whole ordeal off as being something that had never and would

This issue of LGBT was something I was not comfortable with. I was naive and childish with this topic. I only heard about gay people, but I had not seen any guy in my life talk less to see people of the same sex kissing in their cars or public places. I do not mean to sound rude. This was my first experience and I was not a nice one. Tansgenders were also a group of people I restrained myself from. It was a big shock for me to come across all these while in Europe.. I made friends and ask so many questions and looks at videos on the TV and youtube answer the question why will someone be gay or transgender. I later came across an amazing male couple from spain. With them my ideology of LGBTs changed drastically.