How My Friends Support Me Being Openly Queer

I started coming out in 7th grade. I remember telling a few friends I was bisexual, and they were not into it.

One girl, imminently, recoiled and asked me if I liked her. That kind of shut me down from talking about it with my friends from school.

What was nice was at my summer camp, I met the first girl I had a crush on who was also bisexual. She explained what being bisexual was and helped me get comfortable what my feelings were and how to explain them.

Looking back, I realize now that I was very, very infatuated with Princess Jasmine and Anastasia, but I didn’t know why I liked those characters so much at the time. During my summers, I was comfortably out.

I had to have a second come out in high school. Telling my friends wasn’t too hard because other people were starting to be openly queer and no one seemed to mind. Telling my mom was very awkward.

I remember slowly starting to come out to her for, like, three years. I would start asking questions like, “Is it weird if I think I would want to date girls” and, “I don’t want to kiss anyone, but like I do think I’m attracted to females. Is that cool?”

For a long time, she decided it wasn’t cool, following the motto of “yeah it’s cool to be gay, but not if someone in my family is gay.”

I think it really took her until about last year to be fully comfortable with my sexuality. I’m still not fully out to all of my family and I’m not sure if I will ever be.

Lots of people have treated me differently because I am queer. The way I dress and look has also become very androgynous, and people do not always like that.

I’ve dated a few guys that assumed I would cheat on them once they found out I was bisexual. I’ve been with many girls who don’t think I’m actually into girls because I’m “only bi.”

There’s a lot of negative energy towards bisexual people in the LGBTQ community. To this day, when I tell people I am bisexual, I think a lot of them don’t believe me.