LGBT+ share your experiences

Trigger warning for attempted murder, relationship abuse and generel homophobia/transphobia

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I’ve known I was queer since I was young,my aunts introduced me to the concept of it and it went down from there. I live in a very mixed place , acceptance wise, there are people who accept me but there are others who don’t. Such as my ex, we’ll call her P, I’ve knows P since third grade,which was when I first started to learn about the lgbtq+ community, and we started to date a few years later, now I realize the relationship was toxic and abusive. She would use her mental health as leverage to make me do things for her. I cut off our friendship a few months ago and she’s started posting horrid things about me,deadnaming me, calling me slurs,and so many other things.I was also almost murdered for being gay, im still alive but now I fear for my life on the daily. I am not ashamed of myself and who I am

-Chip

It's too late at night for me to publish my whole life story, hah! But to TLDR it:

I was born (and still reside in) a small homophobic town in the South, with a highly religious community and highly religious parents. I realized I was bisexual when I was very young, and struggled a lot with internalized homophobia. I faced a lot of homophobia from my parents, and then my community. I got bullied a lot for it. But, amongst all of that, there were good moments; the rare allies, the rare fellow queer people. Small, secret moments I could be myself and feel safe. But I still get messages from people passing around "the queer's phone number" to this day. It's annoying, more than anything.

My mom has come around to me being bisexual. My dad... Well, I don't know anything about my dad. He doesn't emote. Ever. Sometimes I forget he even knows, and I don't really feel comfortable talking to him about anything personal because he has a tendency to mock my interests.

I very recently came out to my mom as bigender, as well. When I tried experimenting with my gender expression and what I called myself when I was younger, she was SUPER fucking mad at me and demanded me back into gender norms. Said that shit you always hear, about how she would have to "mourn who I used to be". But, nowadays, she took it relatively well.

Of course, her support nowadays doesn't erase the irreparable trauma she put me through. She was the owner of the town church, after all. She was one of the people who constantly tried to scare me straight with talk of fire and brimstones. But I think I'm on the road to forgiving her.

The silver lining has been the internet. Which has always been a place I could turn to, when my real life wasn't safe or accepting. Online queer communities were my salvation in my most dark of days. I'm always gonna be grateful for that.

for anyone who is unsure of whether they're queer or have internalized homophobia, literally surround yourself with queer friends and/or queer spaces n you'll feel more comfortable w yourself. ever since i surrounded myself with more queer friends ive been more comfortable w myself n i used to have a LOT of guilt n internalized homophobia bc im bi. but yeah its def better now so i recommend this to anybody sufferin out there rn!

Some advice for any LGBT+ folks considering whether they're trans or not:

Growing up, I was always unsure about whether I was trans, I wanted to be a girl, etc. I always thought that a key requirement was having severe gender dysphoria. I had spent my whole life growing numb to the parts of myself that I disliked, rationalizing that.. I didn't feel too bad, and it could be so much worse. Then I avoided questioning it. What I eventually realized is that gender EUPHORIA exists. When I started presenting more feminine.. and when I started considering myself a girl in safe spaces.. I felt a huge rush of happiness that I had never felt before. In a fulfilling way. Personally, that was WAY MORE informative than any dysphoria I thought I was supposed to have.

So, please follow your heart when it's happy! (:

It feels out of place to say this when theres so many sad comments, but someone from my school on his bike asked me if I was gay or emo while I was walking home ️️

----!Death threats!----

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I'm a demi boy and bisexual and most of my family is homophoic. I'm not out to any body expect for my cousin and he was spending the night at my house. He randomly told me that if I came out as trans he'd k!ll me and that he hated all gay people. He also said the only reason why he doesn't hate me is because I still like girls too. He used to be my favorite cousin.

Honestly ngl I don't have many bad experieces mostly just years of accepting it more and more, when i was a kid i thought i might be lying to myself or just being tormented but towards 16 or so it kinda lciked and sicne i wasn't a dumb kid i felt willing to accept it. Still never really felt like part of the LGBTQ+ space since i felt weirdly distant from it. a lot of LGBTQ+ people i knew seemed to have a level if general synergy i didn't have, maybe it's just being a POC from London that makes it feel weird but idk.

tw: assault

the only real negative experience i had was in Uni, i had a ex-mate who kept trying to push me into stuff and hitting on me, at the time i still didn't really know much about myself so i thought it was normal untill they started giving me restrictions and then trying to sleep with me, one time i wasn't thinking and i let them in and it was all relatively normal until i got told afterwards that they had, for lack of better words, splooged in my bed, they never told me until one of our mutuals did. It did genuinely make me upset i was never told plus all the advances and takebacks made me question everything at one point i almost felt like i had to enter into a relationship with them. 

More on the rules i got mixed signals as they were offering sexua favours but said they were asexual, they would make tons of sex-related jokes but said i had to stop, they'd get drunk and start apologising and then afterwards not remember anything, it was all very confusing emtionally and sexually tbh. Kind of set back the amount of trust i have which was already not at a high point.

TW homophobia, mommy issues, thoughts of suicide, and all that shit

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I live in a very homophobic country. Russia, to be clear. It's more common to be homophobic than be a part of LGBT+ community. 

I started dating girls around the age of 12-13. Everything was cool, I remember how nice it was to lie under a bush and laugh at him. 

But one evening my mother took my phone away from me. She read EVERYTHING that was there. She took it for the night and spent the whole night reading everything that was on my phone. All chats, apps and photos.

I was afraid to sleep, that night I wanted to die and I almost did it.

I woke up in the morning and it was quiet. It's too quiet. I went down to the first floor of our house in fear. My mother came up to me and started yelling. She screamed at me for about 3-4 hours almost without interruptions, and I cried and apologized all the time. I begged her to forgive me.

She explained to me that lesbians are just women who are not chosen by men and they decide to love other women. That this is not the norm and it is wrong. I told her that I wasn't even a lesbian, that I liked guys. I told her I was bisexual, but she started mimicking me. She mentally bullied me for several hours.

She tried to call my girlfriend and screamed into the phone. She was going to go to her house, but did not dare. Then she touched a sore spot that she began to suspect that I had stopped communicating with my very close and dear friend, because we also were dating, but broke up. It was very painful because she dumped me herself and didn't even tell me the reason (we wasn't dating).

Now my mother and I have a normal relationship. She thinks I forgot all about it and it was just a phase. 

I'm sorry that there's a lot there, but I've been wanting to speak out for a long time. (sorry, I had to use translator)

deep in the closet, bi.

when i was about 12-13, i told my mom that i might like this boy in my class. and she told me "you're too young" and aggressively spoke at me for like 26 minutes about how being LGBT+ is a trend.

had a good experience coming out to my uncle and tia. also had a good one from my W cousin. when i was 14. they're the only people im out to. (and people reading this forum)

had a bad experience more recently at 15 with my L cousin. i thought she'd be a good pick to come out to. before i could finish my sentence, she asked me "oh, are you a t-slur?" cause of my long hair. i said "no, i'm bi". and without hesitation she said "oh, so you're an f-slur. im an f-slur too." she proceeded to call me the f-slur like 5 times after that.

im cool with it, though. just deeply closeted. im finding so many christmas presents in this closet lol. hope everyone in this forum is doing well :3

YOU DONT HAVE TO DATE THE ONLY OTHER QUEER PERSON YOU KNOW

also you dont have to be in a relationship. ever. if thats not what you want, you dont have to. if you just want sex and no romance you could be aromantic. if you want the opposite, you might be asexual. if you want neither, you could be both. 

I was pressured into my first ever MLM relationship (ive been in a wlw relationship as well, improvise adapt overcome) and let me tell you. WOW. I am traumatized. I am aroace and he knew that, but he told me we could either date or stop being friends, and i didnt want to lose him. We were the only people there for eachother in very difficult parts of our lives : we had both just moved, i was living in a house with my dad again after years of it just being me my brother and my mom, he had a new verbally abusive stepdad, we were both suicidal and struggling with our genders AND OCD, and i couldnt just throw all of that away. But we broke up 6 months ago, i tried my best to save our relationship, but there was nothing i could do, and ended up becoming less of a person during it. He was controlling, possessive, jealous, impatient, inconsiderate, insensitive, everything i tried my best not to be. He was upset that i wasnt sexually attracted to him even though he knew im asexual, and i thought hed understand because hes ALSO asexual, but no. I told him i didnt want to have sex until we were at least 16 because i was molested as a child and there was a risk of me freezing and not being able to say i was uncomfortable or wanted to stop while doing the act, and i might feel really guilty after and it might worsen my mental state because of OCD, OR i might get worried it was nonconsensual because of OCD. He then told me that that hurt his feewings and that he felt embarrassed and like i was leading him on. I tried to reassure him that it wasnt him, but he still made me promise to at least try, and he very confidently said no, we were going to have sex.

Again i told him "hey, my mental health has been really bad recently, and i might genuinely not be able to handle sexual contact of any kind." He told me that this made him insecure and made me feel guilty for expressing boundaries. We did end up doing shit (not sex, but i did get him off) because i felt like i had to. this was COERSION.  

Being insecure is okay, but guilting people into agreeing to sexual acts is not.

Tw for misandry, and discussions of shame surrounding sex, and kinda transandrophobia too

So I’m a Demiboy, been a bit confused on my sexuality Ik I’m pan and I consider myself a demiromantic greysexual so like I’m attracted to people regardless of gender, but only once we’re close and I don’t feel sexual attraction that often. It’s been confusing due to growing in places surrounded by people who demonized men and masculinity and I still struggle to express my masculinity even today especially because when I came out as trans my mom told me the fact that I wanted to use he/him pronouns was threatening to her. It also took me a while to realize I was aspec and arospec bc for one I didn’t know for like- until 8th grade that most people don’t only experience attraction until they’ve gotten close with someone. Even before then I identified as a panromantic asexual as I didn’t think I experienced any sexual attraction due to being taught by communities and piers to be ashamed of sexual desires and attraction made worse by my mom teaching me to not trust men, so I just decided I’m asexual out of shame only to say I’m not because I have a sex drive and as it turns out I was confusing sex drive with sexual attraction.

The difference is like the difference between hunger and cravings. Hunger is when you just want food, you’re not seeking out a specific food just food. Cravings are when you are hungry for a specific food. You’re no longer hungry when it’s not that food but you are when you are given that specific food. Sex drive is like hunger wherein you just want something but not something specific, and sexual attraction is like craving where you want something specific. I’m not elaborating on sex drive here since that’s none of anybody’s business but I have come to know that in comparison I experience sexual attraction quite rarely. I’m also p sure I fall under aceflux bc sometimes I’m repulsed by sex though I’m usually shifting between neutral and positive.

So my message: if you have a sex drive but aren’t into a particular person or rarely ever into a particular person, congrats! Ur on the ace spectrum! Don’t feel bad or ashamed of your masculinity embrace it however you like, and don’t feel ashamed of your sexual desires, it’s not wrong to be interested in sex just as it’s not wrong to not be interested in sex