Billie Eilish Is “Gay & Tired,” Also “Physically Attracted to Women”

Feature image of Billie Eilish and Janelle Monáe by Michael Kovac via Getty Images.

Photo of Billie Eilish via Billie’s Instagram

Over the weekend, Billie Eilish posted a selfie on Instagram using my personal favorite filter: gay & tired. For the unfamiliar, the filter slaps the word “gay” on one cheek and “& tired” on the other. Very to the point. Very relatable. Well Pink News  is on the case, suggesting the filter could be a “hint” about Eilish’s sexuality and rounding up some of the enthusiastic responses from queer fans. Now, I don’t love the language of “hints” and “clues” when it comes to anyone’s sexuality (though it seems to be a frequent Thing when it comes to more than one ultra-famous white pop star!). Queer people aren’t puzzleboxes to be solved. And besides, Billie has been so cheeky about some of her references to queerness on social media that it’s giving the “I’m dropping hints” Kardashian meme — in other words, it doesn’t read as all that subtle to moi.

I like what this fan in particular had to say:

also queer people don’t owe you a full blown coming out. let us post our little fruity insta stories in peace

— L (@phoezrabridgers) November 10, 2023

It’s true! Celebrities don’t owe anyone clear labels or coming out moments. No one does! It seems absurd that we should demand a 21-year-old come out as queer. But to me, it is just as absurd to demand a 21-year-old say she’s straight, too. Eilish has, in the past, seemingly felt pressure to iterate her sexuality and has said she’s “very, very straight” on TikTok. But it’s hard to know how genuine this is, and it also still feels unfair, especially because she’s likely responding to accusations of queerbaiting in her music videos. And as our editor in chief Carmen Phillips wrote the last time we covered the Billie Beat:

“…it’s always worth repeating that the internet loves to get queerbaiting wrong. A word that was designed to critique writing choices on television somehow began being used to describe how individual people live their actual lives — and the discourse around that can be stifling. It can force people into coming out before they’re ready, which is what happened with Heartstopper’s Kit Connor, and that’s never OK!”

In a recent interview with Variety, Eilish offered an even more vulnerable nod toward her desires, saying:

She hasn’t always been a girl’s girl. In fact, she’s spent much of her life plagued by the assumption that other women don’t like her. “I’ve never really felt like I could relate to girls very well,” Eilish says. “I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real.”

She doesn’t miss a beat as she says this, like any other young woman of her generation talking about her life. For a stadium-selling artist from a different era, such a revelation would have required record-label ruminations about the effect it could have on her career. “I have deep connections with women in my life, the friends in my life, the family in my life,” she says. “I’m physically attracted to them. But I’m also so intimidated by them and their beauty and their presence.”

It’s clear from that interview that Eilish is parsing through all this and plainly stating her attractions in a way that doesn’t bend to our typical ideas of a “coming out” narrative.

Meanwhile, I’m here writing this silly little post about a silly little moment on social media even though I don’t entirely buy into the premise the post is built on. But I’m genuinely interested in considering and dissecting the politics of coming out, especially when it comes to famous people, and I think these are moments where we can complicate the conversation. Sexuality and gender aren’t as simple and as easy to package as a pop song. People love to sexuality is fluid but then expect celebrities to have easy to discern, legible, and even fixed sexualities. And I do think a lot of it has to do with just how much we’ve lost the plot on the term queerbaiting.

I am no celebrity, but I remember I was using a lot of gay terms and images on my tumblr long before I was out to even myself. In retrospect, yeah, those looked like super obvious hints at my own sexuality, but I wasn’t posting them to be “hints,” because again, we’re not puzzleboxes. I was moreso engaging in a form of queer expression that felt accessible to me without even knowing I was queer.

I understand the appeal for fans to latch onto these moments. Hell, I love a good social media investiGAYtion. But I think we can also hold some of these nuances in mind when talking about these things.

But what do I know! I am simply gay & tired.

15 Creative Ways To Come Out to Your Family, Friends and/or the Entire World

You might think that the best way to come out is to sit down with your loved ones and simply tell them that you are gay or bisexual or trans or queer or pansexual or whatever it is that you are, and you’re probably right about that. However, there are other creative and unique ways our people have found over the years to break the good news to their families, friends, classmates, co-workers, neighbors, doctors, anesthesiologists, adoring public or anyone else. What better day to discuss those ideas than today, National Coming Out Day?

I’ve been hearing and reading your coming out stories for 14 years, and trends have emerged w/r/t ways to come out. For example, many of you have come out to your friends or family while in a moving vehicle. Another popular method is “writing a message on social media,” which is effective and efficient.

We could stop there, but then this post would be very short. So instead, join me as we think beyond the box — or beyond the car, as the case may be.

1. Come Out Via Power Point Presentation

via I Came Out to My Parents Using a Slide Show, And So Can You!

In 2021, we published a compelling and popular piece entitled “I Came Out To My Parents Using a Slide Show, and So Can You!” In the piece, writer Amelia noted that when it came time to mark the occasion of her solidified lesbianism with her parents, she wanted something that felt really authentic to her personality and to the communication styles she had established with her family. She employed music, ambitious graphic design, and a whimsical narrative that delighted not just her family, but also all of us who read the article. I think about this at least once a week.

2. Star in an Ad Campaign For Subaru

This was a big move for Dana Fairbanks. It actually didn’t go very well at the time, but eventually she was able to reconcile her sexuality with her Cylon parents.

3. Let Your Mom Come Out For You

When you think about Kristen Stewart coming out, perhaps you think of the issue of Nylon that I still possess in which she spoke openly of her then-relationship with a woman, or perhaps you think about her saying “I’m like, so gay, dude,” on Saturday Night Live. But I think about when Kristen Stewart’s Mom Jules allegedly went ahead and told The Daily Mirror that she was a huge fan of Kristen’s relationship with her then-girlfriend Alicia Cargile, insisting that “people need to be free to love whoever they want,” which, for Kristen Stewart according to her Mom, meant “loving women and men.” Jules also told The Mirror that Kristen Stewart loves wolves and was raised by them.

4. Share Your Netflix Account With Your Parents

Back in her youth, former Autostraddle writer Nina was shocked to learn that the list of Netflix DVDs she’d been ordering to her home (e.g., L Word marathons, If These Walls Could Talk 2) was in fact accessible to her entire family. “It wasn’t long before my family smelled a rainbow colored rat,” she recalled, “and that rat was pointing its glow sticks at me.”

5. Curate an Entire Comedy Show and Make a Gay Joke About Yourself In It

In 2014, our now-Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya decided to come out to her peers in a basement comedy show in Ann Arbor, where she was attending college. “Standup is a performance, but you’re playing yourself,” she wrote of this choice at the time. “And if you’re a good comedian, you’re playing the realest, most honest version of yourself. For me, the thought of one-on-one conversations with people about my sexuality was much scarier.” That performance was the first time she’d said the words “I’m gay” out loud. She recalls, “I had successfully turned my sexuality into a punchline, which is another way of saying I’d successfully turned it into the most genuine form of expression I knew.”

6. Wear a Gay Shirt

“Who’s All Gay Here?” your shirt will ask. “Me!” you will say! Easy.

7. Attend a Gay Event

Perhaps you’re struggling to admit that you are gay, but how do you feel about admitting you are going on an Olivia Cruise and then letting your family connect the dots on their own? Unfortunately Pride is probably no longer gay enough to qualify as a gay event, I’m sorry. (Once I asked my former boarding school roommate if she wanted to meet up at Pride in the Village because I lived there that summer, and she was gay and had short hair so I figured she’d be going to Pride, and then I spent the whole day hoping she’d ask me how I felt about my own sexuality but unfortunately she was having some drama with her girlfriend and I was really awkward around so many new people (lesbian people with haircuts!!!!!!) and then we were all stoned on the roof and I was hungry and nobody wanted to ask me about my sexuality 😔)

8. Do an Interpretive Dance

In 2022, Jenna Malone announced her pansexuality via one of our people’s most beloved forms of performing arts: an interpretive dance. As Heather described it at the time, “in between promo for her new film, Adopting Audrey, Malone did some stretching, spins, whirs, and jiggles (and other official dance verbs) to honor her evolving understanding of her sexuality.” Unfortunately this dance and its accompanying caption has been pulled from Instagram but I think if you follow your heart, you too can dance about your sexuality.

9. Write an Entire Book

This is definitely a cumbersome method of coming out, as it takes some time, but it’s a good way to come out and also maybe make a few hundred bucks. Alternately you can hook up with Elliot Page and wait for him to write about it in his book.

10a. Post About Your Relationship on Instagram Like It’s NBD

This a beloved and popular move by celebrities, but it works for real people too! You can simply just start posting with your girlfriend or otherwise-identified activity partner like it is the most casual thing in the world. Alternately, you can use a hashtag like #IWasLookingAtHERAndFoundMyJOY (-Rutina Wesley) with a picture of you kissing your girlfriend or a caption like “2 years ago, I got to marry my best friend in front of our close family and friends” (-Candace Parker) accompanying photos of you marrying your best friend two years ago in front of your close family and friends.

10b. Post About Being Gay on Instagram Like It’s NBD

Self-explanatory

11. Go Through a Really Terrible Gay Breakup and Come Out Under Duress

Usually I’ve found the best time for me to reveal something emotionally intimate to anyone, including honestly a therapist, is when I am so profoundly distraught, depressed and despondent that my need for emotional comfort overcomes my fear of vulnerability. Also, it’s difficult for people to be mean to you when you are already so sad!

12. Publish an Article In Your School Newspaper Called “Suffocation: The Secret Life of a Gay Teenager”

If you have a school paper you can publish an anonymous article in it about being a wee lesbian, and then when everybody is buzzing about the essay, that’s when you can start coming out, and it will be really funny.

13. Get an Alternative Lifestyle Haircut

Haircuts have been doing the work for our community for generations.

14. Get a Gay Job

This girl has a gay job

One thing about having a gay job is that you have to come out to everybody who asks you about your job. Usually I circumvent this opportunity by saying I work for a “women’s media company,” which is like, not the whole story or true, but I don’t want be perceived in general, let alone talk about my sexuality with a stranger who is just making conversation. That said, lately every time I admit to a straight cis person that I work for an LGBTQ+ media company, they immediately want to ask me how I feel about trans women playing sports and while I’m hesitant to discuss my own self with a stranger, I am more than happy to share my correct opinions with them on the topic of trans inclusion in sports! So I try to see it as an opportunity.

Also, for the record, being in The L Word counts as a gay job.

15. Try This Special Method

Write “I’m Gay” on a tiny piece of paper, and then stick it into a bottle, and put the bottle in the ocean. It’s called “message in a bottle.” Then when it washes ashore, someone on the beach will pick it up and they’ll know all about it! You can’t control who will pick up your bottle message. It might not be your grandfather, but it might be someone really cute. Other than that issue, this is a foolproof plan with a 100% success rate. You’re welcome!!!!

You Need Help: Can I Date While Living With My Homophobic Parents?

Q:

Hello! For a bit of background, I’m still relatively young and haven’t moved away from my parents yet. A few months back they decided to move to a more rural area, which meant that I had to move with them. Due to a vast number of factors that I won’t get into I was never really able to explore the dating pool and figure out who I am when I was in school, so I was thinking about trying to use this opportunity to put myself out there. I’m worried about the idea of attempting to date anyone, especially another woman, in a place like this because the politics are noticeably skewed to the right around here and I don’t want to cause myself or any potential partners harm. Coming out to my family isn’t an option. Is it worth the risk, and if so what can I do to keep myself and other people safe in the event that I do decide to test the waters? Sorry if this was long-winded!

A:

Hi friend! Just so you know, this wasn’t long-winded in the slightest, and I’m so glad you wrote to us!

It’s exciting that you’re starting to feel like you might be ready to test the waters, dating-wise! While it’s true that there are very few places entirely free of homophobia in 2023, and you’re much more of an expert on wherever you live than I can be, I’m honestly less worried about the rural area you’re living in than I am about the situation you’re in with your parents. In this Tinder world, finding dates solely from within a community of other queer people, without outing yourself to people who aren’t queer, is super doable. And if you do match with someone sweet, dating discreetly enough that the local homophobes don’t necessarily recognize the public parts of your dates for what they are can be pretty easy to do. Finally, while our lives are never wholly without danger, the possibility of a bad outcome if a homophobic stranger does recognize that you’re on a date is probably fairly statistically low within most parts of the US.

But then there’s your family and your living situation. You say that coming out to your parents isn’t an option, and that’s totally valid. You’ve asked whether the possibility of being discovered is worth the risk. I don’t have enough information to give you a yes or no on that, but I do think that you can make your own risk/benefit analysis.

I’m curious: what is likely to happen if your parents did find out you had been dating somebody, or found out you weren’t straight? Do you believe that you could suddenly find yourself without the material support (housing, shelter, etc) that your parents currently provide? If so, do you have a means of supporting yourself, or do you have any other support systems in place besides your parents, like relatives who are more queer-friendly, or close friends who have their adult lives together?

Essentially, if being kicked out and finding yourself without a place to stay seems to be a likely scenario, then I’d suggest that you put off dating a little bit longer and shift your immediate focus to putting plans in place that will change your living situation and remove your parents as your primary source of support. Since you’ve finished school, that might look like finding a job and starting to quietly put money into a Moving Out fund. Looking through Craigslist in your area (or the area you used to live, if you liked that better) will show you what kind of housing options are out there, and whether people are looking for roommates. Essentially, this will be a good time to start to envision what you’d like the next stage of your life to look like, and to do some research on what’s attainable!

I also think that doing some queer community building will be important. If you don’t already have supportive queer friends, I think it’s time to meet some! Depending on what’s available in your town and how much your parents like to creep on your activities, you might start by reaching out to a local LGBTQ+ center (there may be one in a neighboring town if there’s not one where you live), either in person or online. There are also less overt places where you might meet other queer people, like volunteering at roller derby, signing up for a recreational softball league, taking your dog to the dog park, joining an RPG at a comic shop… there are a lot of possibilities out there! While dating is wonderful, making good friends, both queer and queer-friendly, can make a huge difference in what feels possible at the stage of life you’re in, and having community around you will help you immensely when you start to jump into the life you want to live!

Bottom line? Dating can be amazing and wonderful, and I don’t want to discourage you from pursuing it if you feel ready, or if you have very little to lose. But if you do currently rely on homophobic parents for their material support, I think that you’re right to be a little wary! If that’s the situation you find yourself in, I think that focusing on building the next stage of your life, one where you are less dependent on your parents, will be vitally important before you jump all the way into the dating world.

I wish you the very best! 💙

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

Mo’Nique Grapples With Her Queer Desires, Fear, and Coming Out In New Netflix Special

It happens in the last minutes of her special, My Name Is Mo’Nique. The 55 minute mark out of an hour and 12 minutes, to be exact. At the end of a raunchy tale that involves blowjobs, the misinformation that elders tell children in the name of purity culture, and being held in a hospital on a 5150 for 72 hours (don’t ask), there’s a punchline. Mo’Nique’s Uncle Tina walks past the family kitchen and declares: “That’s why I’m a dyke.”

Up to this point — in a comedy special over five years in the making, a journey that began with the Academy Award winner asking her fans to boycott Netflix on the basis of racial and gender bias after the streaming company only offered $500,000 to make her comedy hour compared to the literal millions offered to Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and Dave Chapelle — the theme of her concert has been an explanation of all the reasons Mo’Nique has had to fight.

She means “fight” as in fight for equality, not physical blows, though she spends a bit of time self-interrogating her quickness to anger and defensiveness. It starts in 7^th grade, when Mo’Nique is sent to special education after struggles with literacy. It winds through experiences of poverty and racism growing up in Baltimore, having to relearn power dynamics in her intimate relationships as an adult, stories about Hollywood producer Lee Daniels — all pretty expected beats for anyone already familiar with icons of Black stand-up comedy or Mo’Nique’s career specifically. But it ends with Uncle Tina.

Growing up, Mo’Nique’s grandmother was a staple of joy in her life, despite any other hardship. She tells the audience, “this woman treated me like the sun did not come up till I woke up. And it didn’t go down until I went the fuck to sleep… In her eyes, I was everything.” As Mo’Nique grew up to become famous, her grandmother would stop people in the grocery store to show off her granddaughter on magazine covers at checkout. In Mo’s words, “I was her prize.”

But also:

“My grandmother has a daughter. But we call her daughter Uncle Tina… My Uncle Tina, if she walked in here right now, you would think you were looking at a whole man. She has a full beard. She wears something to smash her breasts down. She puts something in her pants to make it look like she could possibly have a dick. And she wears men’s clothes and men’s shoes. Everything about my Uncle Tina is a man. So for you babies in the LGBTQ community, I want y’all to hear me. I respect every-motherfuckin’-body in here free enough to be their goddamn selves.

…

See, my grandmother could not come to grips that she had a gay daughter. She could only love her privately. She couldn’t love her publicly. Because the Church had my grandmother fucked up. That goddamn Church, baby, in our communities will do some shit to us and rip apart motherfuckin’ families, just like it’s going out of goddamn style. And they’ll put “In the name of Jesus” in front of it. And I watched that shit happen to my sweet grandmother.

…

And I watched those two women struggle. I watched them struggle in a way that my grandmother left this earth. And they just couldn’t come together. Because she thought she was a failure. Because she brought a gay child into the world. The church had fucked her up to believe that her daughter was a sin, right? And that’s how she treated her.

…

And I felt, I felt cowardly when my grandmother left. Because I couldn’t tell my grandmother who her granddaughter really was. ‘Cause I didn’t want to be loved privately. I adored how she adored me… So I couldn’t tell my grandmother my secret thoughts. And my fantasies. ‘Cause I didn’t want her to love me privately, and I did not want her to leave this earth thinking she was a failure. ‘Cause had I told her, my secret thoughts, she would’ve left thinking, that she failed.”

I’m purposeful in leaving an incredibly long quote here, because after 55 minutes of jokes that barrel at you in triplicate for every minute, it’s startling and breathtaking to hear the room become as quiet as a pin drop. To listen as Mo’Nique’s trademark husk breaks as she fights back tears, red rimming her eyes, before she finally lets them fall. A master conductor, the audience’s laughter her orchestra to manipulate.

Mo’Nique describes how her Uncle Tina eventually experiences alcoholism and homelessness, unable to reconcile not having her mother’s love and support. She’s shameful in her own fear to not come out while her grandmother was alive. It’s not clear in the special if she’s yet forgiven herself, but my God I hope she has or will. And — absolutely none of it — is funny.

Just as the pressure of it crushes, she pivots. The audience’s laughter hers to control once more: “Now I know y’all are looking at me, saying, ‘Wait a minute, bitch. Are you a motherfuckin’ dyke??’ No, I’m not!… all the way.”

The audience bursts, perhaps more grateful for the reprieve than anything else. “But when your born with that, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Nothing. And please understand that I tried.”

Mo’Nique recounts that much of her sexual explorations with men came from a running away from her queer desires, a fear that if she gave into them that she would be shunned from her family like Uncle Tina, whom Mo was close with as a child. She ends the special detailing what it was like to come out to her husband as an adult, another serious monologue that ends in jokes — some of which in full honesty, could be read as biphobic and I wish hadn’t come so quickly, but I also believe were placed to mask pain.

Mo’Nique never names her bisexuality as such directly. This is not a clear, neat, or easily cheerful celebrity coming out story. In my years working for this website, I’ve found that coming out stories about queer Black women over 50 rarely are. In fact, I spent all day wrestling with how to write about this, as the more crude jokes that sit between these serious beats are already picking up steam in Black gossip blogs.

That’s the thing about being one of the funniest women alive, you always know where to land the joke so that people will look exactly where you want them to.

And away from where you don’t.

You Need Help: How Can I Be My Authentic Self While Navigating Bi-Erasure and Biphobia?

Q:

I came out as bi/queer a few months ago in my early 40s and have been seeing a queer therapist to help navigate the rollercoaster with my partner, a cis man, and life with young kids. I have many queer friends and have spent a good amount of time in queer spaces, but the bi people around me seem to mostly be “quietly bi.” Queerness feels like a really important part of me, and the idea of being quietly queer or just not making a thing about coming out, feels similar to being closeted. I told my therapist that I feel like people, including some lesbian friends, think that bisexuality is like, just a little queer or maybe “half straight.” I feel hella queer! But I feel self-conscious about claiming that in a visible way or even sharing that coming out has been a pretty significant life event. I feel like people think bi-identity is like a side-note/non-issue. I know I need to just call bullshit on that but it’s hard, especially with awkwardness of coming out late in life, and several friends saying they knew all along.

My closest friend, a radical queer person in her 50s, has been urging me to make my coming out process really about myself (reading books, looking inwards) and not so much about experiencing queerness in community or in more external ways. (This was in part because my partner was feeling inadequate and worried about me being in queer spaces; he has made a ton of progress there and is encouraging me to go to community events, etc.) My friend is like, this can be a part of you, and you’re still the same person and it doesn’t have to be a whole thing.

I’m out at work, with my parents, with random friends, but I’m pretty visible because of community work and social media presence, and it feels super awkward (but necessary) to come out in bigger spaces. Are people just going to eye-roll me when I come out as bi? (I feel like the queer label resonates more but “bi” helps make sense of my relationship with a straight person.)

How can I be my authentic self and explore queerness and queer joy, while navigating all the bi-erasure and biphobia that tells me my identity doesn’t really matter?

A:

Hello fellow bisexual and welcome to the queer fold! I am so thrilled for you that you found yourself and queer identity and that you are excited about living your hella queer life!

There are so, so many different ways to be queer, and to be bisexual specifically. For some people, it feels right to be, as you put it, “quietly bi” or queer, and some people, like you, really want to make a splash about coming out and put their queer identity front and centre in their lives. Neither approach is wrong, and of course there is a spectrum here between these two options. There’s also the possibility that you might move around on this scale at different times in your life. I know I have. Sometimes I go from being in your face queer to quietly bi in the span of a day!

One of the issues bi+ people face in terms of being out and loud and proud is that sometimes our partners don’t indicate our queerness to other people. This isn’t our fault, it’s just the result of living in a dominantly monosexual world where everyone’s orientations are assumed by outsiders based on the gender of their current partner. It happens to bi+ people in queer or same-sex relationships too, but some of us (me included) would at least rather be mistaken for gay than straight. But it still sucks to not feel like your true self isn’t being recognized as you move through the world, no matter what you’re being read as.

For queer/bi people like you and me, monosexism (the assumption that everyone is either straight or gay) and biphobia (hostility etc towards bi+ people) are unfortunate issues that we have to live with. I hear a lot of the effects of these shitty realities in the fears and worries you shared in your letter: “Are people just going to eye-roll me when I come out as bi?”, feeling “self-conscious about claiming that in a visible way or even sharing that coming out has been a pretty significant life event,” and worrying that others think “bi-identity is like a side-note/non-issue.”

I want to encourage you to follow your heart and do what feels right to you as the hella queer, queer enough, legitimately queer person that you are. We can’t get rid of biphobia and monosexism – I wish! – but we can work to do our best not to let them get us down too much. You can acknowledge that you have these fears and validate them while at the same time deciding to march gayly forward with coming out and being out as it feels good and affirming for you.

Only you can decide if and how you want to come out in bigger spaces, as you say, but let’s try to put you in a position where you’re making that decision not out of fear or perceived biphobia. And in terms of what words you use to announce yourself and your delightful queerness, there’s no reason you can’t share multiple identities / identifying words when you come out. Use queer and bi! Explain as explicitly as you want how you feel about the terms. You could even share that you are using bi because it helps make sense of your current relationship but that queer resonates more for you. I’m sure plenty of people will recognize their own feelings in yours.

You ask about “navigating all the bi-erasure and biphobia that tells me my identity doesn’t really matter.” In other words, how to go gayly forward as I just recommended. You do this by building bi+ community and by integrating yourself in bi positive queer spaces like Autostraddle. You can’t control other people’s reactions to your coming out (or to anything else for that matter). But you can create for yourself a network of people who unequivocally support your bisexuality/queerness and who understand the specific joys and challenges we face.

Are there any bi groups to join where you live? Do you have any bi+ friends you could reach out to and form a group of your own? I knew someone once who had bi brunches at their house regularly for all the bi+ people they knew. What about social media or apps to connect with local bi+ people for new friendships? Are there any queer organizations with bi projects you could volunteer for? Queer meetups to check out? Bars can be great, but other venues I think can be more fruitful for making deeper connections.

Who knows, in your new efforts at being loud and proud as a bi/queer person, you might urge some of those quietly bi people to be a little louder sometimes, if it feels right and safe to them. You might become a role model for younger bi+ people who need to see a bi adult thriving. You might help other closeted older folks who are shy about coming out as bi and who don’t feel queer enough.

You mention your close queer friend who is urging you to come out and discover yourself in one way, by looking inwards. It might be that was the best way for them or they may be suggesting that because they think it will be the best fit for you. But a friend should ultimately be supporting you in deciding how you want to come into your queerness and be a queer person in the world, not telling you how you should do it. No, coming out doesn’t have to be a whole thing, but it certainly can if you want it to be! And there’s no reason that you can’t both look inwards and do some reading (I have suggestions below!) and participate in external queer community.

Also, re: some of your lesbian friends saying bisexuality is like “half straight”: not cool! It’s up to you whether you want to take on educating these friends on misconceptions about bisexuality or not. But I would encourage you to seek out queer friends, whether they’re fellow bi+ people or not, who don’t think like this and who accept you for the particular flavor of queer that you are, no less or more queer than anyone else in the community.

As Autostraddle’s resident lesbrarian I can’t help closing my advice with some bi+ books recommendations. These are (mostly nonfiction) books that will hopefully both help you make sense of yourself and arm you when you (sadly) inevitably encounter people who don’t accept your queerness at face value. I hope they also make you excited about bi+ activism and community. Check these out:

Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much by Jen Winston

Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner

The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (a romance with great representation of a newly out bi woman in her thirties!)

Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

People Change by Vivek Shraya

The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg

Tomboyland by Melissa Faliveno

Vow of Celibacy by Erin Judge (a slice of life novel about a bi fat woman in her 30s)

Much love and luck to you on your new queer journey!

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: What If I’m Lying to Myself About Being Queer?

Q:

Hi there. I’m sure you’ve received questions like this before, and you probably get a ton of asks, but I’d appreciate advice as I’m really struggling. For the past six years, I’ve been questioning my sexuality (I’m in my late 20s now). I grew up in a very conservative, sheltered environment, and I never knew I could even have a female partner; I only saw hetero couples, and assumed that to not be lonely I needed a male partner. But I was never much into dating or sex. Then, when I was 21, a therapist asked if I was gay, and I knew I wasn’t (sexually), but it made me research, and research, and wonder and wonder and wonder. I do believe I’m asexual, or at least don’t care to have sex, but it’s the attraction to women (romantic/sensual) that I’m concerned with.

I may have had strong feelings for two women before I realized I could be not-straight (it’s hard to tell if they were strong platonic feelings or romantic, but there was always an element of wanting to be somewhat exclusive) — possibly other nebulous feelings too, like staring at a girl I thought was really, really pretty and wanting to be near her — but it’s only after my therapist asked if I was gay that I started imagining being in a relationship with a woman. And I don’t know why, but I so, so want that. I have rarely imagined being with a man, certainly not touching a man except hugging/feeling protected, although I like men. But imagining being with a woman, touching a woman, is so wonderful. I’ve become obsessed with historical female pairs, Boston marriages, etc. I also developed a major crush on a woman I met about a year after realizing I could spend my life with a woman, and the desire to touch her is so strong. I’ve never felt anything like that with anyone before. (But she initiated the hug, and I am also touch starved, so maybe this just has to do with that?)

However, aesthetically/physically, I find higher numbers of men attractive than women, which complicates this. Like, on TV, I’ll find many more men cute than women. But I desire to have a relationship with a woman much more, at least right now. I wouldn’t mind being with a man, I don’t think; I’ve certainly had crushes on certain men, mostly intellectually, and I don’t hate the idea of being in a relationship with a man. But it pales in comparison to being with a woman. The main difference I’ve found is that I feel much more sensual with a woman I’m drawn to. With a man, I typically just want to look at him and have him touch me/protect me; with a woman, I want to touch her as well as have her touch me. I feel much more active and willing to take the initiative with a woman.

My question is, how do I know that I’m not just trying to convince myself I’m not-straight to be rebellious, or cool, or something? I’ve always had a tiny rebellious streak when it comes to societal norms, and I’m afraid I’m just trying to convince myself I’m something “different” because I’m sick of heterosexual romance everywhere I look. Not that I hate it all the time, but there’s something about same-sex relationships that excites me. Also, so many of my feelings for women have been in my head; what if this is just fantasy, and in the real world it’s not real? (Except it has been real, a few times. Just a few.)

How do I know I haven’t brainwashed myself into being bi, gay, or otherwise not-straight? Like I said, I do like men; I appreciate them intellectually and personally, and I like how male bodies look. But I don’t necessarily want to touch them. I could see myself with a man… but if I hadn’t tried with a woman first, I would definitely feel like I was missing something. And honestly, the idea of living with a woman forever, sharing a home, a bed, cuddling… is dreamy. A part of me thinks I might miss that, permanently, if I married a man.

Thoughts? Thanks so much!

Follow Up Message 1:

Hi there, I just wanted to clarify my question I submitted a few days ago about whether I’m gay/bi or not. My main concern is, if I never thought about being in a relationship with a woman until my therapist mentioned it, is it possible that she just “planted” the idea in my head (so to speak), and I became obsessed with it, but I’m really actually straight? If I am biromantic (or-sexual, or lesbian), wouldn’t I have figured it out myself without having someone give me the idea?

Also, the friend I have a crush on is married, so she’s unavailable.

Thank you!

Follow Up Message 2:

Hi — I want to clarify my post again, sorry. My therapist asked me if I was gay because of the way I was talking about an old friend I had been hanging out with, saying how cool she was, when I was hesitant to pursue a boy I had a crush on because I didn’t want to spend every weekend with him/didn’t want to lose my personal time (and I thought he didn’t like me romantically — looking back, he might have). When she asked if I would consider living with said friend, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. (We’ve grown apart now.) There were other things after that that made me wonder, too — seeing a former classmate and her girlfriend’s pictures, and without explanation just wanting that so badly for myself — to hold someone (a woman), to look at someone, to live with someone, like they were.

Follow Up Message 3:

A:

Hello dear friend! Let me just say this first: you are not alone.

I think it bears repeating: you are not alone.

You are not alone in having these kinds of conflicting and complicated feelings about queer desire and identity; you are not alone in wondering where your queerness comes from; you are not alone in asking if your queerness is “real,” or to put it another way, if you are queer enough. These feelings, I think, are actually quite common. Darcy wrote in a recent advice column about how the idea of not feeling queer enough is incredibly universal. So many of us have been where you are and so many of us still are!

I want to focus on your main question first: “How do I know I haven’t brainwashed myself into being bi, gay, or otherwise not-straight?” and as you clarified in your second letter “is it possible that [the therapist] just ‘planted’ the idea in my head (so to speak), and I became obsessed with it, but I’m really actually straight?”

If you’ve just spent a lot of time browsing Autostraddle, it can be easy to forget: we live, even in the 21st century, even in progressive cities, in a society deeply entrenched in heteronormativity and homophobia. It is impossible to avoid swimming in this disgusting soup. In the US right now we are seeing a huge backlash to the rights gained and cultural shifts for LGBTQ people (particularly trans folks). The idea that people are “brainwashed” into queer identities or that someone with authority “plants” the idea of being queer in people who would otherwise be straight, is right out of this backlash discourse. It is absolutely NOT your fault for thinking like this about queerness, but I wanted to point out that this way of thinking about queer identity is rooted in homophobia and heteronormativity, because I am suggesting we look at it from a queer perspective instead.

A few of us were discussing your question in the Autostraddle slack, and Nico pointed out that “often we need to encounter the idea that we could be gay in order to begin to accept that we are.” I couldn’t put it better myself so I wanted to quote them! (Allocis)heterosexuality is engrained in us from literally before we are born (fucking gender reveal parties!). It is VERY understandable that we need to be shown or told about options other than the dominant norms of sexuality in order to recognize that we ourselves are queer. How else are we to imagine otherwise when we’ve been told over and over heterosexuality is the only way?

When you really think about it, it’s astounding that despite the enormous pressure to conform to allocisheterosexuality, queer people continue to live their queer lives and flourish. (We rule, obviously). The idea that anyone who identifies as queer is “really straight” in the context of a heteronormative society is statistically nil. Logically, this is where the “born this way” rhetoric makes sense: why would anyone choose to be gay in a world that insists being gay is shameful and that heterosexuality is infinitely superior?

I want to push back on that logic a bit though, even if it is helpful to you. So what if you experience your queer identity and/or queer desire as a choice? Being queer is awesome, so great choice. And what does it mean to “be really actually straight”? Is there some essential being inside you that is eternally queer or straight? Some people experience their sexuality that way; others don’t. Neither way is better, despite the ubiquity of the “born this way” concept. Plenty of people truly know for long periods of their life that they’re straight, only to embrace queer identities in their later years. Some people question their sexuality, try out a queer identity or relationship, and end up identifying as heterosexual. The truth is that for some people sexual orientation remains static throughout their lives and for others it doesn’t.

If you don’t believe me, listen to queer lit icon Carmen Maria Machado, who wrote in her recent essay on Autostraddle:

“How little we know of ourselves at any moment; how distinctly human that is. There is such little grace given to the perfect messiness of desire. Even queers feel pressure to homogenize the experience into catchy slogans. The ‘born this way’ narrative, while politically expedient, has done untold damage to narratives of the queer experience, implying any number of horrible ideas: that you cannot move toward desire without some genetic component urging you to do so, that experimentation is inherently problematic, that you have to know your truest and deepest self to act on something. There were times in my adolescence where people asked me if I was gay and I said no, not out a sense of self-preservation but because I truly believed it to be so. You can be a stranger to yourself; you almost certainly will be, at some point or another. It is inevitable, as inevitable as the moment of rupture that sends you hurtling toward the self you were always going to be.”

Let those wise words wash over you for a minute. Letter writer, I hope you take comfort in Machado sharing with us that she too didn’t understand her own queerness at a certain time in her life! You wrote in your letter “I don’t know why, but I so, so want [a relationship with a woman].” Might I propose that the why is very simple: you are indeed queer! Whether or not you came to the realization all by yourself or by a fortunate suggestion by someone (or multiple someones!) in your life truly does not matter! Being queer is a wonderful gift you are lucky to have received. For what it’s worth, from a queer stranger on the internet: all of your descriptions of wanting to be with a woman, to touch her, to live together, and more — everything you wrote leaves me with zero doubts that you are “one of us” as the gals in A League of Their Own put it. Of course, only you can decide how you want to identify in the end.

To get into the specifics of your questions about desire for different genders: again, I repeat, you are not alone! It is quite common for bi+ people to have different experiences of desire when it comes to gender. Some bi+ people are equally romantically and sexually attracted to all genders. Some bi+ people are interested in sex with men, but relationships only with women and nonbinary people. Some bi+ people are aesthetically attracted to gender expressions they have no romantic or sexual interest in!

There are so many different types of attraction. You mention that “aesthetically/physically” you tend to find men more attractive than women. That’s cool! It doesn’t make you any less queer. Your descriptions of aching to be in a relationship with a woman sound very much like romantic attraction/desire to me. It might be that you’re aesthetically more into men and romantically more into women. This might shift over the course of your life, or it might not.

You mentioned that you think you’re probably ace. Ace communities have been pulling apart and naming different types of desire for decades. So often in allosexual contexts, different types of desire are conflated. Most allosexual people, even queers, assume that romantic and sexual attraction go hand in hand. But the lived experiences of aces shows that aesthetic, romantic, and sexual attraction do not have to align at all. These frameworks are really useful tools to understand own desire and identity for aces and non-aces alike!

If you haven’t already, I recommend doing some reading by and about ace identities and experiences. You can learn all about different types of attraction and how different aces experience their desire and identity. Ace by Angela Chen is an awesome place to start. Some other great book options:

How to Be Ace by Rebecca Burgess
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda J. Brown
A Quick and Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon and Will Hernandez
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Of course, don’t forget to check out Autostraddle’s asexuality content too!

Good luck friend and welcome to the queer community! We’re glad you’re here.

Editor’s Note:

As you know if you’re familiar with the You Need Help column, we typically run one (1) question every Tuesday with one (1) answer. However, sometimes a question appears in the Advice Box that causes the staff to discuss it emphatically for days and days, and in those cases we sometimes do something special, like our Valentine’s Day roundtable this year. Well, this LW wrote in the original question and then followed up with a total of five (5) clarifications, some of which we printed above, and we all felt so tender toward them that I decided I simply must publish a few more answers from our team. Casey did a fantastic job with her advice above, but sometimes more is more. I hope you’ll indulge me, as everyone really showed up exactly as themselves.

Christina: Oh babe this is actually so gay of you!

Yash: This precious bb. No straight girl needs four multiple-paragraph “clarifications,” pumpkin you’re GAY!

Nico: “I can’t seem to stop writing stories about wlw relationships.” is all I need to hear — it’s great to be gay, congratulations!!!

Dani: I’ve been out for almost 18 years and I still sometimes have the am I really gay?? thought. Then I see a woman and instantly become the Tex Avery wolf! All this to say welcome to the club!

Darcy: I absolutely remember this feeling. Am I crazy? Am I just making this up to complicate my life? The answer is, no, you’re not. You’re not making it up. It’s real, and it’s fine, and it’s gonna be amazing.

Himani: Oh dear friend, I really want you to know that I can relate so, so deeply to what you’re feeling. I am sometimes wary of overstating how strongly I empathize with some of the questions we get, but everything you’ve written has just really reminded me so, so strongly of my own long and on-going journey to come to terms with my queerness. But here I am, on this side of that journey. And maybe you’ll be on this side of it some day too, or maybe you won’t. Maybe, in fact truthfully, there aren’t separate sides here, but it’s just a winding path back and forth and back and forth as we uncover different parts of ourselves by living out different experiences. I, too, have been terrified of exploring possibilities with other women for fear of just being “curious” and hurting them. The irony of this harmful stereotype a lot of lesbians have about bisexual women is that it also hurts… a lot of lesbians, who don’t have a simple, straightforward, coming out story of always knowing they were gay but closeted. But sometimes, to repurpose an analogy I’ve used in my writing previously, we have deeply shut our hearts in a closet from ourselves, because that’s what we have been told to do or forced to do for one reason or another. Opening those doors can be very, very daunting, scary, and certainly confusing. The very first therapist I ever saw, in college, once observed that I never, ever talked about love unless I was talking about music. That was a door that was shut so, so tightly. The second therapist I saw, when I was shopping around for a therapist post-college, asked me if I was ever interested in women, and I never went back and, instead, went with the therapist who told me to just take risks and maybe try to pursue a guy I thought I was obsessed with. I, too, wondered if the idea of being queer had just been “planted” in my mind. Ultimately, you will make your own decisions and determinations. But as I always tell people, focus less on the labels and the “what will people say if I claim xyz” or “what will people think if I do xyz” and just follow wherever your heart, desires, and instincts lead you. Be honest with people along the way — your own confusion is no excuse for recklessly hurting others, either — but most of all, just be honest with yourself in whatever words feel good to you at any given moment in time. I’m sending you all my love and wishing you all the best.

Adrian: The incredible thing about being queer is that if you wanna be you just get to be! There is no governing body, no genetics scan, not even a social litmus test that can prove you are or aren’t. It’s just up to you! And while that can be totally intimidating, the good news is it is very evident from your words that you really really don’t want to be straight and so, congrats! You’re not! You’re one of us, and we already love you.

Laneia: Darling, sweet beautiful creature, please know that this entire situation — from the moment it first occurred to you that it could be a good idea to write into Autostraddle’s advice column, to this very morning when I read your fourth clarifying followup message — is gayer than anything that’s ever happened to me, including the time I sat crying in my best friend’s driveway because I couldn’t understand why I was so heartbroken over the fact that she’d been getting mani-pedis with her new coworkers, the time I told my then-husband that I was so jealous because he knew what it was like to go down on a woman and I never would, the time that same straight best friend told me a funny story about how she’d taught her college roommate how to masturbate for the first time and I downed my margarita slushie and immediately left her house so I could go home and masturbate, the time I left my husband and moved across the country to live with my girlfriend whom I met on the internet, the time I had a one-night stand with someone I met a Pride event and she made us vegan scrambled tofu for breakfast the next day, the time when Heather Hogan and I were still drinking whiskey at 2am and she called me a dyke and I cried and told her she was the only person who’d ever truly seen me for who I was, the time I got gay married and also gay divorced, the time my therapist wondered aloud if it might be possible that my girlfriend and I processed too much, and the entire 13 years I’ve spent working at this gay website. Bless you, I love you.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

The Coming Out Scenes We’ll Never Forget

Coming out stories are a backbone of queer storytelling. The nerves, the sweaty palms, the fear of what comes next. It’s also some of the moments that have most connected us to our favorite television and film characters. The reason we stuck with them (or their TV shows!) for so long — maybe even longer than some of their shows deserved it. The quotes that we repeat to ourselves in our quietest moments. Places of recognition, passed around as clips online even if we haven’t seen the movie. Scenes that wear out our YouTube queues.  Can anyone ever really forget Santana sitting down with her abuela?

So for this Coming Out Day, the Autostraddle TV Team came together to ask: What’s a coming out scene that you’ll never forget?

Kissing Jessica Stein

Drew Gregory

My favorite coming out scene isn’t a coming out at all. The queer character does not say, “I’m gay.” She doesn’t have to. She’s not able to and she doesn’t have to. Her mom just guesses. That terrible moment of suspense while you wait for the person’s response is spared. Her mom just gives her support.

I’m referring, of course, to the porch scene in Kissing Jessica Stein. Jessica (Jennifer Westfeldt) has ended her relationship with Helen (Heather Juergensen) because she’s too afraid to tell her family about her queerness. It just doesn’t fit in with her view of herself, in her plan. So far her mom (Tovah Feldshuh) has been portrayed as an annoying stereotypical Jewish mother. Jessica’s perfection is likely a product of her mother’s critique. But here her mother tells a story about how this perfectionism prevented Jessica from acting in a play as a child. She’s encouraging Jessica to let go of the self-critical nature she herself likely instilled. Finally, her mother says, “I think–” She stops to collect her emotions before continuing. “I think she’s a very nice girl.” Jessica turns to her mother in surprise — surprise at the knowledge, surprise at the embrace.

Tovah Feldsuh’s performance is unbelievable in these four minutes. She shows why she’s a legend. And she provides a queer audience with the ultimate fantasy: a world where we don’t have to come out — where we can just be seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLu3e5avnMM&t=150s&ab_channel=JeremyIsaac

Skins

Heather Hogan

Of all the coming out scenes I have watched and written about over the years, nothing is threaded in my memory like Emily Fitch coming out on Skins — first to her friends — JJ and Thomas — and then to her parents and twin sister, Katie.

Emily Fitch is this adorable little button of a human being, the counterpoint to Katie’s brashness, boldness, and rule-breaking. But something inside her snaps when she finally starts pursuing a relationship with Naomi, the girl she’s been crushing on since she first started developing crushes. They’ve kissed in a club, in a bouncy castle at a birthday party, down by the lake before jumping in. Emily blurts it out kind of broadly to JJ: “I like girls. I like sex with girls. Hard nipples, soft thighs. I like tits and fanny, you know?” And of course he passes right out, his head hitting the ground before she even gets out the word “nipples.” To Thomas, she simply sobs, “I’m gay,” to which he replies, “That’s fine. Should we get a cab? I don’t think this bus is coming.” But with her family, it’s all about Naomi: “Her name’s Naomi, she’s rather beautiful — so, I was nailing her.” That’s why she looks like a mess, makeup all over the place, hair going everywhichway. No, she wasn’t fighting. She was shagging. A girl. That belligerence is a kind of power for someone who’s been stuck inside her sister’s shadow her entire life, bulldozed by her parents, and I’ll never forget Kat Prescott’s voice purring it out with a kind of content fury.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Valerie Anne

The first person who comes to mind for me and this prompt is Alex Danvers from Supergirl, but the truth is I’ve already written about her. Like, so much. So instead I’m going to go with not my all-time favorite coming out journey, but my first favorite coming out story: Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because even though I would go to hell and back for Buffy Summers, the truth is, she wasn’t always the best friend to Willow. She would often get sucked up in some supernatural scheme and overlook her number two. But she always showed up when it mattered; sometimes a little late, but she always showed up.

In this moment, the moment that Willow was finally so overwhelmed by her complicated mess of feelings for Tara and Oz, she has to tell her best friend about them. And at first Buffy stammers a bit about it — after all, it’s not often she comes across a problem she can’t punch her way out of — but when she realizes her weirdness isn’t coming across as “I don’t want to fuck this important moment up” and Willow asks her if she’s freaked out, she snaps out of it and looks her best friend right in the eyes and says she’s not freaked, and she’s glad Willow told her. To borrow from what Hanna Marin said to Emily Fields when SHE came out, whether she’s Willow dating Oz or Willow dating Tara doesn’t matter. Buffy loves WILLOW. Just the way she is.

The Haunting of Hill House

Valerie Anne

I love Theo Crain’s coming out moments in The Haunting of Hill House, maybe because the stories of the Crain siblings aren’t told chronologically, maybe because they were surprisingly light scenes in a dark, dark show. Maybe because Theo Crain is one of my all-time favorite characters. Theo doesn’t necessarily come out to the audience and her family at the same time, but sort of across time all at once. In the same episode, we see her flirting with a girl at a bar, getting a talk from her mother with some quiet understanding, and the wedding scene, aka the coming out scene that I love.

Theo is at her sister Nell’s wedding when she gets caught sleeping with a bridesmaid. Steve and Nell find her, and at first there’s tense eye contact, and there’s a little stumbling over words, but then when Theo finishes the sentence, “We didn’t know you were into…” with “Bridesmaids?” the three siblings laugh a relieved laugh. Nell blurts out, “I love you,” and throws her arms around her big sister. She finishes zipping Theo’s dress and hugs her one more time for good measure. A few episodes later, we see another flash of the wedding and Nell and Steve make a game of watching their sister Shirley to see how long it will take her to notice Theo dancing with a fellow bridesmaid in a way that makes it clear they are more than just gal pals. Theo’s coming out feels different to me than a lot of other comings-out; I like that it was shown but it wasn’t a big deal. Because sometimes it’s not. Sometimes families react with love and laughter. I think it’s good we have a wide range of different coming out stories on TV, and I’m glad this one had some weight to it but then immediately lifted that weight.

Stranger Things

Valerie Anne

My most recent favorite coming out scene was Robin on Stranger Things because her speech was perfect. It was rambling and awkward and sweet and it described exactly that feeling of watching your peers start to fawn over the cute boys in class as you enter teenhood but realizing you don’t want to date those boys, you want to BE those boys. Not in the literal sense, but in whatever way you have to so that girls would look at YOU that way.

I was in high school when the song “Sugar, We’re Goin Down: came out and the line, “Isn’t it messed up how I’m just dying to be him” still rattles around in my brain because of this very feeling. It’s tied to the line of Santana Lopez’s that will be forever etched on my soul because of how deeply I felt it: He’s just a stupid boy. It’s that lonely feeling of knowing you’re different, and that frustration that comes with seeing how easy it seems to be for everyone else. It’s watching your best friend’s boyfriend treat her like shit and knowing you’d be a better match but not being able to do anything about it. It’s perfectly written, and delivered expertly by Maya Hawke, and received surprisingly delightfully by Robin’s best bud Steve. Who promptly makes fun of her, because lovingly roasting people for their choice of crush is what friends are for.

Glee

Riese

When Santana Lopez came out in episode 215 of Glee, I didn’t see it coming, for all the same reasons I didn’t see it coming for myself, either. Because yes I made out with my hot blonde best friend in high school but my whole personality was an orbit of boys boys boys, of desperately seeking affirmation and reputation related to boys, of creating drama with girls about boys — and finding myself mostly confused that some girls couldn’t have emotionless, no-strings-attached heterosexual sex, which had always come easy to me. I also didn’t see it coming because I wasn’t prepared for Glee, an absurdist and completely unhinged delightfully-soundtracked and audaciously problemaitc high school variety show, to hit me in the heart like that.

I wrote this at the time but it seems like, where coming out stories are concerned, most girls saw a door. Maybe you’d gone in but kept it a secret, maybe you’d stood in front of it every afternoon debating entering. Maybe you kept opening and closing it, maybe your friends or family were blocking it. But some of us never even saw the door and nobody was blocking it but once it was open we fell straight in. A friend opened that door for me. I never, ever, ever in ten million years, would’ve opened it myself. When they’re all sitting in a “sacred sharing sexy circle” (I hate this show) led by Gweneth Paltrow playing Holly Holiday (of course) and she asks Brittany and Santana if they think they could be lesbians, she opens that door for Santana. Because she says it like it would be an okay thing to be, like it wouldn’t even be a big deal, like she could be gay and still be cool.

After Santana finished singing “Landslide” to Britany and we were all crying at a Glee episode and Brittany asked “Do you really feel that way?” and Santana nodded and they hugged — that was the first moment Glee felt real to me. And then Santana came out to Brittany, face to face, and said she wanted to be with her but she was afraid of the talks and the looks and what everyone would say behind their back. It’s hard to be proud and mean and sharp-tongued to admit that even if you know your friends will accept you, you still care what your enemies think about you, too. Because Santana was always afraid to feel anything real, with anyone, because wanting Brittany makes her more vulnerable than she’s ever been, and it’s terrifying.

I think a lot of fans related to Santana’s coming out story because she fell in love with her best friend, but that wasn’t the case for me. I think I related to it because of how your story can seem to be one way but ends up being something else altogether. Half her personality was being boy-crazy, you know?

I doubt that Santana was written from the jump with the intention to make her a lesbian, but sometimes that’s what a coming out journey feels like — like you’re in a show and the writers chose a new direction for your character mid-way through Season Two. You can still look back and find a way to make it all fit together, though. Stories and lives are fluid like that.

Glee

Carmen

Whenever I think of “coming out,” there will always be Santana Lopez. There will be her tear stained cheeks and the quiet in her voice, a voice that usually takes up the entire room. There will always be this: “I’ve tried so hard to push this feeling away and keep it locked inside but every day feels like a war. I walk around so mad at the world but I’m really just fighting with myself and I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m just too tired. I have to just be me.”

When I first saw the scene, it felt like someone had vacuumed air out of my lungs. In my apartment with the cheap Ikea furniture and walls I had badly painted myself, time stood still. I had been trying to figure out how to come out for… years? For what had felt like forever? But I never understood how to explain the ways I had tied myself into gut knots over my own secret. How I was so deep in my own closet, I didn’t see a way out. And no one was in there but me, right? No one was forcing me to make myself smaller, and yet here I was fighting every single day, tearing myself in two from the inside out, forcing up armor, trying so desperately to be perfect — as if being perfect would somehow mask my queerness. And I was exhausted.

I wept.

There’s a long road to my coming out, but there’s also a very direct and almost comically linear path. For years, I didn’t come out. For years, I choked on silence because I couldn’t say the words. Then Santana Lopez sat at her abuela’s kitchen table and said she was tired of fighting. That was eleven years ago, right before Thanksgiving. By Christmas break, I was out. Coming out changed everything. My friendships, my love, hell, this job that I now have. And it was as simple as that.

Master of None

Carmen

I talk a lot about my mom on this website, because when you’re the only daughter of a single mother… that’s a very specific kind of bond, I think. But there is a story I never tell — in part because I think if my mother knew I remembered it, knew how much it impacted me, she’d be ashamed. And in part because I don’t think she remembers it at all; it’s not reflective of all my other coming out stories, all the other times that she said or did the “right” thing. Maybe it’s unfair to bring back an off-handed comment from when I was 14 years old. It’s so small! It also never left.

One day, my freshman year in high school, we were driving some place that I do not remember to do a thing that does not matter. For reasons that I cannot explain, I felt a need to ask my mother “what would you do if I was gay?” It felt silly and light hearted — because first of all, I obviously wasn’t gay (I absolutely was) and second of all, because I knew my mother would accept me. She was very left and very sex positive, a feminist who wouldn’t ever use the word feminist but bought me a middle grade reader version of Our Bodies, Our Selves before I had my first period. Her best friend was a lesbian. This wasn’t a new concept. Plus, my mother’s whole deal has always been “I’d love you no matter what.”

Except this time, she didn’t say that. She said, “Well, I guess I’d be sad… It’s already so hard to be Black and be a woman. I don’t think any parent would want more hard things for their child.” And maybe that was true! It certainly makes sense. But then, I didn’t come out for another eleven years.

That’s a long story to get back to the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None‘s second season. But you see, almost verbatim, those are the exact words that Angela Bassett repeats when Lena Waithe’s Denise comes out to her. Also an only daughter of a single mother. “I just don’t want life to be hard for you. It is hard enough being a Black woman in this world. Now you want to add something else to that?”

I’ve never known what to do with that story. Just an ellipsis that haunts me, I suppose. I can imagine, as a parent, especially as a Black parent, wanting to protect your child. I also… yeah. Not all the coming out scenes that stay with us, stay with us for good reasons. Some just keep us up at night.

One Day at a Time

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Like a lot of people here, I’ve already written a lot about specific coming out scenes in film and television — some for characters already shouted out in this roundtable, like Alex Danvers and Santana Lopez. But I think these days if I had to choose just one coming out scene to revisit over and over again, it would be Elena Alvarez’s from One Day at a Time.

Elena reminds me a lot of myself in high school. I was very nerdy, passionate about the things I was into, vocal about social justice issues, a little cringe, earnest, intense. When Elena comes out to her mom in “Sex Talk,” it gets me every time. Because I never got to have that moment. I was never even close to out in high school, and I get a little absurdly jealous of the people who were able to be. I try not to project myself onto fictional characters as much as I did in my youth, but watching Elena come out, it’s impossible to not imagine my teenage self doing the same and wonder what that might have looked like for me.

Like Elena, I was so confident and outspoken about so many things, but I was a closed and locked box when it came to this, and Elena quietly, cautiously is able to open the box. It’s a lovely scene in its silences, in its well timed comedic breaks (“No wonder you saw those Twilight movies so many times.”), in the way it centers Elena’s emotions but still makes some room for Penelope, too. Because, yes, it should of course be about Elena, but she isn’t coming out to a stuffed animal. She’s coming out to someone who knows her deeply and who loves her. There’s empathy and emotional complexity afforded to both characters in this moment, and it’s easily my favorite daughter-mother coming out moment ever. I didn’t really come out to my own mother. She called me one day and asked “when are you going to tell me about the girl you’re dating?” and I was like “I guess now?????” In a lot of ways, that approach worked for us. By then, I was already 23, and I don’t know how much longer it may have taken me to put things as plainly to her as Elena does with Penelope. But sometimes I do like to imagine this alternate universe where I did things differently, where I had the courage and self-knowledge possessed by Elena.

You Need Help: I’m 49 and Questioning — Is It Too Late for Me?

Q:

I’m 49 and questioning. I’ve got a whole big hetero life and everything seems like a mess. Any choices/decisions I might make impact on so many people. I’m writing because I am largely on my own with this, with no queer friends.

I’ve agreed with my partner that I can date women to try and work out more about how I’m feeling. That’s going badly — the pool of ENM women of a similar age who are interested in someone with a neutral profile picture is minimal. One date that seemed to go well but nothing beyond.

If I knew what I wanted I think it would make it slightly easier to make difficult decisions. But right now I feel that I’m not moving forward, just further into not knowing and distress, the kind that is making it hard to function in all aspects of my life. I kind of know it will take time, but a big part of me feels like I’ve just left everything far too late. My bed’s already made…

A:

Dear Friend,

That’s such an unforgiving phrase, isn’t it? “You’ve made your bed. Now lie in it!” We hear it all the time, and I’ve never thought much about it before I read your letter. But here’s the thing about beds: we have to make them every single day. In both the literal and the figurative sense, making the bed is not a one-time action. It’s a series of choices we make, day in and day out, about how we want to live our lives. You’ve lived one way until recently. That way isn’t working any longer. It’s time to reevaluate how you make your bed. And I know it’s scary — change is scary! But on the other side of that fear? There’s going to be joy. Let’s talk about how you get there.

First, I’d like to tell you a little bit of my own experience. I came out at 30, after a decade in the closet. It sounds like an easy, one-time event, doesn’t it? Came out. But in reality, telling the people in my life that I was gay was, to lean on another metaphor, just the visible tip of a very loaded iceberg. Before I could embrace who I was, publicly and joyfully, there was just SO much work I had to do. It was the work of a lifetime, but once I realized that I had to face it head-on, it took me about a year to move through it to the point of coming out, living my life more freely, and dating. You’re not me, and your journey will look a little different. But here are some important things to keep in mind.

Therapy and introspective work will be important.

It’s wonderful that you’ve been able to talk about this with your partner. You are also going to need some external support, beyond what your partner can give you.

I know this word is thrown around a lot these days, but being closeted for an extended length of time is fairly traumatic. Burying pieces of yourself deep down where you can’t get at them does things to your sense of self, to your worldview, to how you conceptualize relationships. When I finally started the process of coming out, there was a lot that I had to face up to, and a lot that I had to learn. I had to grieve the years I’d lost. I had to learn to let down the high walls I’d built around myself so that no one (not even me) could know me in this very real and important way. And I had to learn to have compassion for myself, for the person I had been. Working through the ways you feel you’ve made a “mess” of things, how you feel you’ve “left everything too late,” developing genuine compassion for yourself — all of that will take time and work. It’s work you’ve already begun, but it’s very hard to do all on your own.

I did that work with the help of a queer therapist I found through my local LGBTQ+ center. If your city has such a center, they may offer low-cost/no-cost counseling services, and they will almost definitely offer support groups. If you’re not sure, googling your area + “LGBTQ center” will give you a place to start. You can also look on local community calendars for support and social groups, although fair warning, sometimes those aren’t updated regularly! (I once thought I was going to a support group for queer people and ended up at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. “I don’t belong here,” I said, and I’m certain none of them believed me. A story for another time!)

Whether or not there is a Center and community support in your area, I do think that it’s time to talk to a counselor, specifically one who is queer or queer-friendly. Depending on your insurance and circumstances, finding someone local may be difficult; you may need to go online. In this 2019 post for Them, Rosemary Donahue has a detailed list of sources to reach out to for queer-friendly counseling nationwide.

Let’s talk online dating.

I’m going to say something you may not agree with. If I’m wrong, you’ll know immediately, and that’s great! But here it is: I don’t think you’re ready to date. I say this as a person who fondly remembers her online dating profiles from before I came out, before I did the work. They always had the neutral profile pic; a pair of brown leather boots was one of my mainstays. I used a neutral pic because I was terrified of being seen, of being visibly queer, to anybody, even other queer people who were also dating online. There was so much fear coiled in my belly. I wanted to skip the work.

I even went on one blind date, at 21, a full nine years before I’d come out for real. The lead-up was terrifying, and then it was just… a flop. I felt so strange sitting in that restaurant. My walls were up. There was about as much chemistry as when I went to dinner with any one of my straight friends. I didn’t know what to say, how to let my guard down. I wasn’t ready, and afterwards, I felt so foolish. What had I been thinking? What was I playing at?

Of course, you’re not me. You say the date you went on seemed good, and that’s such a great first step! However you’re feeling about going on exploratory dates right now, I do think that posting a real profile picture will be important. I realize you’re married, and that posting on a dating site can feel very public. But when you’re able to post your own photo without fear, in a place where other queer women who are looking for dates can see it, you’ll know you’re in a more secure place, emotionally, about the idea of dating. AND you’ll get a lot more interest in your profile!

Community (and queer friendships) will be absolutely vital.

I’m so glad you’ve found Autostraddle to write in to. Pieces like this one from Laneia and this podcast episode with Riese helped me immensely as I was starting out. Online community was my go-to when I was closeted, and it became even more important after I started my coming-out journey. Years before I started writing for Autostraddle, I basically camped out in the comment section. It felt like a safe and anonymous space to be myself. I was able to read and learn and talk about complex queer concepts at a time when I still couldn’t say the word gay out loud in therapy.

That was how I dipped my toe into building a home for my new self, at a time when I was still afraid that I would be rejected and judged by the queer community for the things I so harshly judged in myself. For not knowing that I was queer earlier in my life. For having had boyfriends. For not being “brave” like the kids I knew who came out in high school.

Turns out, I was the only one judging. Once I was able to stop, my community — our community — opened fully. There was room for me here, and there is room for you! It’s important that you’re here. We’re so glad you’re here. I want you to truly know that, and to find the people who will celebrate that with you.

For me, community building looked like making friends online and then meeting them in person. It looked like going to social events and support groups at my local LGBTQ+ Center until I built some local friendships. Then there’s your day-to-day life: as you become more comfortable with your identity and start to guard it less closely, you’ll start to meet new people just out in the world! You may also learn that some of your existing friends or acquaintances are queer — we’re everywhere, after all.

Friend, you have not made a mess of your life. You’ve done your best, and now you’re entering a period of change. Your partner is supportive as you begin that journey. You have the whole rest of your life ahead of you, and the work will be hard, but the rewards will be worth it and wonderful. I promise.

Every day, we wake up and make our lives anew. What do you want your life to be today?

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: I Can’t Figure Out What I Should Wear and Who I Should Date

Q:

Something I’ve struggled with throughout my whole (not so grand) dating history is the fact that I can’t really place myself within the structure of lesbian dating. I’m physically hour glassed shaped, but feel uncomfortable with overtly feminine presentation, at the same time I’m not drawn to more masc presenting styles. I also fluctuate in type, all my past relationships have been with femme women (who I was very much attracted to), but my major crushes, that I didn’t gather the bravery to pursue, were mostly masc of center. I can’t figure out who I want to pursue, who I want to be, and how I want to present myself. I’m a little older and I still struggle with being “butch” enough to swipe on a hot fem girl, or “sweet enough” for a classic “top.” I’ve been told it should feel natural. People always talk about how as part of coming out you “dress/act as who you truly are,” but how do you proceed when every outfit feels like a costume and every date you go on a performance?

A:

I just let out a super long, emotional sigh. I can very deeply relate to the questions you’re asking yourself. Even though you would think that we as a queer community could have collectively come to the conclusion by now that specific dating stereotypes, like the idea that everyone must pair up in a butch-femme dynamic, don’t need to be followed, it often feels as though there is still only one specific formula to follow when it comes to queer dating and presentation, particularly when you don’t see yourself fitting into any box neatly. This becomes even more confusing when you factor in your relationship to your body, your personal style, and how you want to present yourself to future lovers. I’ve been told the “just be yourself” and “dress in what makes you comfortable” thing, but those questions always drive me crazy because I can never quite answer them; I don’t feel comfortable in femme clothes or super masc clothes, especially because I’m also hourglass shaped, which makes me feel high femme when I’m wearing anything femme of center, and a little dysmorphic when I’m trying to appear more butch. And then, there’s the question of who I want to attract; Should I dress more butch because I want a femme girl, or should I dress more femme to attract a soft butch? It’s at this moment when I attempt to pause my racing thoughts by staring in the mirror and recognizing that I’m operating from a place of assumptions about “what a queer couple should look like” that aren’t true, but knowing and feeling are two totally different things.

So what do we do when we can’t figure out how to feel like ourselves and we can’t even figure out who we’re attracted to? I’m on this journey with you, and while I wish I could wave a magic wand and give you super confidence and the perfect partner, we all know that even gay magic has its limits. I will share, however, a little part of my journey that may shed some light on finding identity within queer dating.

Over the past few years I’ve been hellbent on looking and feeling more butch and putting “top” energy into the world. I changed my whole wardrobe, switched who I was swiping on, and started being the aggressor in relationships. Similar to you, I felt like I was performing certain parts of who I was, or wanted to be but I didn’t really know why? Because of this, I always felt like my very real love of “softer” or “straighter” things like Disney princesses, musical theater, and Taylor Swift was too femme for my public dating personality, so I would hide it strategically. At first, I would just enter into dates and sexual encounters by asking the other person questions, but soon I found myself swerving frantically around topics like weddings, family, and emotions, sensing that in order to be the “cool” top, I needed to engage in emotionless sex, hate my family, and hate the institution of marriage. While all of these things are totally fine and great for other people, they are definitely not me. I’ve realized that I’m not actually happy with this aggressive persona I was trying to create because in all honesty, at the end of the day I’m still a head-in-the-clouds dreamer who wants to be proposed to at Disneyworld (I know, I know). This doesn’t mean I can’t be masc and love all of the things I love, but it made me realize that I should be the person who will attract someone I actually want to be with because they like the authentic me. To put it more simply, I don’t want to attract someone who only likes me because they think I have “cool” taste in music or because I told them I want to live off the grid just so I can sound impressive. Ultimately that would end in heartbreak for both of us.

So, I guess I have some questions for you. What do you want from dating apps? What do you want from dating? How do you want to feel about yourself when you look in the mirror: sexy, confident, cute, smart, all of the above? By naming what you want from a specific tool or outfit, it might give you clues as to how to feel more true to yourself. For example, if you’re using dating apps to find a long-term partner, it might be helpful to envision the mental and emotional qualities you want in a long term partner and how you imagine you’ll feel when you’re with that person. From there, you can navigate through people who have those traits. If you’re going out for a night and want to look hot as hell, think about the last time you felt hot, and then think about why. Was it because you were surrounded by your supportive friends? Or maybe because you had on really comfortable shoes that let you dance for longer? “Hot” doesn’t have to mean leather jacket, low cut shirt, or ripped jeans. When you name the feeling you want to have for the occasion you’re dressing for, I encourage you to notice things that feel familiar and good, and go from there.

It’s TOTALLY okay to feel sexy in a cut-off one day and then fly as hell in a dress the next. It’s okay not to cut your hair or wear lipstick. Even though it feels like these are simple reminders, I’m partially writing this to also remind myself that it’s okay! We don’t need to have one particular vibe, type, or style. Furthermore, it’s totally valid to present masc and be with someone masc presenting. It’s valid to present femme and be with someone femme presenting. It’s valid to be androgynous presenting and be with someone androgynous. When it comes to queerness, no rules apply! We don’t gatekeep! Go for the hot butch if you want! Even if you find it difficult to let go of labels and static dating roles, I would encourage you to just take the next step that feels right to you in this moment. You don’t have to have it all figured out now, next week, or next year. When the time comes to hit on someone, swipe on someone, be “yourself” on a date, or dress yourself, think in really small steps: what feels good right now? What should I say in this moment that is true to me? Don’t worry about what will feel good in 20 days — you can think about that then. Trust your intuition in all of the small steps and I guarantee you will lead yourself closer to a you that feels more authentic.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: Will I Ever Grow Out Of The Messy Questioning Phase?

Q:

Hello! I’m a 23-year-old woman who’s been questioning her sexuality for a few years now and I’m trying to figure out if I’m bi. I’ve had my dating app settings to all genders over the past year and I’m upfront in both my bio and on dates that I’m still questioning and mostly looking to casually date. I’ve gone on a few dates with non-binary folks but didn’t really click with anyone. Part of me wonders if I’m actually just straight; at the same time, every time I’ve decided I’m just hetero and attempted to only date men, I’ve eventually come to feel like I’m limiting myself and the full range of my sexuality. So, all of this is to say, did you figure out stuff later in life and if so, how did you get out of a messy questioning phase? And on the other hand, have you ever dated anyone who was unsure and turned out to be just straight? If so, what do you wish they had done differently to minimize the hurt they caused you?

A:

Hi! I want to tell you a story.

When I was 20, I kissed a girl for the first time. Or rather, she kissed me — we were sitting cross legged on a tiny dorm room bed in London, surrounded by friends and drinking red wine, flirting and flirting and flirting and flirting, and then one thing led to another and her lips were on my mouth and the entire room faded to black and all I could think was, oh my fucking god, I want to kiss this girl forever. Later that night she took me back to my room and fucked me on my own tiny dorm room bed. I fell in love with her, and she told our mutual friends that she was uninterested in being a tour guide for a confused straight girl and avoided me for the rest of the semester. I spent months pining for her, and at the same time, I wrote mean journal entries to myself every day, berating myself for being confused about my own sexuality, my own labels, my own desires. I had always thought I was straight and now I was fucked up in love with this girl and could not think about a single other human on the planet, but she was convinced I was straight and wasn’t that a fair point? There was no evidence to the contrary until her. I knew she had been lots of straight girls’ experiment, and many of them continued to identify as straight when they were done letting her kiss them. None of it was uncomplicated; it was fair for her to want to avoid me and whatever self-identity journey I was trying to go on, and it was fair for me to feel terrible that she wrote me off as a confused straight girl. Eventually I got over her and we became friendly. Eventually I fucked more girls and realized I was very queer. Eventually I forgave myself for not knowing every single thing there is to know about who and how I am at age 20. Eventually the girl and I processed everything and she apologized and I told her she didn’t need to but also I accepted her apology. Eventually I started writing for Autostraddle, essentially becoming a Professional Queer. Eventually I turned 33 (one week ago!) and woke up and realized I literally still learn new things about my own sexuality, my own labels, my own desires every single year I’m alive. I’m a different version of the girl who got kissed on that tiny dorm room bed in London, you know? I’m still me but I’m also changed. The messy questioning phase never ever ends. Thank goddess.

So what does all that mean for you? It means you don’t have to have anything figured out today, or tomorrow, or even ten years from now. It’s great if you’re bi and it’s okay if you’re not and you don’t have to decide today or actually ever. Casually dating is a great way to figure out what you like and what you don’t like, and I don’t just mean when it comes to sexuality and gender — casual dates allow you to learn which coffee shops are the easiest places to chat for an hour with a stranger, if you enjoy karaoke, when you find it appropriate to introduce someone new to your close friends, what your attachment style is like and if you want to work on it, all about different kinds of sex you may or may not already know about and may or may not realize you love or hate or feel extremely neutral toward… the list goes on and on. I don’t mean to be condescending, but since you specifically positioned your question as “did you figure out stuff later in life” it feels fair to remind you that 23 is so young! You have so many more years ahead of you to figure out so many things about yourself. There’s no rush. It will never stop being messy. That’s a good thing.

The other part of your question is really kind and considerate: how does this journey of the self you will be on for the rest of your days impact the people you want to date, fuck, and be in relationship with? That’s an excellent question that we should all be asking ourselves when we embark on new romantic adventures, no matter how casual or serious, but again, I want to give you permission to not center your uncertainty about your sexuality so much. That’s just one aspect about what’s going on for you. It sounds like you’re already being clear and upfront with your dates, and that’s really all you can do. It’s possible you will encounter people who don’t want to date you because you’re still figuring things out about yourself; it’s possible you will encounter people who are shitty and biphobic and won’t want to date you even if you’re 100% certain that you’re bi. Those people are not for you. That is okay. If you date a queer person or many queer people and ultimately decide you’re straight, that might be hurtful to them, but as long as you are clear and kind (which it sounds like you know how to do), that is simply part of dating, part of existing, part of life. Relationships and situationships don’t work out every day for millions of reasons. You figuring out your identity is one thing that may cause a relationship to end, but other things like differing sex drives, opposing politics, or simply no chemistry could just as likely be the culprit. I want to invite you to let yourself off the hook. You’re not responsible for making sure all your dates work out — that’s something you and your dates work on together. I know I keep saying it but that’s because it’s so true: as long as you’re honest, upfront, kind, and communicative, there is nothing more anyone can ask of you.

I have a feeling you were probably hoping for a more concrete answer, and I apologize that I went a slightly more existential route. I really do want to empathize with the inner turmoil and shame you can feel when you’re unsure of your own sexuality and desires, because I felt it too. No one was harder on me than I was when it came to trying to figure out my sexuality, and in retrospect, I wish I had been so much more gentle. Have I figured this stuff out later in life? I mean, I know I’m a dyke. But I learn new things about myself and my desires every day. I feel as though I am always becoming, and that thrills me. One of my older dyke friends who is in her seventies likes to tell me she finally stopped being naive at 65; that was when she really figured life out, she says. Can you imagine! According to her math, you have almost four decades ahead of you before you have to have anything figured out! What a gift. What a relief.

Go easy on yourself. Be honest with the people you date, fuck, love, befriend, exist with, etc. Accept the messy questioning phase. It’s the whole point of being alive.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

You Need Help: I’m Closeted, How Do I Get Everyone to Stop Asking If “I’ve Found a Man”?

Q:

I’ve never had anyone ask about my dating life, until recently. Over the past couple years, I’ve heard from family and coworkers, “Are you talking to a special guy?”, “When do you think you’ll get married?” and my dad who desperately wants me to meet a good man. I’m a closeted lesbian who has never been in a relationship. I don’t feel like it is anyone’s business about my personal life, but lately it seems people are very interested. I don’t know if it’s because I’ll be 40 in a few years or if they suspect I’m a lesbian or something else. I don’t feel comfortable or safe coming out to my family or at work. When I’m asked, I either just nod to please them or say, “I don’t know if I’ll ever get married” or “No, I’m not talking to any men” — the last two are directed to coworkers. Honestly, I’m tired, and I just don’t know what to do anymore. Do you have any advice for me, or should I just keep doing what I’m already doing?

A:

I’m really sorry you’re in this situation. You’re absolutely right: your personal life is nobody’s business, least of all your coworkers. I’m also sorry that you’re in a work and family situation where you aren’t safe coming out. I am not of the belief that “everyone should come out in order to live their best / truest lives,” but I do want to acknowledge how incredibly difficult it is to have so many areas in your life where coming out simply isn’t an option. By and large, my advice to you is to keep doing what you’re doing. Mostly, I’m here to offer you commiseration and encouragement, and perhaps a few additional suggestions that may or may not be useful depending on the specifics of your situation.

When it comes to navigating at work, this is one of the things I absolutely hate that has been ubiquitous across pretty much every job I’ve held. Except in the rare occasions where I am actually friends with my coworkers, it really feels like the default office small talk is centered around relationships, engagements, weddings, birth announcements — basically every heteronormative milestone you can think of. This used to drive me up the wall before the pandemic, when casual conversation with coworkers was a part of my day-to-day. It’s just such a narrow way to think about the trajectory of people’s lives and can be incredibly isolating and exclusionary. It also reduces everyone, including heterosexual couples and parents, down to their relationships and their children, as if there is nothing else to their lives. I just don’t see how this benefits anyone.

Honestly, what’s served me best at work is deflecting. There are so many parts of my life that I just don’t want to discuss with strangers that I make a point of leading conversations as much as I can. I know that some people find this off putting or rude, but, for the most part, when I am work, I talk work. If I’m in a meeting, I’m going to jump right into business and cut off as much chit chat about personal lives as I can get away with by saying things like, “I want to be mindful of people’s time, so I’m going to go ahead and get started,” or “I have a hard stop at [whenever the meeting ends] so if you don’t mind, why don’t we get started?”

For the coworkers I am actually on friendly terms with or if I’m in a one-on-one conversation where it’s a little harder to play the “respecting everyone’s schedule” card, I ask people about their weekends, their vacations, their kids, their pets, pretty much anything to keep them busy talking about their lives and spending less time pestering me about mine. Many people are more than happy to oblige, without even knowing it. And then, after we’ve talked about them for a while, I plead to the need to get back to work.

Obviously, these two approaches will only go so far. If coworkers are directly and pointedly asking you about your wedding trajectory or the men in your life, I think your current approach is a solid one. Keep reiterating the point that marriage and men are not for you, as you have been doing, and then pivot to asking the person about themselves. With enough repetition, I hope anyone with a shred of decency will take the hint. If someone really won’t let the topic go or insists on bringing it up, I think you can say politely but firmly, “You know, I’m just not really interested, and I don’t really want to talk about it.” And then end the conversation and walk away.

Family is a different beast when it comes to probing questions about marriage and partners, and my relationship with most of my family is fairly spare in the first place — so my suggestions on that front are, unfortunately, more limited and may not be applicable to you. At its core, my advice is basically the same: politely and firmly emphasize that you don’t want to talk about this. An effective way I’ve found for keeping this conversation to a minimum has been to make it clear that if all they want to talk to me about is men and marriage, then I simply won’t speak to them, plain and simple. (I have to admit, here, that this was largely accomplished with the support and efforts of my sisters, to whom I am out and with whom I’m very close.)

I understand that if you are actually close with your parents or other relatives, you probably won’t want to (essentially) threaten to cut them off. So another approach is to tell them explicitly about all the ways in which you’re happy with your life as it is and that you’re happy not being tethered down by a relationship and marriage. Give concrete examples of things that you like doing by yourself, that you can’t imagine doing with a partner in tow (regardless of the gender of the partner).

I want to say that when parents or relatives or even coworkers pry about relationships and marriage, they are doing it from the place of, “I just want you to be happy.” Or at a minimum, that’s the excuse they’ll give if pressed about why they’re bothering you about something that really and truly is none of their business. So cut to the chase and highlight the extent of your happiness not being in a relationship. But I will also add, that for me personally this approach is nearly impossible because I’m a terrible liar and I’m not exactly thrilled about the fact that I am and pretty much always have been single. This line of probing, especially when it’s coming from exactly the people who I cannot have an honest conversation with, really particularly feels like salt on an open wound.

Aloofness has become my friend. I’m not a particularly quiet person by nature, but I’ve learned, over time, that in work and family settings, I’d rather keep to myself than answer uncomfortable questions that I really don’t have an answer for. I mean honestly, even setting the sexuality aspect of this aside for a moment, what does someone expect a single person to say about why they aren’t married yet? I firmly believe that a not insignificant part of being in a relationship is about luck. There’s a substantial amount of serendipity that has to happen in order to meet someone you connect with in that way.

And what, exactly, is achieved by trying to wrestle from someone that they’re maybe not heterosexual? I’ve definitely been on the other side of this one before, as well, and it is just so frustrating. Even if someone means well, they don’t know what they might be stepping into — like my former boss who once implied I might adopt children, back when I myself hadn’t come to terms with my sexuality. Thanks, dude, really appreciate you outing me to myself before I even arrived on that on my own.

I really am sorry you’re faced with this and increasingly being bombarded with these questions. I hope you find some solace in knowing that you’re not alone and that your approach so far largely mirrors my own. I’d also love to hear from others in the comments with their suggestions or advice for this.

People can be such nosy gossips sometimes. I hope, for your sake, that with enough persistence on your part, some of these people at least will realize this isn’t their business and find something else to talk to you about.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

Happy Coming Out Day! All Disney Stars Are Gay Now, We Don’t Make the Rules

I was a big Disney Channel kid. Honestly, even now as I write this, I am listening to Olivia Rodrigo, so in many ways I am still a (gay) Disney Channel kid. And when I came out at the ripe old age of 20, I was embarrassed that while my queer peers had spent their teen years watching edgier, queerer content like Degrassi, South of Nowhere or even The L Word itself, I had been deeply invested in the unfolding drama between Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez taking place largely via YouTube and graphic tees.

We’ve talked about how instrumental the Disney Channel Original Movie was to our sexualities and which DCOMs are the gayest, but actual queer women are virtually nonexistent on the Disney Channel. (It’s only been in the last few years that someone came out or two boys kissed in live-action programming on the network). Queer women in Disney projects appear more frequently as animated characters: the first bisexual character on the Channel, but also as a split-second appearance of a couple in Finding Dory or a one-eyed cop.

But while the Disney Channel may not be known for its gay characters, one thing it is known for is launching the careers of some of today’s biggest stars. And not for nothing, a lot of those stars have turned out to be extremely queer! Luckily for today’s teens, more and more of these stars are coming out (or dispensing of the idea of “coming out” as any specific label) while they are on the Disney Channel, making it much easier to be a queer Disney kid these days — and maybe saving them from sharing my experience of being self-conscious at queer parties a decade from now.

Hayley Kiyoko

(Lemonade Mouth, Wizards of Waverly Place)

Right photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images

Despite having come out to her parents in the sixth grade and despite having truly one of the gayest haircuts ever seen on TV (and certainly the gayest haircut ever seen on the Disney Channel), Hayley Kiyoko was not, as far as I can tell, publicly out while on Disney Channel (she came out in 2016, in an essay about the Girls Like Girls video).

Before she was known as Lesbian Jesus, she was playing a troublemaking wizard (gay) in a small arc on Wizards of Waverly Place and played Stella, the lead guitarist (gay) in the titular band of the DCOM Lemonade Mouth.

Raven-Symoné

(That’s So Raven, Raven’s Home, The Cheetah Girls, Kim Possible, Zenon)

Right photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Smile Train

First let’s give it up for one of the hardest working homos on this list, because Raven was truly everywhere on this channel. Despite Raven herself coming out in 2013 and getting married last year, we recently learned that the character of Raven has not and never will identify as queer, not even in the reboot.

I find that just a little hard to believe because babes, the fashion on That’s So Raven? Setting aside the fact that it would absolutely destroy on TikTok right now, it’s all just so gay. The patterns, the textures, the accessories — a maximalist femme dream playing out before my 12-year-old eyes every week.

Miley Cyrus

(Hannah Montana)

Right photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for MC

Miley Cyrus was at the center of much Disney Channel celebrity gossip in my day, from her feud with Demi Lovato to her role as one of the founding members of the Jonas Brothers Ex-Girlfriend Club (many members of which appear on this list, just…saying…)

Though the gayest character on Hannah Montana, the show that made Miley mega-famous, was obviously Miley’s bff Lily (homegirl wore combat boots to the beach, like, as a standard), Miley herself came out as not heterosexual and then as pansexual in 2015, though she got an equality tattoo in 2012 (as is legally required of all good allies!). She’s been a culture vulture and made some deeply… questionable comments about sexuality, while also continuing to deliver gossip-worthy activity, like her parking lot kisses with noted Kristen-Stewart-ex Stella Maxwell and starring in this Kaitlynn Carter essay following their much-discussed yacht trip and subsequent breakup. As of last year, she seems to ID as “gay as fuck.”

Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato laughing together in 2020 just make believe in friendship again. ♥️ pic.twitter.com/5H4RSelxhp

— booooo (@milkshakee96) March 17, 2020

Demi Lovato

(Sonny with a Chance, Camp Rock)

Right photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Demi starred in Sonny With a Chance and, of course, ran vocal circles around The Jonas Brothers in Camp Rock, bringing the choppy bang mainstream in a spiritual predecessor to the shaggy cut that is currently in favor with white queers today! Despite playing Santana’s love interest on Glee in 2014, releasing the gayest song ever written “Cool for the Summer” in 2015, and making various comments about sexual fluidity and experimentation throughout the years, Lovato didn’t officially come out until 2017 as pansexual (thank you to Stef Schwartz for her intrepid reporting on this matter), and this year as non-binary.

Keke Palmer

(Jump In!)

Right photo by RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

The red-carpet host of this year’s Met Gala? The lead of Disney Channel Original Movie Jump In!? Sexually fluid and making the rules for herself? Baby, that’s Keke Palmer! Ultimately, Nickelodeon was the network that gave her a series (True Jackson, VP), but the DCOMs do not lie.

Lindsay Lohan

(Get a Clue)

Right photo by James Gourley/Getty Images

Another one and done DCOM star, Lindsay Lohan was the (impeccably dressed) lead in Get a Clue. I assume everyone knows that she dated Samantha Ronson, but her long and famous feud with Hilary Duff (over, of all people, Aaron Carter) has firmly entrenched her in The Extended Disney Channel Gay Chart!

Dove Cameron

(Liv & Maddie, Descendants Cinematic Universe)

Right photo by Gotham/GC Images

Dove made comments about being queer before her official coming out as bisexual on Instagram Live, which she discussed with Gay Magazine this year! She’s claimed that all of her Disney Channel characters (TV star Liv and overachieving basketball player Maddie – the twin sisters she played on her show, and Mal in the Descendants franchise) have been queer, and yes, she reads fanfiction of her and Sofia Carson’s characters in Descendants, Mal and Evie (the daughters of Disney villains Maleficent and The Evil Queen).

https://twitter.com/marcieinorbit/status/1443214104009838598?s=20

While Dove’s co-star Sofia Carson isn’t officially out, she also ships Malevie (though she prefers #Mevie) and thinks Janelle Monae in a rainbow dress is a “mood” to which I say, same.

Josie Totah

(Jessie, Liv & Maddie)

Photo via Josie Totah on Instagram

Josie Totah never led a Disney Channel show, but had arcs in both Jessie and Liv & Maddie and was on Glee, which you know is sort of in the same emotional universe as many Disney Channel shows (if we’re all being honest with ourselves!).

She came out in 2018, has appeared in the reboot of iCarly and the reboot of Saved by the Bell, both of which we also loved for making our childhoods even gayer, and is pretty consistently putting us to shame on Instagram.

Rowan Blanchard

(Girl Meets World)

Right photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/VF20/WireImag

Rowan Blanchard publicly came out as queer at the age of 14 while she was the star of her show, the updated-for-the-millennium reboot of Boy Meets World, making her, I think, the only lead of a show to be out while starring on the channel.

Bella Thorne

(Shake It Up)

Right photo by Marco Piraccini/Archivio Marco Piraccini/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

After leaving Shake It Up, the dance-themed show she starred in with Zendaya, Bella followed in the Miley Cyrus footsteps of quickly shedding her child star image and becoming mired in controversy. She came out as pansexual, very publicly dated (and shared a lot of post-breakup Twitter drama with) Tana Mongeau (and MOD SUN, a musician I simply refuse to know anything about), and pulled that OnlyFans stunt.

Alyson Stoner

(Camp Rock, Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Phineas & Ferb, Mike’s Super Short Show)

Right photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Alo Yoga

Perhaps better known for dancing in Missy Elliott music videos, Alyson has been in a whole host of Disney Channel projects, as well as the actual host of a weird interstitial show on Disney Channel called Mike’s Super Short Show. Honestly, many of her roles pinged queer for me, but she came out in 2018, then made this absolutely perfect shirt, and now has a gay ol’ time on TikTok.

When I tell you that I would happily and cheerfully sit through commercial breaks as a child hoping for Mike’s Super Short Show to come on, I hope you understand why. I finally do!

Julia Lester

(High School Musical: The Musical: The Series)

Right photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Julia Lester stars in the newest entry into the High School Musical franchise, and loves hanging out with this pansexual flag. (And though the show technically airs on Disney+, I’m counting her as a Disney Channel star because back in my day that was where High School Musical content aired!)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCEVplnAYbF/

Fellow HSM stars Joshua Bassett, Larry Saperstein, and cute IRL couple Joe Serafini and Frankie A. Rodriguez all identify under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, meaning the majority of the teen cast of that show identifies as queer, finally representing theater kids the way we should always be represented.

Mollee Gray

(Teen Beach Movie)

Right photo by Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage

The former cast member of Teen Beach Movie and contestant on So You Think You Can Dance (another of my high school obsessions) got married in 2017, and talked to The Advocate in 2019 about having to come out before she got married. Tangentially, SYTCYD contestants often end up on Dancing with the Stars these days, which this season of course features another former child-star JoJo Siwa in the show’s first-ever same-gender couple!

And Also!

The extremely talented Auli’i Cravalho, who voiced Moana, came out as bisexual! Casually, over TikTok, as the teens do.

I’d be remiss not to mention Selena Gomez (another noted Jonas Brother ex-girlfriend), who not only – as Mey Rude said in this round up of gay pop songs from 2017 — “plays gay real well” but who is also very close friends with Julia Michaels — close enough friends to kiss onstage, and get matching tattoos offstage. Kacey Musgraves wisely once said “follow your arrow wherever it points” and Selena says hers forever points to Julia’s? Hm.

At press time, Zendaya, wearer of incredible suits, is not officially out as any specific label, but we remain hopeful.

I Came Out to My Parents Using a Slide Show, And So Can You!

Sometimes, you have to come out to your parents with a Google Slides presentation. Well, it’s not that you have to come out to your parents or that you have to make a slide deck, but when you’ve been in the closet for so long it almost feels like you have to make a moment of the occasion. It did for me, at least. I needed something that reinforced my identity, meshed well with our communication styles and reminded them that I am still the same person… just with some additional perks.

Something like a decent but not over-the-top slide deck with basic animations and a default theme converted to a rainbow color scheme. (Graphic design is my passion!)

It began with a Google Calendar invite to both of my parents, though if you prefer iCal or Outlook I’m sure you could transpose this to any operating system.

Mom: Why did you call a family meeting with just me and your dad? Should I be worried?
Me: No, it’s fine but I can’t tell you what it’s about that defeats the purpose of the presentation.
Mom: Is this good news or bad news?
Me: I mean that kind of depends on you, tbh. So, uh, be in a good mood.

Naturally, I queued up “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross as the title flew onto the screen.

Upon stating my thesis, I outlined the assumptions I made of my audience, before diving into the foundation of my argument.

It was not surprising. Let’s just say once you start shaving parts of your head and bleaching and dying with reckless abandon, people begin to connect dots even if they don’t see the larger picture.

I came out to one sister over a phone call, before sending her a copy of the slide deck:

Me: Hey, you know I’m gay, right?
Her: I mean I assumed everyone is a little gay.
Me: No, I’m like Gay gay.
Her: Oh, hundred percent?
Me: Hundo P.

It turns out you can just start calling yourself gay; there isn’t a formal test. While taking online “How To Tell If You’re Gay” quizzes are a staple of the community, apparently all it takes to be A Lesbian is call yourself a lesbian. There isn’t even an initiation process where you must be invited in by a member in good standing, who knew?

I came out to my brother while he was putting Christmas decorations away into the attic:

Me: Hey, you know I’m gay, right?
Him: Yeah… I kind of figured… It’s in your TikTok bio.
Me: Yeah, that would give it away.
Him: There’s a lot of gay people on your For You Page.
Me: Yeah I was wondering if you would catch that.
Him: Yeah.
Me: Yeah.

I sent him the slide deck at a later time.

Note: Victory is the name of a conservative Christian school

Conveying tone is an important aspect of the written word. I elected to state my Coming Out as the obvious conclusion of a lifetime of sufficiently gay evidence, and assuming I was straight was an active choice by my parents to ignore the life experiences laid out before them.

I sat down with my other brother to catch up over dinner one night and Came Out before sharing the presentation.

Me: Hey, you know I’m gay, right?
Him: Fascinating… like bisexual or lesbian?
Me: Lesbian.
Him: How long have you known?
Me: OH let me show you the slide deck! You know, Dad bought me a bottle of wine.
Him: Am I supposed to get you a gift?
Me: I mean…
Him: No, wait here.

He returned with an unopened bottle of pink-lemonade vodka, “oh it’s even pink so it matches!” (He also gave me a machete: Allies take notes.)

Mom: Wait not all of your friends are gay, isn’t Rachel is marrying a man?
Me: Please hold all questions* until the end of the presentation, thank you.

The use of a slide deck kept the conversation focused on the important information.

I forgot about the last bullet point when I sent it to Victoria, and she was very concerned that she accidentally committed a homophobia, but I assured her this was not the case. It just felt homophobic at the time.

Dad: How is Curb Your Enthusiasm homophobic?
Me: Again all questions at the end of the presentation, thank you.

All good meetings have two inherent qualities: They wrap up within an hour and they have clearly articulated conclusions/actionable objectives. This meeting was no exception. Its closing reaffirmed that this was a net positive interaction for all involved and laid out the rules of engagement for future familial interactions.

I came out to one of my sisters as ambiguously queer a few years back, and she was forwarded this presentation by another sibling.

Her: I saw your slide deck and I have feedback. Would you like to hear it?
Me: Sure.
Her: You omitted several things from the presentation regarding the signs we should have known you were gay:
1. When you wore overalls in the family photos
2. When you told me you were bisexual in my own house
3. When you started playing Dungeons & Dragons, which is kind of a big one. (Note: my sister actively works to know as little as she can about D&D and has surmised with what scant information she has that it’s just very gay, which is correct.)
4. You never dated a guy in college once, in high school, or now

The initial presentation for my parents happened on a random Tuesday evening because I made the slide deck late the previous night. Nothing actively precipitated this event. No impending relationship, no major life changes. I had been thinking of it on and off for a while, and it didn’t seem worth the energy to hide a part of myself if I didn’t have to. Once I got the idea to make a slide deck, I realized I had to work quickly because if I invested more than about an hour in the whole presentation I would feel a responsibility to make it look better as someone with an undergraduate degree in making things look nice.

Got it done in a cool 45 minutes, like a professional.

Last but not least, I opened the floor to clearly and honestly respond to any questions they had about me or the LGBTQ community as a whole, since by coming out I had ordained myself an authority of all queer things, if just for that moment. (*This is also where I explained the concepts of bi- and pansexuality, non-binary genders, and other terms under the greater queer umbrella.)

Me: It’s not a big deal though, since gender is inherently performative anyway.
Mom: What does that even mean?
Me: That’s a whole nother slide deck. We can’t get into that today.

Queerness and “coming out” are very personal experiences, each of which is shaped by our individual understanding of gender and sexuality and the relationships with those around us. I approached coming out as many people approach their wedding day: something that is designated “for me” in name, but also a performance in service of my loved ones. It was right for me. Using a slide deck allowed me to take control of a potentially awkward conversation, clarify in straightforward terms what I anticipated from them and use the simultaneous absurdity and aggressively on-branded-ness of the presentation format to add humor to the situation.

My sister asked if I wanted to come out to her husband as well.

Me: “Oh, well if it’s important to have a one-on-one conversation I’m happy to do that, but you can just tell him if you want.”
Her: “Yeah, oh wait! I’ll just forward him the slide deck, if that’s okay?”

Honestly, it was more than okay. It was efficient.

Artist’s Statement

As the artist behind this piece, I recommend you view the original slide deck with animations. It adds a level of depth to the viewing experience. I used to make PowerPoint presentations for my Christmas list and added “proficiency with Microsoft Office” to the resume I made in Word before I was old enough to legally hold a job; this was nothing if not a natural extension of my preferred form of communication. It was fun to make, it was convenient and it was just self-aware enough to feel appropriate for me.

The myriad of situations in which one may find themselves coming out is as varied as the connections they have with each person they meet. I feel extremely fortunate that I could control the narrative with the most important people in my life and find acceptance at its conclusion. Not to mention that I could immediately follow the presentation with something along the lines of “If you want to be a good ally you should buy me rainbow cupcakes.” They did.

After the Q&A portion finished, my dad asked what I would have done if I thought they would have responded negatively.

In response I said, “Oh, I simply would not have come out to you.”

Am I A Lesbian? The Lesbian Masterdoc Is a Popular Source of Answers To This Elusive Question

Am I a lesbian? It’s a question queer women have been screaming into the void and/or pondering while lying in bed with their mediocre and/or very kind boyfriends for centuries. Now, they can simply type that question into their computer machine and at some point, almost certainly, they will land upon The Lesbian Masterdoc.

The 31-page booklet was introduced to the internet in January 2018 by 19-year-old blogger @cyberlesbian, who found the answer to “Am I a lesbian?” for herself and decided to spread the self-actualization. She initially shared “The Lesbian Masterdoc” on nascent queer platform tumblr,  where it quietly went viral, earning over 32k notes as of this writing. It now also exists independently of the tumblr post in a PDF. The Masterdoc remains a hot topic for questioning maybe-queers on Tiktok and other social media.

In 2020, the previously anonymous author of the Lesbian Masterdoc, Angali Luiz, spoke to Vice Magazine about the project as part of their series on queer inventiveness and DIY Culture. “I realised I loved women when I was a teenager, but I never quite knew if my attraction for men was real or a social construct I took in as a facet of my identity,” she told Vice. “I started researching compulsory heterosexuality and found that many lesbians had the same experiences I did. I created the document as a tool of self-reflection for myself and others.”

Part of the document’s widespread resonance may be that it does not address the “coming out obstacles” that have dominated discourse for decades: potential familial/social rejection and religion. When I was young, stories about closeted-to-themselves people were focused exclusively on those two dynamics, leading me to develop a very convoluted barrier to my own self actualization. My logic went thusly: because I lived in a liberal town with a progressive family but didn’t feel comfortable coming out, that must be because I was not gay. THIS WAS INCORRECT LOGIC.

The Lesbian Masterdoc’s primary focus is the social and internal obstacles known as compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity and the internalized homophobia that comes with that. It addresses people who’ve struggled to fit their feelings about men and women into socially acceptable boxes. The term “compulsory heterosexuality” was popularized by a 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Unlike its source material, the Masterdoc is refreshingly trans inclusive, speaking to trans people sorting through gender and sexuality feelings at the same time, including “signs” specific to trans women and non-binary people. (e.g., “Knowing you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian.”) The other deviation the Masterdoc takes from popular discourse is making space for people whose path to a lesbian identity is not “I was born this way” or “I’ve always known,” reminding readers that it’s okay if lesbianism is a choice, and not “always knowing” doesn’t mean you aren’t an actual lesbian.

The document certainly has its problems — there are several points made that don’t align with my understanding of the topic covered. But it’s generally a perceptive and compelling piece of writing.

Compulsory heterosexuality is the voice in my head that says I must really be het ​even when I’m in love with a woman.​ Compulsory heterosexuality is what forces lesbians to struggle through learning the difference between what you’ve been ​taught ​you want (being with men) and what you ​do ​want(being with women), which is why so many lesbians have dated men at some point.

Although the Lesbian Masterdoc seems geared towards folks who are straight or bisexual and think they might be lesbians, it has import for straight or bisexual women to confirm or discover their bisexuality, too — many of the sections here are relatable to any type of queer identification.

If you’ve perused the Lesbian Masterdoc and are looking for more resources and personal narratives that address its topics —  compulsory heterosexuality, internalized homophobia, coming out later in life, reconciling past relationships with men with your present identity, the intersection of other identities and your sexuality — then have we got some stuff for you! (These readings are mostly focused on lesbian narratives because that’s the focus of the masterdoc, but there’s some bi and queer stuff in here too.)

On reconciling past authentic relationships with boys / sexuality changing over time / figuring out a little later in life:

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About My Sexual Orientation And Were(n’t) Afraid To Ask: “I was scared, like maybe many of you are now, that in some unpredictable future I’d pick the wrong gender and then flee my husband/wife for another man/woman, leaving everybody’s soul shattered and, apparently, myself crying in a ravine wailing, “GOD! ‘QUEER’ WAS SUCH A COPOUT”!”

Our Willow, Ourselves: I know it’s popular to depict sexual orientation as something inherent and immutable – you’re born gay, or straight, or bisexual, and that’s what you’re stuck with forever – but I don’t think it’s that simple, at least not for everyone. Sometimes you meet the right person and suddenly everything is different. Sometimes you have choices, a multitude of paths you might explore, a plethora of relationships you might nurture or neglect.

Coming Out as An Amorphous Weirdo – “It wasn’t until I kissed the second girl that even my therapist at the time laughed at me and told me maybe it was time to accept that my sexuality was not as cut-and-dry as I’d always imagined.”

You Need Help: Coming Out In Your Mid/Late 20s: Trying to reconcile the person I thought I was for nearly 25 years with who I now realize myself to be has left me feeling like someone has taken one of those hand mixers to my insides.

Netflix Outed Me: I spent my pubescent years crushing after guys that wanted nothing to do with me (if they knew I existed at all) while going all Cruel Intentions on my girlfriends at sleepovers.

A+ Roundtable: Internalized Homophobia and Other Endearing Forms of Low-Key Self-Hatred – a roundtable featuring many people speaking on this topic!

I Didn’t Know How to Be Poor, Black, Biracial, AND Queer; So I Wasn’t: “I quieted the voice inside of me, convincing it that this was not a world in which it could survive. I had seen no examples of anyone like me, not in my life, not on tv, not in books, so rather than be the first of my kind, I decided not to exist.”

6 Bi+ People on Coming Into Their Bisexual Identity – a roundtable!

On coming out while in relationships with men:

How Do I Let Go of Feeling Guilty After Coming Out Late in Life? – I feel guilty for disrupting my parents and siblings’ lives with this bombshell and making them question their past behavior and feel bad. And I feel guilty for not allowing myself to live as myself for so many years. How can I let go of this old guilt and old sadness and open myself to new feelings and experiences?

How to Leave Your Husband (Because You’re a Lesbian) – Yes, I was miserable in my relationship(s), but I thought that everyone was miserable in their relationships. I’d been listening to women complain about their husbands or boyfriends — in real life and on television and in movies and magazines — for as long as I could remember. 

You Need Help: You Fell in Love With a Girl and It’s Exploding Your Whole Life – Am I pushing her back into the closet because I can’t openly be with her yet, until this is final and then until I can get enough courage to tell my family and ex? Am I creating a problem that will damage her and me in the long run?

You Need Help: Where Do I Go From Here? – I recently started therapy and I am realizing a lot of things about myself including the fact that my sexual orientation is probably a lot further to the left of the spectrum than I realized and this may be a factor in my depression.

On Questioning Your “Label”

You Need Help: What’s My Label?: “Am I a repressed lesbian, or just a bored (and exhausted) bisexual?”

Lesbian Visibility Day Roundtable: Carrying History, Worshipping Women, F*cking Up the Patriarchy: a roundtable to give all of our lesbian writers the chance to talk about why they’ve chosen “lesbian” for themselves and what it means to them to move through the world with that label. We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

You Need Help: How Do I Know If I’m Bisexual or a Lesbian and Find Community?: I’m very clearly not straight, and I find I’m far more attracted to femmes and trans folx, and even to some cis women. I’m not often attracted to people who present as cis males, and the idea of sex with a man grosses me out at the moment. I’m also not at all interested in another relationship with a man. Where do I fall on the spectrum? 

Labels: For Jelly Jars, For Lesbian and Bisexual People, Or For Both? (a roundtable with people of various orientations)

Feelings at the Intersection of Gender + Sexual Orientation

Everything is Subject to Change: “I think I was living in a world were my sexual orientation and identity were overshadowed by the hetero world I was surrounded by. There weren’t many places to have generative conversations around the expansive realm of queerness and all it encompasses. “

Mrs. Fletcher Wants Us All To Fuck: “When I finally started going through puberty – about two years after everyone else – I was overwhelmed with shame. It felt like my body would betray me at any minute. I realize now my fear of turning into a man was a natural part of my transness. But at the time I just connected it to immorality.”

When I Knew I Was a Boy – “When I went to college, I started to really struggle with my lack of a label that fit. I read Ellison’s Invisible Man and was pretty into stripping away the labels/expectations/identities that society and other people imposed on me and getting to my true core, and yet I was really lost and couldn’t quite get to that core.”

On Missing the Signs:

The 25 Gayest Things I Did When I Still Thought I Was Straight

Analyzing My Childhood Bedroom Posters As A Profoundly Gay Woman

Listicle Without Commentary: Puzzling References to Homosexuality From Journals Found in My Room While Packing to Move to San Francisco

14 Famous Queer Ladies Who Got Gayer a Little Later In Life

The “late-in life lesbian” narrative bucks a lot of assumptions people make about the coming out experience. The traditional lesbian narrative goes something like this: in girlhood, the protagonist encounters a series of “signs” that suggest homosexuality is afoot. The protagonist feels nothing for boys, and so many things for girls, usually culminating in a crush on a straight best friend during adolescence. Often, intolerant parents and friends will encourage the protagonist to be straight, thus repressing the protagonist’s desire. Usually by the time the protagonist graduates high school, the question isn’t if they wanted to live the life of a lez, but when they’d have the chance to start living the life of a lez. Even the coming out stories I knew in popular culture — Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, Melissa Etheridge — tended to be people who always knew, and often lived gay lives, but were careful about when they revealed that information to the public. My own journey just wasn’t that clear-cut, and I’m certainly not alone in that.

This list is about women who didn’t fall for another woman or realize they were queer until a little later in life — not women who were consciously in the closet for most of their lives.  It’s complicated to determine, with celebrities, who falls into this category, because they have an extra step that the rest of us don’t — there’s family, friends, work… and then the ENTIRE F*CKING WORLD. The list of celebrities who came out to the world as adults because they weren’t ready when they were younger is a very long one, including Robin Roberts, Jodie Foster, Joanna Johnson and Krissy McNichol.

This list is women who were over 35 by the time they not only came out to the ENTIRE F*CKING WORLD, but also by the time they came out to themselves or their family or even knew they were queer or liked women at all.

This post about famous women who came out to themselves and us over the age of 30 was originally published in 2014 and has been updated in 2021.

1. Jenna Lyons, Executive Creative Director of J. Crew

LOS ANGELES, CA. November 14, 2016: J.Crew president Jenna Lyons at the Glamour Magazine 2016 Women of the Year Awards at NeueHouse, Hollywood.

I was finding myself really attracted to this person, and yes, we had kissed, and maybe some other things had happened, but I wasn’t like, “Okay, I’m gay!” I was just as surprised as the world was. I still don’t know: Am I gay, am I bi? I don’t know if it really matters.

Former J.Crew President and Creative Director and current fashion icon / entrepreneur Jenna Lyons was married to Vincent Mazeau for nine years, and after their divorce, Lyons fell in love with Courtney Crangi, the sister and business partner of jewler Philip Crangi, and the relationship became public knowledge in 2011. In 2013, when Lyons was 44, she publicly acknowledged her relationship with Crangi in her Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year acceptance speech. They split in 2017.

2. Meredith Baxter, Actress

LOS ANGELES – APR 24: Meredith Baxter at The 42nd Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards Gala at the Universal Hilton Hotel on April 24, 2015 in Los Angeles, California

“I am a lesbian, and it was a later-in-life recognition. I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening. I never fought it because it was like, oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.”

Famous Family Ties actress Meredith Baxter came out to herself in 2002 (and to us in 2009, thus “joining a group of later-in-life lesbians“), after three marriages and a brief lesbian affair in 1996 that she didn’t take seriously at the time. She was married to Robert Lewis Bush, with whom she had two children, from 1966-1971, and then married David Birney in 1974, and had three children with him, including twins. They divorced in 1989. Her third marriage, to actor Michael Blodgett, spanned from 1995-2000. She began dating her now-partner, Nancy Locke, in 2005, and rumors began swirling about her sexuality after she appeared on a Sweet Cruise in November 2009. She told The Today Show that it was a same-sex relationship in 2002 that changed her everything: “It was that kind of awakening. I never fought it because it was like, oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.” She married Nancy Locke in 2013, and they’re still together.

3. Carlease Burke, Actress

LOS ANGELES – JAN 13: Carlease Burke at the NBCUniversal TCA Press Day Winter 2016 at the Langham Huntington Hotel on January 13, 2016 in Pasadena, CA (by Kathy Hutchins)

“I knew what a lesbian was, but there were no role models. I was raised in the black Baptist church, and there were gay guys who were choir directors, but they weren’t talked about. Deep down inside, I’d think that’s who I am, but I didn’t have the nerve to pursue that. All along I had lesbian and gay friends, but I couldn’t see myself going down that route due to fear. I started meeting more women while working as a comic, met a young lady in 1994 who caught my eye. It didn’t end up being a good relationship, but I grew up a lot … I started being more free and flirty in comedy clubs. From that moment on, it gave me a lot to talk about.”

Carleease Burke has been out for over two decades, but as a young person, she didn’t see herself pursuing a lesbian life. She got her first role, in a TV movie, in 1989, and has been working as an actress ever since. In 1994, she met a special lady, and thus at the age of 40, in her first relationship, she came out to her mother. She told AfterEllen in 2007 that she felt “25 in dyke years, because I came out so late.” Burke recently played Ms. Rose on Switched at Birth, you may also recognize her from In Her Shoes, Get Shorty, Shameless and pretty much every TV show, ever. Seriously, she has been in every single TV show ever.

4. Kelly McGillis, Actress

Kelly McGillis at the Los Angeles Premiere of “Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time” in Hollywood, California, United States on May 17, 2010.

“Life is a freaking journey, and it’s about growing and changing, and coming to terms with who and what you are, and loving who and what you are.”

Julliard graduate Kelly McGillis was an enormously successful actress in the ’80s, memorably starring opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun and playing leading roles in Witness and The Accused. She married a fellow Julliard student, Boyd Black, in 1979, but they divorced in 1981. She had two children with millionaire Fred Tillman, who she was married to from 1989-2002. They co-owned a bar in Key West where she met her eventual partner, Melanie Leis, in 2000. In 2009, she came out in an interview with SheWired, and her and Leis entered into a civil union in 2010 which was dissolved in 2011. McGillis now teaches acting in Asheville, North Carolina.

5. Cynthia Nixon, Actress

New York, NY – June 24, 2018: Christine Marinoni & Cynthia Nixon attend 49th annual New York pride parade along 7th avenue

“I never felt like there was an unconscious part of me around that woke up or that came out of the closet; there wasn’t a struggle, there wasn’t an attempt to suppress. I met this woman, I fell in love with her, and I’m a public figure.”

Actress / activist / politician Cynthia Nixon and her long-time partner, Danny Mozes, with whom she’d had two children, split up in 2003, and then Nixon met Christine Marinoni, a public-school advocate. Nixon fell in love, and then, around the same time her landmark television series Sex and the City was wrapping up, rumors began flying. They married in 2012.

7. Carol Leifer, Comedian, Writer & Actress

Carol Leifer at the 2012 Writers Guild Awards, Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, CA 02-19-12

I’m finding, especially with women, a couple of different kinds of gays. I’ve met people who say, “I knew I was gay my whole life, and I lived this lie, and then I finally came out.” My kind of gay is like the late-breaking-lesbian kind of gay. I mean, I was attracted to boys. My first crush was on Davy Jones. My kind of gay, meeting a woman and falling in love, is a different experience because it wasn’t anything about “Oh, I’ve always been gay and I’m breaking the chains.” The whole experience spun me around. I really thought this was going to be a fun fling, and I had no idea that it would become this finding my soul mate, the love-of-my-life sort of deal. It does make you feel reticent about talking about it at the beginning because you’re not sure if it’s real, if it’s going to stick.

Leifer only dated men until she met her now-partner, Lori Wolf, at the age of 40. In fact, Leifer quite famously dated Jerry Seinfeld before the show and was not only an inspiration for the character of Elaine, but eventually joined the show’s writing team. Leifer has been doing stand-up for decades, writes for The Academy Awards, and was involved in shoes including The Ellen Show and The Larry Sanders Show. She’s also written two books, When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win, in which she discusses her relationships, and How to Succeed In Business Without Really Crying.

8. Wanda Sykes, Comedian & Actress

LOS ANGELES – AUG 29: Wanda Sykes arrives at the 2010 Emmy Awards at Nokia Theater at LA Live on August 29, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA

“I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay. We are so together now and we all want the same thing and we shouldn’t have to settle for less.”

Wanda Sykes says she can trace back sneaking suspicions that she might be a total homo to childhood, but she repressed those emotions and didn’t start confronting them after her 1998 divorce from record producer Dave Hall, who she’d been married to for seven years. She came out to her parents at age 40 and four years later, in 2008, came out to the world at a same-sex marriage rally. She married her partner Alex, who she met in 2006, in 2008, before Prop 8 passed. They have two children.

9. Maria Bello, Actress

LOS ANGELES – OCT 14: Maria Bello arrives for the ELLE Women in Hollywood on October 14, 2019 in Westwood, CA

46-year old actress and activist Maria Bello had a soul-searching moment reading old journals in her garden, which she described for a New York Times‘ Modern Love column in December 2013, when she realized that her long-time best friend, Claire Munn, was somebody she could love romantically. “What had I been waiting for all of these years?” Bello wondered. “She is the person I like being with the most, the one with whom I am most myself.” Bello described her new “modern family” in “Modern Love” which included a close friendship with her ex, TV Executive Dan McDermott, who is the father of her son. In 2019, she got engaged to French chef Dominique Crenn, the only female chef in the U.S. to attain three Michelin stars.

10. Niecy Nash

LOS ANGELES – JUL 11: Niecy Nash at the Niecy Nash honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 11, 2018 in Los Angeles, CA

“I was not suppressing my sexuality my whole life. I love who I love. At one point in my life, I married twice and I love those people. And today I love this person. I’ve done everything I wanted to do on my own terms and my own way. So my choice now in a partner has nothing to do with who I’ve always been. It’s a matter of who I am in this moment.”

2020’s sole highlight was 49-year-old actress / comic / TV host Niecy Nash marrying Jessica Betts, who she’d been friends with since 2015, when she was still married to her now-ex Jay Tucker. About 4.5 years into their friendship, after her divorce from Tucker, they went out to eat crabs and she realized over shellfish that she had stronger feelings for Betts. “I loved her before I was in love with her because she is such a special human being. But we began to see each other in a way we never had before.” Nash has chosen not to label herself, but is proud to call Betts her hersband.

11. Elizabeth Gilbert

NEW YORK – JANUARY 05: Author Elizabeth Gilbert signing her book ‘Committed’ at Barnes&Noble bookstore on JANUARY 05, 2010 in New York City.

Novelist and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert came out on Facebook in 2016 at the age of 47, announcing that she was in love with and in a relationship with her best friend of 15 years, Rayya Ellis, having realized her feelings for Elias following Elias’s terminal cancer diagnosis. They had a commitment ceremony prior to Ellis’s passing in 2018.

12. Glennon Doyle

via Momastery

“…what if I demand freedom not because I was ‘born this way’ and ‘can’t help it’ but because I can do whatever I choose to do with my love and my body.”

Author and activist Glennon Doyle met soccer player Abby Wambach in November 2016 while Doyle was on a book tour, and still married to her now ex-husband, Craig. She and Wambach got together, shacked up and got married more or less immediately, and they’re still going strong!

13. Lauren Morelli

LOS ANGELES – APR 25: Samira Wiley, Lauren Morelli at the Premiere Of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” at Cinerama Dome ArcLight on April 25, 2017 in Los Angeles, CA

Despite “being 31 years old, having lived in extremely liberal cities for 13 years of my life and considering myself an educated individual,” screenwriter/director Lauren Morelli didn’t realize she was gay until her first season as a writer on Orange is the New Black. She recalls feeling like “if I was really gay, I would have known when I was younger. There was a prescribed narrative, and everything about my own story challenged the accepted one.” She is now happily married to our beloved Samira Wiley.

14. Stacy London

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 06: Stacy London attends the Launch Party of Sally Kohn’s new book ‘The Opposite Of Hate’ at Guggenheim Museum on April 6, 2018 in New York City.

In 2020, former “What Not to Wear” co-host and current “fashion maven” Stacy London announced that she is in a relationship with musician Cat Yezbak, and that it was her first serious relationship with a woman. “So I used to date men,” she said in her Instagram post about the relationship. “Now I date her. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. Happy New Year to each and every one of you.”

You Need Help: I Just Came Out, and I Feel Weird

Q:

I recently came out to my family and friends last week and ever since I’ve been feeling weird and confused about it. Is this normal? You always hear about how people feel free and weightless after they come out but I’m feeling the exact opposite.

A:

Coming out can be very weird and confusing! It’s common to hear stories about coming out instantly making people happy and confident, but in reality, it’s rarely that simple. There’s also the other side of the spectrum: stories about coming out that place folks in danger or lead to the end of a relationship with a friend or family member. The sort of in-betweeness that you’re feeling—not wholly good, not wholly bad—sometimes gets lost in coming out narratives.

I understand why queer spaces push the general narrative that coming out is this wonderful, freeing experience, but I also think it’s an incomplete and unfair look at how coming out really works. Coming out, as with most things in life, looks different for different people.

I think because of backlash against the idea that being gay is a choice, it sometimes gets lost that coming out IS a choice (or, at least, should be—many people are outed against their will). It’s a huge choice, and it also can seismically change the way we see ourselves and the way we’re seen by others. And that can be scary! Which is why I think a lot of the messaging avoids it. But I think we’re all doing ourselves a disservice by looking at coming out without any kind of nuance.

It would be lovely if coming out were not such a big deal, but in reality, we live in a patriarchal, heteronormative society where coming out is rarely straightforward. Even when it goes well, it’s still a shift. Coming out the first time means coming out over and over. Coming out isn’t a magic trick that makes us suddenly understand ourselves completely. And it doesn’t mean everyone else suddenly understands us perfectly either.

Even if your friends and family have been supportive, it’s still normal to feel this funk you’re in. Coming out requires vulnerability. It requires self-awareness. For me, it was both easier and harder than I ever imagined, and I know that doesn’t really make perfect sense, but it’s true!

It sounds like you’re used to hearing stories about people feeling free after they come out, so I suspect that’s contributing to the way you’re feeling. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy: Because you expect to feel different and better, when you don’t, you come down hard on yourself. I don’t think there’s any way to determine how we will feel about coming out until we’ve done it. Because again: Everyone is different!

But the whole “expectation vs. reality” thing and/or the whole “major life shift” thing might not be the only reasons you’re feeling this funk. So I encourage you to try to interrogate within to figure out what it could be stemming from. But while you’re doing that work, please hold in your heart the idea that there’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling. It’s even okay if you can’t quite pinpoint the source. Coming out can be hard—sometimes for reasons that aren’t super obvious. And I think recognizing that can help you to work through the feelings.

You Need Help: I Never Imagined I’d Live Past 20. Now What?

Q:

Hi! So during my teen years I have always been thinking about how being queer and different affected only my dating and social life, meaning I was fine waiting to have “normal teen milestones” until college. Only to have my freshman year come and go and I was still in the closet. I struggled with school for the first time ever, which was extremely hard for a former gifted child and high school valedictorian. On top of that, I never really cut ties with my toxic small town environment, returning there every week or so because my family acted really hurt and abandoned when I did not. My mental and physical health suffered because of the stress from school and being closeted, so I decided to make some changes, which resulted with me finally coming out junior year.

The problem is, being out for a year, I now feel like a whole nother person? Like I finally realize what makes me happy and what I want to pursue. I feel so excited at the endless possibilities of life but at the same time I feel like it is too late for me to have the experiences I want to have but did not have as a college student and/or teen? I have yet to experience dating of any kind and my first kiss and I have no idea where to even start since everyone my age already seems to have a serious relationship. I am about to graduate with a very specialized degree that has absolute zero value to me despite the enormous amount of effort I put into it, since I only finished it because of pressure from my family. I desperately want to study something else but feel like that is impossible in the current economic situation and the crisis we are about to enter. Also, pursuing further education at the same time as working would probably result in me not having fun and finally getting all the “normal” experience in dating that I have been missing out on.

Basically, I feel like a teen again but since I finally cut ties with my family and have no backup and safety net, I cannot really act like one or it feels really irresponsible to. So, how do I do this weird thing called life without following mainstream societal plan of college-corporate job-marriage-mortage-house-babies that I have been fed my whole life? On the top of that, this whole thing sounds really silly because we are in the middle of an actual apocalypse and people are dying. But I guess these are the times that make us think about stuff like that. I hope you all are as safe as possible and thanks for creating content in this times!

A:

It’s not too late. It’s not too late to have a first kiss or a first love. It’s not too late to embark on a path toward a career that is meaningful to you. It’s not too late to surround yourself with people who will nurture you and push you and love you as you keep growing up.

Babe, I promise you’re right on time. In 2020 I can’t be sure of hardly anything, but I am sure that you are good. You belong right where you are, and you get to do the messy work of finding out what’s next. I know that the how is complicated, but I want to ground us in the basic truth that who you are is enough, and you possess everything you need to make your way through whatever is next.

Your subject line was “How do you do this thing if you never thought you would make it past 20?”, and I felt it in my guts. When I was 17, I did not imagine a ridiculous, beautiful queer life or much of anything else. I could only think in terms of career, marriage, and stability, as prescribed, but *I* wasn’t really in the vision. I came out as bisexual in my last semester of college, and like you I felt like I had missed everything. I had lost the chance to have a queer community or have a girlfriend or become a fixture on the sofa at the Gender and Sexuality Center on campus. I was also in the process of accepting that I didn’t want to pursue a career as a news journalist, which I had spent the previous 3.5 years preparing to do. I felt completely unmoored. I wondered if this beautiful self-revelation mattered.

Nothing could get me another chance to be out as queer in my teens and earliest 20s, but in the almost eight years since I did come out, I have gotten to live a queer adulthood that feels like nothing I ever could have imagined for myself when I was 17. So I say this with some confidence: you don’t have to redo your teen years. Instead, you get to live the years in front of you.

I don’t want to dismiss the choppy logistical and emotional waters before you, but I want to honor the hard work you’ve already done. You’ve come out and allowed yourself to experience longing. You’ve honored the way that you deserve to be treated and cut loose the people who can’t meet you there. You’ve realized what makes you happy! That alone is huge. Because you’ve already waded through so much, I have enormous faith that you will be able to embrace the challenges to come.

I can’t tell you whether you should seek another degree, but I bet you don’t have to do so in order to make a pivot into something that will better suit your interests and make you happier than the family-approved track you were on. Many jobs don’t require a specific degree, they just require a degree (which is often bullshit anyway, but it can only help you to have cleared that hurdle). If you are graduating in May, that means you have one semester left. In the coming spring and summer, I encourage you to do everything in your power to find a part time job, internship, or volunteer position that is related to a field that interests you more than what you’ve been studying. Take an elective course relevant to that field. Attend webinars or virtual networking events.

So many college seniors are reevaluating the things they took for granted about their futures, whether through self-discovery or due to the rapidly shifting economic realities of 2020. Now more than ever, no one will think it’s weird if you’re applying for jobs outside of what you majored in. Alternately, you can secure a job related to your degree, save money, explore your passions through other avenues, and reevaluate in a few years. Reading your letter, I get the sense that you feel like your world is shrinking. I hope that in the coming weeks and months, you will realize all the ways that the horizon is stretching out before you.

As far as dating and first kisses and love, if I had the answer I’d be rich. This, too, is more complicated now, though you can find some good pandemic dating and sex content on this very website here, here, here, and here, and honestly here’s the whole COVID-19 tag, my colleagues are geniuses so it is a gold mine. You are out of the closet, you are open to love, and you are exploring your own happiness — this is a pretty damn good start! I can’t promise the perfect relationship will fall into your lap, but I am certain that not everyone you know is already dating their monogamous and eternal life partner, not to mention all the possible loves of your life you haven’t even met yet.

Your questions aren’t silly, letter writer. You’re in the midst of internal and social upheaval, surviving a pandemic, and getting ready to graduate from college. Of course you are trying to figure out how to be a whole person. It sounds like the traditional, heteronormative capitalist roadmap isn’t the answer, so let it turn soggy in the gutter. You don’t need it. Keep asking questions, keep diving into this person you’re becoming, keep trusting what it feels like to be happy. That’s the whole thing, really. You’re doing great.

Everything Is Subject to Change…

For National Coming Out Day, we are celebrating the stories of perpetual and continuous coming out — the ways our identities keep shifting and changing as we grow and get to know ourselves even better.

When I think of my “coming out” story, it’s not a specific moment. Instead it has been the continuous exploration and unpacking of my identity in this world, so many pivotal times in my life. To name a few of what would be many queer revelations: there was the time when I stumbled upon a feeling when witnessing Eliza Dushku for the first time in The New Guy; the moment when I first felt those butterflies in my stomach when my high-school girl crush wanted to hang out — AND just lay together AND talk about nothing but music and her favorite movie, City of God. Then there was my experiences with QSA (Queer Straight Alliance) in college as a sophomore, and for the first time coming across other queer people, and feeling accepted while not having to perform a disingenuous facade. My experiences over the course of the last 10-15 years have all led up to and been a part of this continuous delving into and discovery of myself.

I made YouTube videos of Shane & Carmen from The L Word. I idolized Shane, and the only trans man in the series, Max. I wanted to mirror their everyday existence. I wanted to emulate their cool. I wanted the attraction that seemed to be dripping off of them. I wanted the clothes they wore, I wanted my jeans to have a hole in the crotch like theirs did. Along with their aesthetic & appearance, I adopted their thought patterns, their behaviors, the script on how I thought masculine lesbians (I identified as a lesbian woman during this time) are supposed to interact with other people, and their capacity to be emotionally available.

There was another level to my coming out. Learning how to communicate my needs, express my emotions, and learning how to hold space for other people’s desires. I’m cultivating new ways of processing thoughts, and discovering ways that allow me to heal. I’m learning to let go of the heteronormative guides on my masculinity, relationship roles, notions that monogamy and possession are the only way to true love, and how I’m choosing to express myself with style.

That last point, style, has been the most instrumental in my evolution. What’s shifted for me in relation to clothing has a lot to do with my perception of self. Allowing myself to see compassion, tenderness, love, strength, texture, sharp lines, boldness etc. I think there was a time when I only showed one dimension of my whole self. Basically anything I saw in GQ magazine. Showing power, protection and mystery can be beautiful things, and we should all accentuate those things on a daily basis. But I highlighted it through the lens of heteronormativity, and to me it felt vapid. I felt that if you’re a masculine woman, you assume the role of dominant. You can’t be soft or weak. To show show weakness means you’ve failed as a masc lesbian. When I loved those beliefs, it had to be reflected in my clothing.

Every time I went to bat for my masculinity, I neglected my femininity. Seeing masculinity as everything that embodied cis men (gay or straight). Femme expression as a queer non-binary person internally, & externally wasn’t something that I could identify with. I already had the blueprint in my mind of who I was, and how I was supposed to behave. I did a lot of thinking, very little feeling. Suppression being front & center. I believed that the closer to heteronormativity I could get, the better my life would be. I divorced myself from all aspects of femme expression. It became a foreign place that only existed on the bodies of my partners. I was the “man” in the relationship. And not “man” as in the man I saw for myself, but predetermined by roles and actions of cis men. Subconsciously, the feminine aspects of myself were screaming to be heard and given space to exist just as much as my masculinity. When I acknowledged them both, I let all of me live.

Subconsciously, the feminine aspects of myself were screaming to be heard and given space to exist just as much as my masculinity. When I acknowledged them both, I let all of me live.

I’ve come to realize that I will forever be in a state of learning and unlearning. I was 23 when I really took the time to understand what it meant to identify as a trans person in my community. I knew that I had very little comprehension around gender neutral identities, or what it meant to take control over how you wanted to see yourself in terms of pronouns. I think I was living in a world were my sexual orientation and identity were overshadowed by the hetero world I was surrounded by. There weren’t many places to have generative conversations around the expansive realm of queerness and all it encompasses. I felt limited in my everyday experiences. I wanted so much more than where I was in that chapter of my life. And yet I look back and realize that at the age of 23, life was just beginning for me. So I can go a little easy on myself.

At 24 I started doing drag. I bound my chest for the first time, went on stage at a Hamburger Marys and did a Tupac mix. I wore facial hair and felt so electric. I explored a lot about who I could be on stage. I explored ways to pack. At 25 I shaved my head bald. I fell in love with parts of myself I hid. I started T when I was 26. It was here that I really sat with myself to unravel the next layer of my identity. It was here that I figured that I could give myself permission to go deeper. Subconsciously I was moving away from the binary. I felt like I got to the next level of gender identity journey.

During this time I started working at the LA LGBT Center as a Youth Specialist for the R.I.S.E., and I honestly feel that played a part in my self discovery. I felt comfortable exploring and seeing all the possibilities for who I could be. Seeing other queer people and co-workers living their lives outside of the binary, was like I was resuscitated. I was jostled into the next portal of queer existence and I wasn’t going back.

I’m a Sagittarius (sun, moon, & mercury), so I’m usually in a state of curiosity and self discovery. I compare the excitement I feel now with how I felt when I walked into a thrift store in Brick Lane, and came across tops I never knew I could wear. I’m at a place where I’m comfortable exploring clothes that my 21 year old self wouldn’t dare wear in public. And it’s not to shame my 21 year old self. I did what was comfortable and true to me. The 31 year old self is bold enough to hold the hand of my former self and say, “We are gonna try this, look, and see where it takes us.” There’s a re-emergence of crop tops. A re-emergence of carrying hand bags, a re-emergence of large hoop earrings. A re-emergence of tenderness with myself & others. I make space for all of the sides of me again— and not just the one that I felt would protect me from the dangers of society.

This growth left some people behind. I left those who questioned my masculinity when it was paired with black leather mules. I left those who said you need to dress more “guy-like” to be liked. I left those who recoiled at the thought of me being in front of anyone with my ass up and back arched. I left them all. Once I did that, I entered this space where I could probe into this limitless universe of eclectic expression. It was as though I was being pulled towards the light! The light in which everything was possible. I’m seeing these possibilities more and more as I get older and I welcome it.

My partner arrived into my life at a time when I identified as a woman. I can remember moments in which I wanted to explore my pronouns, and I whispered to them and said “can you use he/him pronouns for me”? They looked at me with the sweetest eyes and endearingly said yes as they kissed me. This moment was beyond transformative. It signified this level of vulnerability I was once afraid to show, and express my needs as it related to my identity. I had the support to vocalize everything I had been cultivating over the last 15 years. It signified being in communion with someone who understood. It signified the arrival into a new world.

The community I involve myself with is liberating and forever explorative. We are rewriting the script individually, & collectively as we see fit. Which must include respect, support, and freedom to do, wear, and feel however you see fit. When we move with love of self, we can move with love for others. When we allow ourselves to say yes to all the parts of our being, we are truly evolving. If there is anything I’m coming out of, it’s the limits I placed on myself.

Everything is subject to change. Whenever, & however I see fit.

The Labyrinth Closet

For National Coming Out Day, we are celebrating the stories of perpetual and continuous coming out — the ways our identities keep shifting and changing as we grow and get to know ourselves even better.

Art by Féi Hernandez

To be Mexican, to be trans, to be an immigrant in the context of the United States is to come out of a labyrinthine closet, one with many doors to walk through — if you are modest — or walls to claw through, if you’re like me. Every day we discover our individual truth outside of imposed expectations, and allow ourselves to meet our edges or what’s beyond them, I present, we step closer to our liberation, individually and collectively.

To come out as Mexican or my case Chihuahuense is to come out of a national or regional identity and assume the blood you were made from. To be Mexican is to know your privileges, know how your white skin has served you. It is to know where your Native or Black blood comes from, not only the trans-Atlantic blood seeped in your bones through acclimation, revolutionary alliance, surrender, rape, or otherwise love that grants you access. To be a white-skinned Mexican is to come out as multi-racial, a mixed person largely tempered with colonial blue blood and Indigenous or Black blood, if there are truly any in your DNA. Your truth can set you free, but more importantly, set our trans queer Black and Indigenous people free.

When addressing coming out as a trans person, I can’t ignore having come out as an undocumented person (inherent in this statement: an immigrant — more specifically a childhood arrival, being classified as part of the .5 generation, in other words half-immigrant, only half-blamed for the decision my/our parents, regardless of what they were). I can’t ignore the ways in which I am part of a first generation to suffer and in the same suspiro have the capacity to experience joy within the context of the United States. I can’t ignore I came out as bi-sexual, gay, queer, then asexual, demisexual, then trans non-binary, then trans, then asexual again, then demisexual, then Mexican.

I have to come out as having been continuously stopped at the airport (for my Mexican passport and my criminal, bearded face), interrogated, but not for my white skin. I can’t ignore coming out as a green card holder despues, then a Citizen of the United States of America. My life could have been a room, housed within another room and so forth –– a fort of rooms around my heart, protected — in other words, hiding. As scared and alone as I was in understanding what, when, and who I was, I opened the first door of my labyrinthine closet, then opened the next, until I started kicking through the walls.

[As I write this essay I see yet another wild ghostly version of myself slipping through, out of closets I didn’t even know existed within me. In this case, it’s the closet of feeling legitimate enough to write about any of what I’ve written thus far.]

We’re always coming out. As an: anime fanatic, manga-collecting Pokémon plushie hoarder; as a giddy, youthful ray of sunshine and not just the dense, American Dream-deprived immigrant, prompted over-thinker — I realize I am more than any of these individual rooms at all times. Through this essay I’m coming out as a sort of acute observer, but without qualifications, such as those from an MFA writing program. I am a philosopher, an anthropologist, an existential mystic, an inquisitive sociologist who can only write from the slice of life from which I live, experience the world. The only true qualification is that I am one eager spirit exploring the existential meaning of true liberation, for all peoples, because this is my only truth, the only glow in the dark path out of my maze.

The only way I’ve found a piece of freedom is to come out — even if it meant risking my life every single day walking out of my house as a trans femme person, even at the expense of my whole Mexican family rejecting me because of violent machista cultural values (so grateful that I grew up in a matriarchal household), even at the expense of clocking my Pi’ma descendent grandmother for upholding anti-Black commentary, because unlike her siblings she inherited the confidence that beauty standards granted her in the city, once she moved from poverty — with her fair eyes and fair skin, but let’s not talk about the nose she couldn’t escape. It’s beautiful, to say the least.

Coming out requires an honesty meant for you, to liberate yourself and get closer to a collective truth. Which for me means claiming I — after so many years identified under the category of Person of Color, in part solidarity, in part finding a place as an undocumented Mexican person, as a queer person in the United States, who grew up in Inglewood — have to understand that our collective liberation requires I come out as a white-skinned (not ANGLO SAXON) Mexican, irrespective of my indigenous sacred antepasadas and irrespective of the Spanish colonial blood that define my creation. And by Mexican, I refer to the national culture/ ethnicity, and by Indigenous ancestors and colonizer Spanish blood I refer to the genetic makeup that makes me, which makes for my ambiguous racial disposition.

Coming out is addressing our privileges in that flight out the door, as much as it means spreading our wings wider. They do not exist independent of one another. So to surmise, I’m 46% Indigenous, descent to Native peoples in the geographical location known as the southwest United States + northern Mexico (Pi’ma and Tarhumara people) and the rest of me, mixed, long-forgotten, long-acculturated to a national identity of Mexicanidad: Spanish and Italian and Portuguese descendants (whom I’ve tracked to be gitanos, Gypsies) (whom we have absolutely no ties to whatsoever aside from the genes we inherited). I missed my fully, untempered Native grandmothers by a generation: my father’s grandmother who held her husband (a war-time nurse who rode alongside Pancho Villa) under a tree as he died during the revolution for independence in Chihuahua. And my maternal grandmother’s abuela who wouldn’t grant her permission into her home of mud near the river in the mountains of Madera because she was white, a mestiza.

I am trans, I have a womb although it bears no children. I am exploring polyamory, and am a huge fan of My Hero Academia. I am a sensitive person, yet simultaneously sensual and like to entice the world around me (you can blame it on my Taurus sun, or Venus in Aries). I am pensive and private, but also really funny and love being around people! I truly believe that every wall I clobber with a Harley Quinn-style sledgehammer I unleash a light to the world that is me. Our wings long for the expansive blue of the sky and we have to be okay with crushing anything in our way to come out, so that we can (with consent) help others (through spiritualemotionalfinacialphysical support or artessaysmusicetc.) break free and seize the present moment in REALNESS, not an arbitrary disguise, covering up our responsibility to ourselves and to our fellow humans on this planet.

The lie of my Mexicanidad, masked in my whiteness and national identity prepared me for the long life of constant coming out. It was by untangling every strand of my DNA, every cuento told to me of our (trans) antepasados, of violence, of migration within Mexico and the telenovela drama flare that landed us in the United States, did I understand where my queerness and it’s valiant strength and dedication to being free came from.

Everything we decide to do for ourselves, from our own volition, liberated from the strains of expectations, from the state, of all kinds, we come out as ourselves a little more and more each time. Borderless, wall-less futures require us to break them within ourselves. Require us to sit at the bottom of the ocean and breathe. The labyrinth closet will, with great work, one day exist as an ancient relic of the restraints that were handed to us at birth. In the new world, from where I write in an alternate plane, the only thing we will have to come out of and justify and love, is our birthing person.

Coming Out Roundtable: Like A Can Of Pringles, Once You Pop The Fun Don’t Stop

For National Coming Out Day, we are celebrating the stories of perpetual and continuous coming out — how our identities keep shifting and changing as we grow and get to know ourselves even better.

For many of us, the beauty of entering a queer identity is that it opens the door to a Vegas-style buffet of ways to learn how we can be even more ourselves — whether it’s about our genders and sexualities or how to move most comfortably in the world. For National Coming Out Day, our writers and editors discuss how we approach coming out and what it means to us, the kinds of coming outs we’ve had since the first time, and the ways our identities have shifted into the people we are today. You know we want your thoughts on this too!