LGBT

Mary

Hi, I’m almost 16 and some time ago I came out to my good friend. After I told her I’m pretty sure that it’s not about “The Right Guy” he said that she loves me no matter what but she doesn’t agree with this. So I asked if she had any questions about me, but if I’m being honest I just wished that she would ask about anything, I just wantet to talk about it with someone, but she said that she has some gay friends so she doesn’t need any more information. Well you could say that her reaction was great,duh she said she loves me no matter what! But she also said that it would make her uncomftable if I would start talking about some girl that I like. I bet that every one who was oraz is going through any kind of comming out knows that this is reaction worse than saying she wouldnt want to know me anymore bc she’s still your friend but friends are supposed to talk at lest about most important things!So I told her this, but she her reaction was that we can still be good friends even tho we don’t talk about this one thing. And it would be ok if she wouldn’t talk about some guys that she likes, and I know that I can’t even talk to her about my girlfriend bc I just know it will be VERY akward. Idk I fell like I’m stuck bc I don’t want to bring IT up again. I feel like this all situation is unfair and yes I’m very confused about my sexuality but i’m sure about my feelings to my grilfriend and it makes me sick that I can’t talk about this to anyone. I hope you’re life is great and I wish you best ❤

Lucy

As a gay teenager, I haven’t been dreadfully conscious of the truth concerning my sexuality at school. It was something I thought that people should be mature enough to handle, and if they weren’t, then they weren’t worth my time. In hindsight, this approach was probably really really stupid. Within a few weeks of coming out, I got asked so, so many times about my body, my sexual attraction, everything. F*cking classmates asked me in the middle of maths lessons whether I really liked ‘sticking my fingers up other girls’; whether I was sure about my orientation, if I just hadn’t had a good dicking yet and that was why I was so ‘perverted’. A person I’d known for 3 years asked me if I was a boy now – because, in his mind, lesbians were transgender boys. A concept of girls liking girls seemed impossible to him, and he had the gall to ask me if my breasts were real (‘do lesbians have tits?’). These were fourteen-year-old boys asking me these questions. I was absolutely disgusted – and hurt. That hurts, it hurts so much, when people see you – a classmate that they should respect and just leave alone – as some false-nails porn fantasy, as some ‘bent queer’ who just hasn’t had the right cock in her yet. Couldn’t they just leave me alone? Every other day people would ask me about my sexuality like they had a right to be invested in who I was and wasn’t kissing. In other instances, people told me that feminism was all about female domination and that feminists were just trying to take over the world and subdue men. The notion that feminism was still necessary didn’t strike them despite the harassment and rape rates, the workplace discrimination statistics, all the other glaringly obvious things. Another time I got told that the only reason women were in lower job positions than men and there were fewer female executives/women in positions of power, was because women were naturally better at tending to children, and that it couldn’t be asked of the father to look after them as it would be too much of a burden on his manly, manly soul. Societal and ingrained prejudices and normalized discrimination did not seem a real and actual thing to him. Every time I confront someone on the way they treat women or LGBT+ people, they tell me I’m making a fuss over nothing, that women and men are equal now, that ‘societal prejudice’ is just made up. And every time I think about this, I feel angrier and angrier. Because I feel as if there’s nothing I can do. Some people will change their minds, but many never will and will die full of hate, racism, sexism, and homophobia. I cannot change the way they think. I cannot pick a fight with every other builder on a street corner who tells me – a fourteen-year-old – that I have nice tits, I cannot argue with every classmate who tells me ‘rape is just rough sex’ and that ‘it feels good after a while’. I, a schoolgirl, am utterly powerless against the people who would objectify me. I have this raging, hot anger inside me, I want people to apologise, to see that gender equality is more than the right to vote and equal pay (which, by the way? Still not a thing). I want rapists to go to jail, I want sexism to be explained clearly and explicitly to every primary school child so that they know that sexism is still real, I want boys (and girls!!) to understand from a young age that doing anything without your partner’s consent is wrong. I want this bullsh*t attitude of ‘female dominance’ to be discarded and for people to realize that they are scared of being emasculated. I want men to know that they can be raped too and that they shouldn’t buckle down and shut up about it. I want prostitutes and sex workers to be treated equally – working in the sex industry does NOT equal lesser rights as a human being. I want slut-shaming to not be a thing, I want lesbians to stop being seen as either a fetish or a warped thing of nature, I want gay men to stop being seen as either creepy ass-rapist pedophiles or feminine sluts. I want transgender people to stop being seen as perverts who are trying to spy on you in the bathroom, I want women of color to stop being fetishized. If I read this out to the boys at my school, there would be a divided reaction: many boys would leave laughing and joking about my hair, or how I shake when I’m nervous or snicker as they leave abusive notes in my locker, but secretly feeling ashamed and angry about themselves. A positively minuscule number would openly agree, and I can almost guarantee that they would have female friends or be part of the LGBT+ community, and would know either first-hand what it’s like to experience gender discrimination or have heard it from people they care about. And I know that most of the boys would leave, rolling their eyes at another feminist propaganda rant. Maybe this is a rant, and it definitely is feminist. But it’s not propaganda. I’m not trying to win over the gays and build an army of women. I’m asking men to take me seriously. I’m asking for more men to step in when girls get harassed, for more male classmates to stand up and defend gender equality, for more boys to stop being so scared of the word ‘gay’ being used as an insult and get a damn grip on their bullsh*t masculinity, and realise that most people will love them regardless of how they come dressed into school, how they talk, who they kiss, what they do in their spare time. And if they’ve found themselves friends that criticise them because of that – then they’re pretty sh*tty friends, if I do say so myself. People who put down their own friends in order to feel validated about what they do with their reproductive organs are assholes. I really diverged in the end… but I hope some of you can relate. This website is wonderful and brings so many women together.

Lily

There have been multiple instances on nights out with my friends where what I say to men who hit on me isn’t respected. Almost every time I’ve been hit on and I’ve told them I’m gay, they haven’t respected that – they’ve straight up ignored me sometimes. One time, immediately after I told a guy I was gay, he invited me back to his house to have sex with him. With my most recent incident of this him and all of his friends didn’t take me seriously, and I ended up being raped by the guy who had hit on me. It’s gotten to the point where saying I’m gay just doesn’t feel like a no, it doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t feel like I’m really saying anything. But the actual fact of the matter is that lesbians are so highly sexualised that we’re just presented as a challenge, that we secretly do want it. It makes me feel so sick and angry.

A.T.

My story is actually mostly a poem, but some context first: My college is a little weird in that there’s a collegiate program for high school students–from junior year, we can attend college courses and earn college credit while also fulfilling our high school graduation requirements without ever taking a high school class again. This means there are 15 and 16 year old girls in classrooms with grown men. Grown men, who do not even stop to consider the power imbalance at play there, despite knowing the age of these girls. Grown men who like to push boundaries. Grown men who think girls getting angry is funny. Grown men who like to touch you. We were working in groups. I joined one of the 16 year old girls’s group, because the teacher had paired her up with two men who were seriously lacking in the concepts of personal space and respect (I wasn’t much older, 17 at the time, but, well, I’m Butch lesbian–protecting is part of me). We got through the activity without incident, but near the end one of the men–a 23 year old–poked her sternum while he was making a point. She swatted his hand away and snapped at him to not touch her again. He grinned, reached out, and I stepped forward. This is where the poem picks up: “Leave her alone.” Too high, too sweet, not cold enough. Shoulders squared, back straight, stance wide, not big enough. Fists clenched, blood roaring, breath shaking, mind racing, not steady enough. Body bladed, elbows tucked in, posturing, stand between them. Face turned up, jaw set, sneering, don’t let him see you afraid. Muffled sound, red haze, trembling, protect her. He almost says something, doesn’t get the chance; The professor ends the activity. Everyone returns to their seats. She smiles, strained, skims her fingers across your sleeve. You won’t let it happen again. And it didn’t happen again. She was scared, almost crying, and I promised I’d intercept every time he tried to interact with her. And I did. She’s still 16. I’m 18 now. We don’t share classes anymore but she still smiles and squeezes my hand when we cross paths.

Hal

I’ve always been a pretty chubby girl. One time my uncle was talking to me about my college plans (when I was like 19), and it somehow turned into a conversation about life/marriage plans, in which he stated “for marriage, you’re gunna need to be financially ready…physically ready, too. So you know you should probably work on losing a bit of weight”. I’m 23 now and have discovered I’m asexual, but back then I had no idea. I wish I had, so I could have looked him straight in the eyes and said “I don’t need to be physically ready for anything. I have no plans on having sex anyway, and even if I did, I’d make sure not to marry an asshole like you who thinks weight/looks are the most important thing”. It would have been great to see him so uncomfortable from the mention of sex. My family is Muslim and that’s never a topic of discussion.