i never considered myself as being LGBTQIA+ until well into my 20s.
my first exposure to queerness was an episode of the simpsons.
it was 2005 and it was a new episode on fox that was airing.
one of marge’s sisters (can’t remember which one) was lesbian
and was getting married. turned out, though, the woman she was
planning to get married to was a cross-dressing man. the reveal
was played relatively seriously, as far as i remember. i was eight
at the time, though, and didn’t really know what to think about this
new world i had been opened up to. the aughts went on, and i was
exposed to re examples of queerness in media, though being the
mid to late 2000s, not all of it was positive. “queer” was thrown around
as a punchline, people regularly said the f-slur with no reprecussions,
and it was still considered a gag for men to be revealed to dress up
like women. fastforward to the ‘10s, and people started to become
more accepting of gay people, though not entirely of queerness
as a whole. i briefly fell into the wrong crowd around the time
gamergate was a thing, and started reflexively hating people with
colourful hair and pronouns i’d never even considered before.
fortunately, i was able to free myself from that cesspit, and grew
back into a more considerate and empathic person towards the
LGBTQIA+ spectrum. the day i started thinking about whether i
was part of that umbrella was when a youtuber i’d been following
for many years, jaiden animations, came out as aro-ace, and it made
me question things about myself. i’d only had one girlfriend, and it didn’t
end up panning out. was i aromantic? i certainly still felt sexual attraction
to others, but nothing that i could describe as “romantic”. these feelings
ruminated inside of me until i started going to therapy for unrelated
reasons. my therapist provided me a pamphlet, and the information within
it awakened so many things inside of me. But of course, i kept it bottled up
within me except during my therapy sessions, because i was scared that my
family wouldn’t understand if i came out to them. But then trump won, again.
had a panic attack at work, scared of what would happen to me and the friends
i’d made in online spaces that were under the same umbrella as me. i came out
to my mother the next day. she didn’t completely understand that “queer” doesn’t
mean “gay man” anymore – she still sorta doesn’t – but she’s supportive of me,
along with my dad. i still worry about the future, but I know that i am not alone
in the oncoming storm.