I Feel Most Full Of Pride When Lesbian Life Is Easy
It wasn’t always this way, but it feels nothing but good now
Pride, at least to me, is something that feels different over the years. In my teen years, I was semi-out of the closet and deeply unhappy. I wouldn’t say that I had any desire to be straight, it wasn’t that I wanted to change completely, more that I wished the world would change around me. It’s taken a long time since my school years under Section 28, but I can say for sure that as I’ve grown, the world has changed around me.
Shame and embarrassment
I say this with an awareness of my privilege — as a cisgender, white, lesbian, living in England, I know that I’m in quite a safe position where I am. Scary stuff still happens sometimes, stories hit the news that worry me, but I’m lucky enough to get by without much trouble in day-to-day life.
This is a big difference from high school, where I was bullied every day, often all day, for existing. I knew I was gay from the age of 13, and naturally, that was a very tricky process. In figuring things out, I did what most 13-year-olds do — I talked to my best friend about it. Unfortunately, she wasn’t really a ‘friend’, what I realize now is that she was a bully, but as an undiagnosed Autistic kid, I was not in a position to realize that. So she did what mean girls do, she told everyone she encountered and denied it any time I confronted her about it.
What followed is why I tend to describe myself as ‘gay’ rather than as a ‘lesbian’ — that word and its many variants were shouted at me endlessly, trailing behind me in every corridor and whispered in every classroom.
Freedom to be
College, and then university, were both fresh starts where no one cared about anyone’s sexuality. It gave me cultural whiplash but it was awesome to finally have a chance to learn how to be comfortable in my own skin. I joined an LGBTQ+ youth group, and then went on to volunteer at the same group years later, I became friends with a few more LGBTQ+ people, I met my fiancee, life, and living with pride, became easier.
For a long time, work was still a place where I was the only non-straight member of staff. I’ve had many different jobs in my adult life and in every one of them, I’d be the only one. The same went for my current job for almost a year, then by (my) pure chance, they hired some more LGBTQ+ people and more since — we’re now the majority! Now it’s completely normal to talk about LGBTQ+ issues at work, to make jokes, and to talk about our celebrity crushes in a way that feels natural and completely normal.
Pride as an adult: feeling at ease
I wish that my teenage self could have had a small peek into the future, back when I felt like I’d be alone forever and I would never truly find my people. If my young self could see me wearing shirts with slogans like ‘Sounds gay, I’m in!’ and ‘Girls, Gays, Theys’, my mind would be blown. I would have felt a lot happier about becoming an adult had I known what would be possible, what was coming my way.
So what pride feels like for me, is easy.
There’s no hint of embarrassment in me now — about my sexuality at least — just normality, ease. That’s what I wish for everyone in the community too.
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, My PRIDE Feels Like THIS.