Did being LGBT affect your self-esteem?

greatly. i can honestly say that, after having joined EC and slowly come to terms with who i am, this personal journey of mine, i've never felt so comfortable in my own skin. i've never felt like this before, i'm almost not sure how to deal with it. i'm used to feeling awful, low, afraid of people getting to know me, disliking myself. it's affected me physically too i believe. i neglected my health for a long time (only now am i doing something about it). this is not to say that i hate being gay, or i blame it for my problems. ultimately, life experience and the way i deal with them has created my present being. but yeah i can relate to a lot of what you described there - small part of me, but it's had a big impact, like you say.

 

Being LGBT when I was 13 and 14 was very hard for me. I was scared of anyone learning about my secret, and I would also deny that I was gay to myself, whenever I checked out a guy, thought a guy was cute, or etc. I had this feeling that I had to act super macho all the time, so no one would think about me being gay, and I even had a girlfriend I had no feelings for, for over 6 months, plus another 2 months later on. I had a pretty low self-esteem, and let people get to me a lot. But over the last two years, when I have fully embraced my sexuality, and learned it is only a small part of me, I started feeling happier, more secure about myself, and didn't feel the need to cave into changing, based on what others thought about me. I guess you could say over the last few years that being gay has empowered me, in a way. I don't think I would be as caring or kind if I was not gay, and I wouldn't want to give my life up for anything.

 

I'm not too sure... my self esteem has never been particularly high, so while I'm sure being gay has not helped, I also wouldn't say it's been the leading contributor.

 

Pretty much your whole posy describes how I feel. I also have extremely low self esteem. I also tend to avoid friendships with guys because Im scared being gay would fuck that up.

 

Negatively. I made the mistake of telling my mom, and it's been nearly non-stop harassment over how I'm wrong.

 

Figuring out I was gay boosted my self esteem a good bit, although it took a while to work thru a lot of crap from my childhood (not related to my sexuality) to really get to the point of being really happy and confident in myself. But as far as it went, being gay was nothing but a positive.

Todd

 

I remember going thru this everyday. Till I told her its how it is, nothing will change by harassment. To say now. she seen me go thru bad straight relationship. now she accepts me and my partner because she sees how happy we are together. But she thumped the bible at me for years even kicked me out.

 

Yep. It made me want to try and be smarter than my brothers because if I can please my parents with having great academics, they won't think worst of me for coming out as liking guys. (I was wrong. I didn't even have to come out to see that they are as homophobic as Rick Santorum.) I still didn't end up too intelligent. I have trouble learning as quick as my friends and brother.

I still compare myself to all the smart people and 'hot' guys. You know, the ones you see in movies, on TV, and on YouTube. They are the ones that can get a boyfriend solely on their looks. I put so much money into beauty products, hair gels, and I've spent countless hours watching dumb fucking beauty gurus on YouTube to try and be 'hotter.' I guess I am pretty shitty in that regard. I did stop buying beauty products to try and make my face less mountain-y, but it's so bumpy because of this fucking djalkfsjfslkjfslfs. Keratosis Pilaris. T_T I hate it.

I do the same thing with smart people. Whenever I watch the science channel, they always introduce the name of the person speaking and his profession. "John Doe, astrophysicist, has been studying blah blah blah..."
My mind always drifts off to say, "This guy IS WAY TOO SMART for you to even associate yourself with. You are NOTHING compared to this guy. His work helps the world, yours are so menial and dumb." I do the same thing whenever I read a story or a poem from someone. I think, "Oh wow, this is so good! I bet I can try and write a poem like this."

I will sit there for hours and try to write a dumb poem, and it always ends up being the shittiest thing humanity has ever let me write on a piece of paper. The usually poem ends up in the garbage. I'll do the same with a story, but I'll save those for future reference. Not sure why I don't do the same with poems. I don't care, though. Then, I'll play some mind numbing video games to try and shut my mind off for a little while.

This really turned into more of a dumb rant about me. Meh.

I do that a lot, too. My worst trait is awkwardness.

 

Sadly, I think she'd have been more accepting had I been a lesbian instead of trans. Suffice to say, I get told that I'm "full of shit", that I'm making a mistake, and she goes absolute batshit crazy when I tell her I like being mistaken for a boy.

 

It's made life a lot more difficult for me, no doubt about that. Being openly transgender in high school, at work, and at home and with anyone who knows me well enough that they know my surname, I feel judgement everywhere. It's made environments I previously felt safe in, become nerve-wracking and hostile. I've lost friends, I've lost respect from some of my teachers, and my mother and other family members aren't coping well.

My self worth is becoming based upon my appearance and how much I "pass" now, so I have some security, enough to know that I won't be assaulted or verbally harassed. So, that takes a bit of a hit to my self confidence. I'd ideally like to be as non-binary as I possibly can be, but I get boxed into one of the two binary genders anyway, as an awkward woman, or a kind of failure of a man (I've been called both).

I've desperately tried to make up for the fact that I'm trans* by indulging in my hobbies or trying to keep my grades up, though I've never been the brightest nor the most linguistically inclined. I'm a stupid person, who is also trans, and that basically makes me worthless to society. Or so I feel.

Yeah, my self esteem is pretty shit with regards to gender. But I couldn't possibly imagine living my life by my assigned sex, so it's either this or complete and total depression. It'll get better for me one day. I think. At least I can appreciate being queer.

 

It wasn't easy at first because It was a secret . I was afraid people will find out and get nasty most of my mates were of the homophobic type .For me personally being gay has made me more aware of safety . but thats just me personally .

 

I don't think it affects on my self esteem so much. Although the attraction to women makes me feel shit about myself sometimes, I know the people that matter would accept me and I still think i'm a great person and love myself. The fact that i'm attracted to girls doesn't mean that i'm fucked up or something like that.. it's just hard for me to be so confused and to fully accept it

 

I guess it did. It stopped me form making long term friends and now I don't even want any...lol. being around people for too long makes me uncomfortable. I'm still trying be more social. On the other hand I did have more time for studies and after class studies, like drawing, singing, and acting classes so basically I did a lot of studying and I'm good at a lot. I don't continue to speak to people outside of classes because common interest is gone and I'm so use to being by myself.

Also learning to accept myself for me has giving me a huge confidence boost, on top of being a academically successful person. It has had its ups and downs.

 

Exactly. We always tend to think we are the ones with all the flaws and problems and that others don't have them.

 

When asked for three adjectives that describe me, I say sparky, analytical, and self-aware.
Before I realized that I was gay, I was trying to analyze my feelings for people, and things didn't line up. My emotions, especially in eighth grade when I had a brief relationship with s boy, were oddly shallow, and most of the time I felt nostalgic. Figuring out that I was gay made a lot of puzzle pieces in my mind fit together and finally make sense, and I got the bonus self-reflection time where I learned even more about myself. The coming out process has been similarly rewarding for me; so far I haven't gotten bad responses from anyone I came out to, even though a few were not exactly LGBT-friendly. I ended up getting a really thoughtful response from the boy with whom I had a relationship, someone who might not otherwise be accepting/understanding, but because he realized that it "wouldn't be fair to [me] to if [he] was negative about it" and that, though he's "slightly disappointed" I'm "better off this way". Coming from someone whom I had seen throw the word 'lesbian' out in a disgusted tone of voice, the whole note he wrote was pretty good. My really good friend Abby had to reshape some of her own values and beliefs to accept me. But she was willing to. It was a very affirming thing for me, that I have friends who are willing to change to accept me. Especially as a person who doesn't make friends easily in a normal school setting (my sparkiness in class and out scares people and alienates me from the masses ), it's nice to know that I have people who will stick by my side.

 

Accepting my bi' nature has boosted my self esteem. I'm my own person and not an extension of my mother. I don't hide behind a mask so much now. I'm more confident and honest.

 

I'm thinking that being gay may have made me more aware of safety issues because I
was afraid for my personal safety because I'm gay.

thats what I was getting at thanks:icon_wink