Okay, so I wanted to share my coming out story here, even though I'm not fully out yet.. Meaning I'm open about my sexuality, but my gender identy remains mostly secret, apart from a few close friends and family, but anyway... Here we are. I've known about my sexuality for about a year and a half now, but it's only recently that people have found out about it. But I've never really felt that I was in the closet about that anyway, had anyone asked me, then I would've told them, but nobody did. And I never felt the need to tell anyone, because to me, homosexuality or bisexuality isn't abnormal. It would be considered strange for me to tell my friends or family that I'm straight, so I felt that telling them that I'm not would just be encouraging the idea that it wasn't normal. But then I got a girlfriend, and at first I was a little nervous about our relationship becoming public. However, it had quite the opposite effect that I thought it would. I expected to be bullied, or laughed at, called names, etc. but I realise I didn't care if that would happen. I love my girlfriend, and I am who I am, so I decided that I wouldn't let closed-minded or ignorant people get in the way of that. So our relationship became public, and I had prepared myself for the worst case scenario. But rather than the bullying I had expected, most people told me that they admired me for what I had done. Sure, people were shocked, I had some people in school that I'd never spoken to before come up to me and ask about my sexuality (which I found quite rude), and I could hear people whisper about me when they think I couldn't here. But there were far more positive things to my coming out experience than negative. I got a majority of people, even ones I barely considered friends, telling me that they were happy for me, that they admired me for what I'd done, how open I was, and also that they were there for me if I was getting any trouble, or of I needed someone to talk to, which was all great :icon_bigg But for me, I think the highlight of my 'coming out' was the effect it had on other people. After they'd seen that nobody at school really cared about my sexuality, two other boys in my year group came out as gay. And that made me so happy, to know that there were other people I knew, and am actually quite close to, who felt that they could be themselves, knowing nobody would bring them down for it. And whether it is the case or not, there's a part of me that likes to think I gave them the confirmation and courage they needed to come out of the closet (&&&)
this is fantastic! congratulations, it's great that you've been able to accept your sexuality at such a young age, and also come out! You're a very brave person, wish I was more like you! And it's great that you have had an impact on other people too, honestly you might have just changed their lives. :eusa_clap
