I grew up in a highly religious, homophobic environment. I found it incredibly difficult to love myself for a myriad of reasons; one of which was because I knew I wasn't straight. My Dad comes from a country where queer people get abused, arrested or killed; as their former president once vowed to "cut the head off of homosexuals" in the country and said that all gay people must leave the country within 24 hours. My Dad has always been a very kind and loving person, until the topic of queer people is brought up. My Mom comes from a Jehovah's Witness family, so there isn't any more acceptance on that side either. I still haven't found the courage to come out to my family.
Growing up, it seemed as though everyone around me was homophobic, so I was homophobic too because I hated myself and thought that I could never let anyone know about my sexuality. I wanted to be the perfect, religious, straight, masculine person my family expected me to be. However, I reached a breaking point in my early 20s where I felt like I couldn't spend my entire life pretending to be something I'm not.
I came out of the closet to my best friend in 2017 via text message. He thought I was joking, but I let him know I was serious and he was incredibly supportive. I almost cried after reading his positive texts, because we've been friends since Kindergarten and I spent many years being so afraid to come out; not just to him, but to anyone. He relayed the message to the rest of our friends, and I felt an insane amount of relief.
Following this, I started feeling the most amount of liberation I've ever felt. I had a boyfriend, I started wearing more feminine clothing and I no longer cared about wanting to be perceived as "masculine". I've identified as nonbinary since 2022, which has allowed me to feel even more liberation as I no longer feel the need to be confined to gender norms.
As I've previously stated though, I still haven't come out to my family and I truthfully don't think I will. Despite how much freedom I feel when I'm out and about, it's really demoralizing that I still feel the need to step back into the closet when I'm around my family. Words cannot describe how infuriating it is that billions of grown adults are still brainwashed by archaic social norms because they are too narrow-minded to think for themselves. I am sick of the fact that we have to defend our existence, but we need to continue doing it so that people in the future can live as freely as possible. Our existence is not political and it's not "demonic." Religion is not based in objectivity, it's an ideology based on mythical beliefs that don't need to be followed by everyone.
Our sexuality is not a choice, we are naturally queer and we don't need to hate ourselves just to make others more comfortable. Nobody deserves be discriminated against for something they can't control.