Growing up I always felt different; I hardly ever felt like I belonged. As a child, I was hyper-aware of what was happening around me. Before I even had the vocabulary for it, I could see harmful systems like sexism, ableism, homophobia, and racism play out all around me- at school, on tv and on the playground. The rules of how people related to one another felt strange and didn’t add up for me. It felt like we were all cast as characters to act in this grand societal narrative, performing our hearts out to keep things just as they are, to maintain order and structure. From an early age I learned from my surroundings that it wasn’t safe to be different; that bad things happen to people who speak up too loudly; who challenge power; who don’t follow the rules.
I spent decades fitting into a mold, because it promised a possibility of security, opportunity, belonging. But this came at great expense to my health, and ironically, to my actual safety.
Healing and truth-telling have unfolded over many years, at first quietly, reconciling with myself. Coming out is permission that I no longer need to contort myself into the neurotypical and heterosexual expectations placed on me by other people. Coming out is not a moment in time, but a process of unlearning internalized ableism, sexism and biphobia. It’s a reimagining; a reframing; an ever-changing unfolding of my beautiful self.