As a little girl growing up in the massive, diverse state of New York, I knew that the people I could depend upon the most were the very people who helped raise me to become the person that I am today, that being my mother and my father. I felt lucky to have them by my side when I needed them the most, knowing how there were kids unfortunate enough to have parents who were unkind, unsupportive, or downright abusive and neglectful to their children. I was lucky enough to have grown up with parents that genuinely cared about me and wanted to see me succeed. They fed me well, taught me good manners, and they even bought me things to get me started on my newfound art career. My parents loved me and I knew I loved them just as much. I would be willing to do anything to show them that I loved them and I could only hope that they’d continue to love and support me no matter what I did. 

“I'm a good kid and I make them proud.” Is what I normally thought. 

I’d say I felt a trusting bond with them for years up until middle school, the worst years of my life, when adolescence and puberty had begun to hit and I started to experience the symptoms of what happens to a girl surrounded by other kids on their way to 13 and are somehow already setting themselves up in a romantic relationship with another boy or girl of the same age. I could sense that it was the well known middle school pressure to “grow up” that was why people were so eager to date someone at such a young age. That love always seemed purely insincere and fake, like an overrated circus act, doomed to failure, that I was forced to watch unfold before me in my role as the unspoken audience. There were rules against public displays of affection at school, but you could tell just who those people were from the way they hung around each other at lunch, arms wrapped around each other with one or the other pressing a head against their partner’s adolescent neck.

That jarring moment in eighth grade, surrounded in the crowded classrooms with noisy, obnoxious children, is where I realized that this was the time where I’d definitely be expected to hit things off with a guy that I would soon plan out my future with. I was hoping, practically begging, that someway or somehow I would find a guy who actually made me feel something that wasn’t repulsed or disappointed. Most boys around me couldn't be considered to be the best suitors with their odd behavior. From the way they would randomly begin to throw hands with each other in the hallways and the cafeteria, the instances where they would constantly joke around with each other by saying either slurs or discussing disgusting and profane topics, or just the fact that a large amount of them stunk of something moldy.

It took some time to figure things out, including a Valentine’s Day where I was unfortunately rejected by the one pleasant guy I met in the eighth grade. But from that experience, I began to ask myself the question:

 “Does it really matter whether or not I date a guy specifically?”

     After all, I think some of the girls in my class would make better dates than someone who tries to make people laugh with racist comments that fall flat on their face. And with that singular question alone, I had come to the conclusion that I was in fact one of the few, and possibly only, closeted bisexual girls in my school.

I had been exposed to queer people before in my lifetime when I was slightly younger, as it was what I once saw as nothing more than a set of funny gags that consisted of “two guys kissing on accident” or “girl marries other girl cause she doesn't like boys”. However, the more I learned about this specific group of people, the more I realized just how poorly treated they have been for centuries, not just in the United States but also in other parts of the world as well. Liking someone that's the same gender as you was seen as something of a sin or a crime depending on the beliefs of whoever you come across. For some, a man liking another man was a disgrace against the teachings of God, which could presumably mean that you're a terrible, evil person. Or perhaps people just saw you as broken or misguided. Humans aren't taught to like people who are the same gender as they are because the rampant heteronormity of society won't allow that. And people like that could either be sent to mental wards, conversion camps to force them to think the way everyone else does, or just have gay people be ostracized and killed on the spot.

I questioned myself some few days after accepting my newfound sexuality, “Is that what’s going to happen to me?” 

I had learned of the things that people in modern day America had done to LGBTQ people, specifically how straight parents had treated their own queer kids. And despite the fact that we’re at a point where the LGBTQ community is more valued in society and not seen as a federal crime, some things haven't changed. There are instances of queer kids being hated by their parents for attempting to come out to them about their identity. There's a potential chance of them being kicked out of their own homes or having their parents disown them just because of these things. Worse and worse situations can happen and my head could only drive itself mad with the thoughts I had from knowing about these circumstances. Could this ever happen to me?

“My parents love me, right?” I say to myself while I'm writing down another math problem in Algebra class.

“They don’t think that way, they're nice people. My parents aren't homophobic.”

I hold in my breath as my ears pick up the sound of another kid in my class say that word again. The derogatory gay one that starts with an “F” and ends with a “T”.

“They aren't like those people.” I say, “They’ll love me no matter what I am.”

To experiment, the first family member I ever told about my identity was my older sister, only one year away from me but we always tend to look to each other when no one else is around to help. We’d spent practically our whole lives together after all, and she seemed to be very accepting towards me no matter what I chose to do. I explained what it meant to her in the best way I could while we were sitting alongside each other on the soft comfort that was our living room couch. 

“I'm bi.” I said, “Not really gay, but also not really straight. I like girls, but I also like boys at the same time.”

Luckily enough, the response from her came out the way I had wanted it to. She asked no further questions about who, what, how, or why and simply just accepted it. She never managed to tell anyone or out me to my parents either, though she still liked to point to the brightly colored rainbow pride merchandise, the ones they sell in June for pride month, and remind me:

 “I know what you are.”

If anything, it felt comforting having someone who was a genuine ally by my side to accept me. There's something that's genuinely sweet about it, considering how hard it can be to find a straight ally in the school environment I was in at the time. From that experience, I could feel myself get much more confident with coming out to people I was close to. Though I wasn't ready to come out to my parents just yet, I managed to come out to some of my school friends, who didn't seem to mind too much and were fairly accepting, and even a cousin of mine who managed to understand and learn more about the lgbtq community than I had thought. For once in a long while, I was seen.

Soon came the late summers of 2019, roaring with excitement from everyone as it was finally time for us to make our way out of middle school and to the next, more important stage of our school lives. I never really moved anywhere as I would be staying in the same crowded, clampy school building I had spent the past 3 years of my life in, so things for me remained stagnant, nor had I expected any real change to occur. In the current lens I had, everything appeared the same to me, so I didn't actually expect the students, the teachers, or the environment itself to be different. The building itself seemed dull and brown after I graduated middle school, like a worn down jail cell with one singular window that lived under gray clouds. Except the cell that I imagined I would enter and live in for the next four years wouldn’t be just for me but for a whole crowd of hungry rats coming to tear me apart piece by piece if all I’d done is just breathe. That was what middle school taught me and I feared that if I had shown anybody just a small bit of what I was like or interested in, everything would be over. I was a colorful minority in the black eyed sea of the majority, and it would only be a matter of time before I was found out, thrown overboard, and drowned.

Walking into an algebra classroom at 8 AM wasn't very fun with every single person in the classroom appearing so deceiving under that warm, beaming lens that the lights tried to hide them under. The fear of letting out a word to people I didn't know was killing me. All that I could do was talk to myself and analyze everyone around me like a fly in a spider web.

“They see right through me, someone’s bound to say something to me any moment.”

I remember how I spent almost a month without talking to anyone from any of my classes. There were people I knew, but none that were ever properly acquainted with me that I felt confident to get close to. Things stayed the same until one particular day during one of my classes, where in an act of asserting myself for the first time in my life, I approached someone to try and start a new friendship with a boy in my English class. There was something about the demeanor of him, how he never really talked to anyone in any of our shared classes and the likeness of our interests splashed across our backpacks with a hoard of keychains and colorful pins. Somehow I could tell from the look of him that he was someone I would like from how much I stared at other people when they least expected it.

We started talking to each other regularly during classes, even spending lunch periods together where we had to run down the flooded hallways and into the cafeteria, holding our breath at the stench of low quality school meals that arose from chicken that was practically raw. I remember it was there, in that bustling little lunchroom that I learned something important about him. He had a secret too.

“I think you probably know this about me already, but I'm trans.” He said.

I picked my head up from my soda and looked at him in those pale colored eyes of his. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You’re trans?” I asked, “Transgender?”

“I thought you would've known by now. I haven’t fully transitioned yet, so most people would see me as a girl.”

Truth be told, I never saw him as a girl. His short, blonde hair and androgynous appearance never gave me a hint of femininity, even if his face looked softer and more rounded than the other guys in school. Despite that statement, I still saw him as a boy and nothing else. No matter what other people saw him as, to me he was simply a guy like all the rest. And I liked that.

“Well then... Nice  to know there's another ‘queer’ in this place.” I said. reply back.

I watch the edges of his mouth point up to the sky, seeing his eyes light up once I said that to him. I could tell he had been having that same glowing sensation I had back when I came out to my older sister. Getting to be accepted by someone for the first time. It felt even better than before, knowing I met someone who fully understood how it was to be an outcast in an open sea of hatred and prejudice. He gave me confidence I had never experienced before, and from that moment onward, I could tell we were going to be the best of friends.

My mom would meet him a couple days later on Halloween, not directly, but she became aware of his existence. We were on the sidewalk late into the night, making our way through the streets of a suburb that was already in the peak of autumn; dead leaves everywhere with orange lights scattered onto each house that we saw on the block. I was dressed all day in a brown lion costume with a pair of glasses and a hat. The entire day I was dressed like that, even in school where I fumbled around in a pajama onesie like the goofy, clown character that I was playing as.

During lunch, like usual, I hung out with my friend at our regular lunch table, complimenting each other on our costumes that we had spent day in and day out making. While I was dressed as a droopy lion, he was dressed as a kid from his favorite cartoon at the time, where the kid was trying to foil the plans of an egotistical, evil alien planning a nonexistent invasion. To capture the moment of us looking like absolute fools in our first year of highschool, I took it upon myself to get a picture of us together in our costumes. Later that night, my mother would see the picture for herself.

“Aw, you guys look so cute!” My mom said, “Who’s the little girl next to you?”

I gave her his name, but I quickly reminded her:

“He’s not a girl, he’s a boy. He’s trans.”

And I believe that one simple fact about him would be the one thing that she would always know him for.   Despite how smart my mother is, with her position as a finance manager and being told to remember so many things, she can forget quite easily, especially when it comes to my friends. She remembers them mainly by their outward appearance or something that makes them stick out to others. Only one friend I can remember her recognizing by name, but she’d often refer to them as “The little asian girl” or “That black girl with the braids”. But my guy friend in particular stood out and she was able to remember him quite quickly. I fear it may have been that one word that caught her eye about him.

Nonetheless, my parents had no problem with him at all. They would occasionally refer to him as “a little girl” by accident, but either me or themselves were able to correct them. Even when he came to my house once to hang out and go shopping, my family was around to see him and interact briefly. My sister was quickly attached and even my father was even kind enough to talk about helping him get strong and go to the gym with him like guys do. It was that unexpected acceptance of him that made me feel happy. Despite him being a transgender man, my family welcomed him into my house and treated him just like they would with anybody else. His identity didn’t make him different.

Maybe they would do the same if I showed them my identity.

A few years would go by where the two of us had stayed friends all through high school, towards our third year where there was more of a divide in our classes than previously. We only had 3 periods together, engineering, lunch, and gym, but even then, gym class was only 3 days in a week. The other 2 days were reserved for junior institute. It was mainly just for preparing for college and doing some lessons on improving student’s mental health. Though truthfully, not much happened in that class, at least until one day at the start of the year.

It was early October, one Thursday during our lunch period before the class started. Me and my friend were hanging out at our lunch table per usual, when my friend had brought something up to me that he wanted to ask.

“Have you thought about coming to GSA this friday?” he asked.

GSA stood for Gay-Straight Alliance. It was a club they hosted Fridays afterschool that was about LGBTQ support. The thing about my school is that it’s quite progressive in its support for queer and trans students, not entirely but they’re trying. My friend was allowed in boys locker rooms and bathrooms for being trans, so I wouldn’t expect them not to have a club for gay kids.

“Not exactly.” I replied, “I have thought about it though. What sorts of things do you do there?”

He responded, “It's for LGBT stuff. We do a lot of movements and make plans to make the school and city more gay friendly. Even if you’re not gay, you can join it.”

Something about the idea of a gay alliance club managed to stick with me in the moment. Getting to be in a public safe space with people who weren't going to judge me or hate me for who I was. It wasn't all that small either from what I knew, a handful of friends and acquaintances went to the club as well. Would it be a chance for me to be around people who would accept me, finally?

But then came the sudden realization. My parents.

They still didn't know I was bi.

“I can't go.” I replied, “I don’t know if my parents would want me to. They don't know about me…”

“Oh, that's okay! If you want, just tell them you're going to the gaming club. They're fine with covering for people with parents that don't accept them.” He responded.

I didn't feel alright lying to my parents about going to a club I wasn't interested in. She knew from my sister that I only ever went to the gaming club to do homework and stay around her, so what was the point in suddenly deciding that I wanted to join? Would they think any differently of me if I secretly went to a club for gay people?

With so many questions in my head, I decided I'd get a straight-forward answer. I’d ask one of them myself.

I sent my mom a message, being as honest as possible to hopefully earn some brownie points for truthfulness to win her approval.

“Hey. My friend asked me if I can go with him to the GSA club today. Is it alright if I go?”

She answers back a couple minutes later.

“What’s GSA?”

I take less than a minute to reply back.

“Gay Straight Alliance. It’s for gay and straight kids to do stuff after school on Friday.”

About a minute or two passes. I wait quietly to get a reply back from her while I feel a rush of anxiety dash inside of my head. I look back down at my phone and see another black box pop up.

“No. Why are you going because he’s going?”

There's a sudden tightness in my chest as I read over the message, holding in my breath asI think of a way to respond to her. It's the dread I had feared to experience from the start that begins to bubble up in my next.

“Anyone can go to the club though, it's not just for gay kids. I just wanna be there and hang out with him.”

“I said no. You’re not going.”

The fear inside my head only begins to fill up more. I don't reply back to my mom and shut off my phone, turning back to my friend in my best attempt to hide away the stress.

“She said no. Sorry, but I can't go...”

I can see the way his eyebrows furrow against each other in a small fit of concern. I can tell he wants to say something to me, maybe ask for the how or why of the matter, but even I don't know why she’d turn down the request. I wouldn't figure her to care, it's just an afterschool club after all. Why would she turn it down so fast?

“Are you sure?” He asked, “If you wanna go, you can. She doesn't have to tell you you can't.”

“Yes, it's fine. I'd rather not have her get upset if I don't listen to her.” I say.

Even if I wasn't allowed to go, I spent the rest of the period trying to keep my hopes up. It's just a club after all, so there's no problem at stake. I can survive without going as long as I got my work done and made it through the year. But despite that, the response still felt like a punch in the gut. It was only more proof that I would need to wait until it was the perfect time to finally come out to my parents.

Later on, I went back upstairs to junior institute, sitting myself back down on a gray desk at the very end of the room. I expected nothing to happen that day and that we would be left to our own devices and have a free period, but I saw my teacher come in along with some students who had brought in a stash of materials. With them were pins along with various small strands of ribbon. There were two different types present; rainbow ribbon to indicate the pride flag and blue, pink, and white ribbon to indicate the trans flag. In an act of pure coincidence, my class was helping make pride pins for the GSA club.

We were directed to make these pins in the shape of awareness ribbons, and feeling as if I was about to pop any second from overthinking my mother’s decisions, I took a couple rainbow ribbons and made a few pins myself. The fabric was cheaply made, feeling coarse and firm like a tightly knit sweater. It wasn't the best quality of ribbon, but I enjoyed the act of forming small arches in them and shoving a metal dagger through the fabric. They looked cute in the final product, but I knew either way I couldn't get one for myself. If I showed up home with a rainbow colored pin for everyone in my family to see, they would surely begin to ask questions that I didn't want to answer. The response from early was proof enough that I couldn’t. But since I was already so fond of the multicolored ribbon that I took a couple scraps of the fabric and placed it inside of my backpack, hoping my mom would never know.

And I believe that once the day was over, I had already forgotten about that ribbon I had taken home with me.

A day passes, and I wake up the next morning in my grayscale bedroom. The sky was already marinated in clouds that spread across miles, but the cloudy atmosphere and cold undertones wouldn't stop me from getting up and going back to school like it was a normal Friday. I made sure to brush my teeth well and put my uniform on before walking down into the living room that was littered with shadows hiding in the corners from the white light of our window. Despite the darkness surrounding me, I didn't mind it. My mother sat on the couch like usual with her computer on the end of the table, giving me a mute expression once I had shown my face in the doorway. Compared to her usual resting face, something about this one read me the wrong way.

She then asked me a question that almost anyone would fear after a day that involved an event that practically turned you into a balloon of fear and suspicion.

“I want to talk to you about something.”

I feel a tummy full of butterflies circulating inside of me, only their wings jab the edges of my stomach like a knife. I then looked over at the table where my breakfast usually sat laid out for me, only next to my bowl of cereal was the one thing that stood out to me in the dark room.

My rainbow ribbon.

I ask her, pretending to be unaware of that cursed piece of fabric,

“What is it?”

She doesn't shy away from being straight to the point.

“I found that in your backpack. What did I tell you about going to that club?”

I responded to her, “But I didn't go to the club, it wasn't going on yesterday.”

“I told you not to go to that gay club, didn't I?” She said, practically disregarding everything I said, “Why didn't you listen to me, you know I don't want you being influenced by all that nonsense they start saying.”

At this point I can’t manage to utter back another word. My throat had suddenly grown tense in the moment that the words that were overflowing in my head couldn't come out. I was so afraid to say anything at all, just even one word against her, that my body forced itself to keep quiet.

“I know how things are with kids these days,” my mom says while I sit quietly in disbelief, “Where people say something and kids start thinking that they’re this and that. How they’re gay and all of this nonsense because it's what everyone else wants to be now.”

She’s telling me it's a phase right in front of my face as if this is brand new. It isn't. I’ve been hiding it from you for years and you don't know it.

“Just because all of your friends wanna be gay doesn't mean you’re gay. I know you want to be like your you're friends and fit in with them, but you’re not going to pretend to be something that you aren't.

I’ve pretended to be straight in front of you for so long. I'm not pretending anymore.

“Like that little friend you have at school who invited you into that club? Someday he’s going to realize when he’s an adult that everything he did was just a phase. When he grows up he’s going to see that he wasn't too sure of what he actually wanted either.”

While my own mouth can't manage to crack open the slightest to say something back to her, my eyes do the talking for me. My face flushes into a mellow red as I feel the corners of my eyes water while I slowly try to hold the tears back. It works to no avail and all I can do is sit there and try not to look back at her in shame.

“You don't know anything about love, you’re young. You don't understand what it's like to like somebody like that when you're this age. You can be gay when you’re older, that's fine, but you don't know who you are now. You're still a kid.”

Suddenly the talking comes to a stop and that blackened room goes dead quiet. The only thing either of us can hear is me breathing, unsteadily while I can’t stop myself from breaking down in front of her. I know she's going to tell me that I have no reason to be getting upset, but I can't bother to hear her out anymore. The tears don't stop flowing and I'm left wishing I never brought that ribbon home in the first place.

I then hear the sound of footsteps dragging over from the hallway and into the living room. I don't feel the motive to look over and see who it is, but I pick up the voice of my older sister talking to my mother.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She asks, “Do you have any idea what it’s like for her?”

I can no longer bear to listen to the sound of them about to start an argument over me and some rainbow colored cloth. My stomach already aches and I'm on the verge of losing last night’s dinner, so I quickly pace my way to my bedroom while they bicker back and forth. It only manages to make me more upset with my actions.

“Do you have any idea how long she’s been waiting to come to you about this?”

“You don't know anything about this kind of thing, she doesn't know what she's doing.”

“She’s been like this for years and you're putting her down for it. You’re being straight up homophobic.”

“I'm not homophobic, I just know that she’s confused.”

“She isn't confused! She just wants you to be supportive!”

“I am being supportive of her!”

It's simply a restless shouting contest that sickens me to my very core. I fall straight onto the plush white pillow on me and my sister’s bunk bed, digging my fingers into the material as I try with all my might to ignore the noise. My hair goes undone as I continue to let loose with my emotions and let the blankets take me with them. I wanted to die right then and there if I could have. Just sink into the comfort of my warm bed and live a life where I didn’t have to feel this pain inside my chest. There was nothing but betrayal in my mother’s voice, and thinking about it more only managed to break the positive image I had of her.

I wanted her to be the parent who could love me no matter what I would become. She gave me that sign from the moment I gained conscience. If only she was the supportive parent I had dreamed about, the one me and practically every queer kid out there who could just sit down and listen. Not shove a predetermined identity in my mouth, but just sit down, listen, and love me. Supportive queer parents are rather scarce to come across, so good on me for dreaming.

Minutes then proceeded to drag by inside that desolate bedroom I slept in. Somehow, the noise that infested the living room of my mom and sister’s bickering had finally come to a close. I’m surprised my dad managed to sleep through all of it. It didn’t take long for me to get called back by mom after such an intense debate, and like the sheepishly fearful coward that I had become, I did as she instructed. She stood there in the kitchen doorway while my sister, who didn’t appear to look as well as her, was still in our living room. Her face had returned to its natural mellow expression, with the yellow lightbulb from the ceiling giving it a warm, tan glow. It was deceiving me and I knew it from the second I had to face her. After all that had happened, I couldn’t bear to look into the eyes of the woman who had lied to me all these years.

“Come on, look at me.” She said, carefully caressing the sides of my head.

Despite everything, her voice was just like it had used to be, soft and sweet. It only made me want to start tearing up again with how false it sounded. It was a voice I loved to hear, but now it only made me feel worse.

She lifted my head gently upwards, forcing me to stare back at her and those motherly chocolate eyes. The waterworks began to spring back up again.

“You know I love you and I always will. I just want what’s best for you.”

Those words to me were the pure sound of nails grinding against a chalkboard, and yet all I could do was give in and hug her back while my head dug into her shoulder. I wanted to say and do so much more to defend myself but I couldn’t get the courage to mutter them at all. They were simple just words; meaningless thoughts scrambling back and forth inside of my head like threats.

“You’re lying to me. You don’t know what’s best for me. I thought you were better than this.”

Are all silent sentences that come all at once.

“‘I know nothing about love’, coming from the person who encouraged me to find a boy in school that I like. It doesn’t matter because they aren’t girls, right? It’s natural to like boys for you. It’s not ‘being confused’.”

The sobbing gets worse while she holds me.

“You never liked my friend, did you? He was just a confused kid with a phase to you, wasn’t he? You never saw him as a real boy, you never did. His identity meant nothing to you.”

I feel something start to choke out of my throat.

“My identity is fake and nothing else. I wish you weren’t my mother. I don’t love you anymore.”

Sadly, nothing I ever really wanted to say could ever escape from my head and I was left wiping my tears and sniffling whatever was left in my nose. The last thing I could say before I went back to my bedroom was a small, “I love you.”

The rest of the day was spent at home. After the whole fiasco, my mom knew I wasn’t in the right state of mind to go to school, so I was given time to sit down and recollect my thoughts for a while. She tried to make small talk to me, even buying me a Chipotle bowl to try and bring up my spirits, but I wasn’t entirely in the mood to talk to her again. I felt disturbingly betrayed by what she said. From forcibly convincing me to be straight to making awful comments about my trans friend, I didn’t feel right letting her have an apology so quickly. Only, I offered one in a silent fashion. When you are living with someone, especially a parent, who has a bad case of internalized homophobia, simply making them see your point of view is not an option. You’re either to make up and stay back in the closet until the time is right, or you receive some form of brutal punishment. Fearing the consequences, me and my mother put everything behind us in less than a day. Since then, nobody has brought up that incident.

I await the day when me, my mother, and maybe even my father can have a proper conversation about me being bi. Despite my sexuality being more open towards friends and acquaintances, my family is the closest circle who have yet to truly know what I am. But even so, if they will not choose to accept me for what I am, the support from my non-family is good enough for me. I am thankful for those who see me as what I am and nothing else, and I believe just about any queer child deserves support from both their peers and their families. Nobody should have to feel like a burden for being who they truly are in and out of their homes.

No one but you determines your identity, no matter how many parents want their children to end up straight. Sexuality is not a sin, an illness, a confusion that stems from the clutches of peer pressure. If anything, aren’t children more pressured into being straight than they are into being queer? We live in a day and age where sexuality and gender identity are more accepted in the mainstream than they were years ago when gay people were legally allowed to be harassed and beaten in streets, but we are far from ever curing the harmful flames of homophobia and transphobia. Hate can only stem from more hate.

I believe we can live in a future where the LGBTQ community can earn its full acceptance no matter the age. Queer men, women, non-binaries, and children deserve to have the same amount of love any straight or cisgender person receives, no matter how different they are. This change can only be present when we learn to change our hearts and minds for the better. Any and all love is equal in this big, wide world.

As a self identifying bisexual and demisexual, I know that in a raging storm of hatred and despair, love can always be found in the eye of the hurricane.