Happy Pride Month: A Brief History of Pride Month and my own Personal Journey out of the Closet
Hello everyone and Happy Pride Month! I am so very happy to be celebrating Pride in open arms as I continue to settle into my new Omaha, Nebraska home. Being able to truly experience the pride in my own sexuality and self-being for the last two years has really been eye-opening.
For someone who is recently “out” or for those of you newcomers to PRIDE who are trying to find out how it all started, I will share with you an excerpt from an article on History.com, “The Stonewall Riots, also called the Stonewall Uprising, began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughly hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement outside the bar on Christopher Street, in neighboring streets and in nearby Christopher Park. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.” So, what originally started as riots and a single brick being thrown back into the crowd of raiding police officers, has over time become the reason to why we celebrate Pride Month as well as to show awareness to those who struggle with their own sexuality letting them know that they are not alone.
In short, Pride Month recognizes the progress that LGBTQ+ rights has made over the last 50 years and allows those in the community to celebrate their own sexuality and feel proud about who they are.
As mentioned in my bio, I am openly Bisexual and am so proud to be who I am now and to see how much personal progress I have made to completely feel comfortable with my own sexuality. For so many of my teen years, I struggled to understand what being bisexual meant and tried to learn how not to judge myself. This has been a long and rewarding journey of self discovery so I will tell you a little more about myself as to give those who need it, the strength to come out themselves or the support they need to feel comfortable with themselves too. I have never actually told a lot of people these things, but I feel if anything, this is now the best time and place to do it!
As a kid growing up even at a young age, I always knew there was something different about me, and clearly there was. Having been raised in an openly communicative house where we were free to talk about anything we wanted to, it still seemed like a weird topic to bring up especially being a child and not really knowing how I felt and what attraction really meant. All I knew was I had liked a couple of girls in elementary school and that was it, but still I had an odd feeling in my gut that there was more to me. It was never really said in my house or even around me, but in my head marriage was between a man and a woman. It wasn’t that I was homophobic towards those who were of gay or other sexualities, I just had not been exposed to a community of those that could change my common mindset, until junior high. In seventh grade, what began as a joke or “cool” trend or label going around campus was being bisexual. Not really knowing what that meant at the time, I never thought about it in detail and just brushed it off as being an odd term that others used to describe themselves. With that term, “bisexual,” being in the back of my head still trying to understand everything, I finally saw what it meant. One day after school, I saw one of my guy friends, who I thought had dated one of my female friends weeks ago, holding hands with another guy as they smiled at each other and I finally understood what it all meant and how it can be defined as liking both genders.
Even after having understood the definition of bisexual, I still fought with it mentally and personally after I had known, jumping between straight and in-denial gay, never having told anyone this was going on in my head the whole time. In high school, I joined drama/theatre and began to see just how many sexualities there really could be, but still fought with myself about who I was, even fighting suicidal thoughts until sophomore year when I became friends with a guy who himself was secretly bi. For a long time we discussed all the things I was feeling and all of the times I was denying who I was meant to be at heart. Well, after awhile of just being really good friends, we became more than that secretly dating assuring me of what I had known the whole time. Though we didn’t last together much longer, everything that happened between us had finally helped me secure my own self-acceptance and putting an answer to what I had felt for so long: I was bisexual and that was OKAY!
It wasn’t until years later that I came out to my sister who accepted me as I am, although I wasn’t surprised as she and I have always been really close. Then came the hard part, coming out to my mom. While others I know had planned something specific like an event that allows them to fully talk to their family in the open altogether about themselves, my own experience was a little bit different. For me, I had carried such a hidden burden for what seemed like so many years, especially from my mother whom I was extremely close and told everything to, that my truth began to feel heavier and take its toll on me. One night, I sat her down on the couch while my dad was at work and brought up my first boyfriend, that she until this point had only thought was my best friend. It was then that I started to share with her my truth about everything. We cried for a few about an hour, but not because she was sad about who I was, but because of how happy she was to know the real me. I remember her saying as we hugged, “I don’t care who you love, as long as you are happy!” Sadly she has since passed, but just finally being able to talk to her about it all meant the world to me. I was free from the pressure of keeping so many secrets from her, and now I could live the life I was meant to have.
Through the years passing, I came out to others personally until 2 years ago when I decided to post it publicly on Facebook to my friends and other family members. Full of nerves and anxiety to hear what those closest to me would have to say, I received so many supportive messages and comments making me feel welcome to the world and allowing me to publicly celebrate Pride Month in my own fashion. Since then, I have been able to be my true self and have never regretted it. I can live free and be open with everyone I talk to. I am bisexual and proud!
If you have gotten to this point, I just want to say thank you for reading my story. It means a lot that I get to share this with everyone and still continue to receive supportive messages anytime I post something personal to me, especially about my own sexuality which I am still continuing to explore as life goes on. On that note, I want to also say that if you or someone you know is going through the same thing as I have been through, you are not alone. It is a difficult journey to go through, but will always be worth it in the end. You have my support and are welcome to comment on this post and share your story too. You never know, you could just save a life or inspire someone to have the strength and come out to their family as well!
Below I have included the number and website link for the Trevor Project, an amazing 24/7 organization that helps at risk LGBTQIA+ youth with suicidal thoughts and those going through tough times with self-realization and sexual identity crises. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
1-888-488-7386 https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
