#this whole kit connor thing really hit me hard lol

[autistump]

tw for forced outing, underaged alcohol use, lesbiphobia

i’ve been forced to out myself a few times. i haven’t talked about it in depth but after the whole kit connor thing, i realized that people don’t realize how forcing people to out themselves fucks people up. not just celebrities, but random people too. so while i can’t say i know exactly how he feels (i admittedly am not in the public eye as he is, or at all really), i do know what it feels like to be powerless in that way.

i wish i could say i didn’t have to come out, i wish i could just be who i was and love who i wanted to, but people saw me and got to know me and for some reason decided i wasn’t worth coming out on my own terms. i’m not outspoken, i can barely stand up for myself and i prefer to keep to myself. my mom saw the way i acted and decided that she wasn’t gonna let me keep things from her, if she wanted something from me, she would get it. and that’s pretty much how it’s been my whole life.

i never got to just be myself and love without having to explain myself. i would try and she would find out about it and force me to tell her. the first time it happened i was about 12-13? i don’t remember exactly. she took me to lunch and started talking to me about boys. at that time i was still convinced that i did like them so i told her about this boy— one of my closest friends. we held hands and cuddled and hung out constantly, it sounded like i should like him, like we should like each other. she seemed satisfied until she got quiet and asked how i felt about girls. i had just stopped trying to convince myself i couldn’t like girls almost a year of trying. i definitely wasn’t ready to talk about it but she wouldn’t drop it. i said i wasn’t interested in girls and she kept pushing me until i said something along the lines of “i don’t know, i guess girls are pretty? i don’t know if i would date one, though”. she gave me a certain look and then went back to her food, moving into a different topic. i was scared and i was upset and i was confused because i still didn’t know who i was. i didn’t talk to her for a couple days after that, she didn’t understand why i was hurt.

i was only just discovering myself. i didn’t feel good about being forced to tell anyone about it, especially not my mom, who i wasn’t particularly close with. especially not after i found out she immediately told my sister that i was “going through a phase”. my sister was not happy with the way she approached that and how she reacted after forcing me to out myself.

i was a kid.

my sister talked some sense into my mom and i though she had since gotten better at handling situations like that. boy was i wrong.

the second time was at a party in the 11th grade. i was probably 16. i was dating my current gf and i was happy. i’m naturally a very physically affectionate person and even more so when i have alcohol in me, so i was pretty much cuddled up to everyone i knew that night. i guess i got too comfortable with one of my friends and i guess one of my friends had a crush on him because as i had my head on his shoulder and he was hugging me, my friend (well, i thought she was my friend) yelled out, loud enough for everyone to hear “aren’t you a lesbian? you told me the other day, were you just lying?” and i froze up. i wasn’t doing anything wrong, just hugging a friend. i had told her l in confidence that i didn’t think i liked boys and i believed i could trust her. and once she spoke up, a couple other of my friends backed her up and suddenly i was being pressured to put a name to my sexuality in front of a bunch of my peers and people i didn’t know. i was terrified of what could happen.

people talked about that for a long time and i lost a lot of friends because of how they reacted, whether it was sexualization, blatant lesbiphobia or saying they “knew something was off” about me. i didn’t talk to more than a handful of people for the last year and a half of high school.

the most recent time was this summer, june 12th to be precise. i had a shitty day at work and i was working through a few hour long panic attack due to the thunderstorm i had to be outside in. i got home and went straight to my room to cry. i got a good 20 minutes in until she came knocking on my door. i knew something was off right then because not only does she never knock on my door, she avoids the basement like the plague. i opened the door and she was yelling at me about leaving my laundry in the dryer or some shit, and so she had brought it down to my room. i tried to take it from her and go back to bed but she wouldn’t let me. she looked into my room, possibly for the first time since i moved into it, and noticed my flags. i felt comfortable and sage hanging them up since i knew that my parents never entered my room without my knowledge because they hate how messy it can get. but that night, she tried to force herself in. i had still been crying, the storm was still going on and i just wanted to cry myself to sleep. she asked what the flags meant. i begged her not to probe that night. i was in a bad place and i was far too tired to deal with it. i kept asking her if we could talk about it the next day. i was exhausted and i wasn’t ready. i kept saying that. “i’m not ready yet. especially not right now” and she kept forcing me. “just tell me what the flags are and then we can talk tomorrow” but there was no point in talking the next day if she forced it out of me that night. she pushed and pushed and pushed until i broke down and told her. the lesbian flag and the agender flag hanging on my wall, mocking me at this point. she had this sort of look on her face. then she looked around my room and yelled at me for it being a mess and then left.

i was closer to knowing who i was but i still wasn’t ready. i was upset with her the next few days (i honestly still am) and i only responded to her in short sentences, if i responded verbally at all. she didn’t understand why i was angry and i didn’t want to tell her. if she didn’t know why then there was no use telling her. she didn’t care about my boundaries.

we’ve never talked about it, not really. whenever my sexuality comes up in conversation, i feel like i have to force myself to pretend to be out and proud but, if i’m honest, i don’t feel like i have anything to be proud of. not getting to dictate how i came out as anything stripped away my power and confidence. i felt so powerless. coming out is supposed to be a thing that empowers people and makes them feel accepted or whatever. i never got that. i got humiliated in so many different ways for something i can’t control and something i wasn’t ready to talk about.

i’m only 18. and i’ve been forced out multiple times. i’m still a kid and i’ve been stripped powerless of my own self so many times, and i don’t see a way to recover my power. i want to be able to be myself and be happy.

i wanted to be able to just exist in my sexuality and not have to feel like i have to talk about it or explain it. lesbianism is a beautiful thing but for all i boast about it and talk about it’s beauty and how incredible it is, i couldn’t tell you how much of it is pretending i know how it feels. i know what it feels like to be accepted and to be shunned for my lesbianism, but i don’t know what it’s like to be comfortable with it. i try everyday and some days are easier than others but a lot of the time, i wonder what it would be like if i had the choice to tell people when i wanted to and not when they wanted to know. i hope one day i’ll find out