Discovering my sexuality: A long and confusing process

Kate Clare | Blogger | Full-Time Lesbian 

I probably get asked this question the most when I come out to people. “How did you know you were gay?” “Have you always liked girls?!” Well to start, it was a long, tough, and confusing process. So don’t fret if that’s how you feel right now. I’ve been there, and I hope that listening to my story will help you figure out your own.

I didn’t want to start out saying “I always knew I was different.” Because that’s what everyone says. But if I’m being honest, it’s completely true. I can remember being in kindergarten and being absolutely fascinated by this first grader at my school. I thought she was the most intriguing girl ever. I didn’t know her that well, in fact I really didn’t know her at all but I can remember constantly wondering why I couldn’t stop looking at her every time she was near me in the hall. I thought about being near her all the time, always wanted to talk to her, and I really just wanted to be in her presence. Looking back it was obvious that was the start of my attraction to girls, but when you’re five you can't exactly comprehend feelings for another person.  

Fast forward a few years to later elementary and middle school. I can recall always wanting to find a boy to like. I felt like it was almost my duty to care about guys because that’s all my friends talked about. How cute boys were, and how badly they wanted a boyfriend. I was never interested, I just always felt like I had to be. Now of course I had my stereotypical middle school boyfriend but as awful as this sounds I really looked at it more as a status symbol than a relationship I wanted to be in. It wasn’t until eighth grade when it all finally started to make sense.

The exact scene that awakened my gayness
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I knew that being gay was a thing. I just didn’t know that being gay could be a thing for girls like me. I always thought gay girls had super short hair, wore birkenstocks, and were incredibly masculine. I definitely didn’t fit that stereotype so therefore, there was no way I was gay right? Well I’ll never forget the day I stumbled across the tv show South of Nowhere. I was 14 and I immediately fixated my eyes on the screen when I saw two gorgeous long haired feminine girls embracing, clearly a couple. That was it. That’s what I wanted. All those girls over the years that I wanted to be close to, it wasn’t because I wanted to be friends with them, it was because I wanted to BE WITH them!

I was beyond terrified. I couldn’t be a lesbian. I just couldn’t. I’ll never forget how minutes after watching the rest of that episode just taking a bike ride down to the pond by my house with tears welling up in my eyes. I was terrified. That couldn’t be me right? Maybe if I just forget about this whole thing it will go away, right? Wrong.

I proceeded to completely repress my feelings for girls up until I was about 17. Even so much so that I suffered through several awkward boyfriend interactions that I wish I could’ve avoided all together. I definitely had the “this is a problem for another day” mentality at that time. However on New Year's Eve prior to my 17th birthday, I made a promise to myself that I would just deal with the feelings I was having. I couldn’t take the confusion any longer and honestly I was starting to get very intrigued by the possibility of being with another girl.

So I watched and read and listened to all kinds of coming out stories from other lesbians and I couldn’t believe how much I related to them. The stereotype of what I thought a lesbian was supposed to be wasn’t true at all. Now yes, some girls do fit that stereotype and that’s ok, but a lot of them don’t, particularly myself and other women I tend to be attracted to. It took a very long time for me to be ok with the fact that I can be who I am, look the way I look, and do everything I’ve always done, while still being gay. I didn’t need to fit a mold of what a “lesbian” is supposed to be. I just had to be myself.

I had my first kiss with a girl when I was 17 and even though it was nothing serious, it definitely made me realize how badly I wanted to be with another female. I craved it. That experience showed me why I had no interest in men and why I couldn’t force it, because I was without a doubt, incredibly gay. Women made me feel so comfortable and being with them was (and obviously still is) the best feeling in the world to me.

When I had my long term girlfriend in college that’s when I started to become more and more confident in myself because I really knew who I was now and I knew exactly what I wanted. She made me so incredibly happy and we had an amazing relationship that I wouldn’t trade for the world. But that’s a story for another day.

This whole process of becoming 100% confident with my sexuality took about four years. It’s not an overnight process but I can promise you that if you’re questioning yourself right now that it’ll get easier. Always remember that you can be whoever you want to be, and look however you want to look and still be gay (or however you identify). You don’t have to fit into a mold of how society tells you to be, just be yourself!  

Coming out: an educational tool

Kate Clare | Blogger | Full-Time Lesbian 

“Kate, I always knew.” Those were the first words my brother said to me after I officially came out to him. I couldn’t believe it. Especially after knowing his opinion on the LGBT community in general, I was definitely shocked. To say that I was completely ecstatic would’ve been an understatement. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s rewind a few years.

Even back then I was a weirdo

My brother has always been the most important person in my life. Even though I’m five years older, we’ve always been super close. His love and support probably means more to me then my own parents. Unfortunately, ever since he started high school he’s been openly vocal about his distaste for the LGBT community. He used to always talk about how it was wrong to be gay, against the Bible, gross to watch, yada yada. Granted, I always hoped he would grow out of that especially when he went off to college, but I’ll admit that it did scare me away from telling him for a number of years. It wasn’t until my parents were ok with it that I found the confidence to approach the topic with him.

Christmas Eve might not have been the best time to have this conversation but several glasses of wine later I was revved up and ready to go. We were downstairs in my basement sitting at the bar when I decided to just go for it. I said I needed to talk to him about something and he immediately without hesitation, knew what I was going to say. I told him that I was 100%, without a doubt super gay, and that more importantly, I was happy. His reaction shocked me. He didn’t even bat an eye. My brother who has always been so openly unsupportive of the LGBT community looked me dead in the eye and told me he was ok with it. He also revealed how he wasn’t surprised at all and always had a feeling that I liked women which I found to be somewhat of a relief. When I asked him why he didn’t have a problem with it like I thought he would, he said “Because it’s you Kate, I’ll always love you no matter what and I’ll always support you.” Again I couldn’t believe his response.

I think my biggest take away here is that people will surprise you. My brother who I always believed would hate my lifestyle was totally ok with it all because he loved me. So if you’re scared about how someone close to you will react, don’t count them out because they could very well shock you with their response. It wasn’t until my brother had someone close to him come out that his thoughts and beliefs began to change.

It’s important to note here too that we need to take it upon ourselves to educate people about our community and break those preconceived stereotypes. It’s critical to show the people in our lives that just because we might not be in love with someone that society tells us to love that we’re all of a sudden a different person then who they know. Just like I told my brother, I’m still the same tennis playing, movie loving goof he grew up with, I just happen to really love women. 

Movie Review: "Jenny's Wedding"

Kate Clare | Blogger | Full-Time Lesbian 

I’ll be honest. When I first heard about this film I cringed. A coming out story where one character hides their significant other from their loved ones? Yawn. How many times have we seen this plot line? Also this idea just seemed, I don’t know, outdated? So going into this my expectations were quite low. Although to my shock and surprise I actually didn’t find this film to be one big utter disappointment like I had anticipated. Here’s the synopsis for ya.

ew.com

Jenny (Katherine Heigl) is a thirty-something woman hailing from good ol’ Cleveland, Ohio. Up until this point, Jenny has always had a great relationship with her parents (Tom Wilkinson and Linda Emond), and according to her siblings, is the favorite child. However, Jenny has hidden her five-year relationship with her “roommate” Kitty (Alexis Bledel) from the entirety of her family. So much so that she even goes along with an accusation from her sister that she’s fooling around with a married man, just so they think she’s dating someone. The film gets going when Jenny decides that she wants marry Kitty. The way it’s presented to us is very spur of the moment with virtually no romance whatsoever. No popping of the question, no romantic kiss, just a "Wow, I never thought I'd hear you say that!” reaction from Kitty. Sound appealing yet? Well here’s what this movie did well and what the filmmakers could’ve improved on. *SPOILERS AHEAD*

Strengths

Great adaptation of a personal journey

I thought the biggest strength of this film was how in depth the writer was with Jenny’s personal struggle to tell her family. I found it to be quite engaging watching her emotional journey leading up to coming out, telling her family, and then the inevitable aftermath. I definitely felt that I was watching her grow as a character by initially being sad and broken down, to getting angry and standing up for herself and who she was. I wanted to cheer when Jenny met her mom in the shopping plaza and told her how if she couldn’t handle it (Jenny marrying a woman) then it was her problem and not Jenny’s. That specific scene was so relatable for the audience because all of us at one time or another have been in that same situation where we’ve had to defend ourselves and our lifestyles.

Engaging

Even though I think coming out stories are beyond overdone in the movie business, I do think this film kept the audience engaged by the side-plot lines of the film. One being the marital problems of Anne (Grace Gummer), Jenny’s sister, and her husband. Through her personal story we were able to learn more about Anne’s instability and where her beliefs stemmed from. Mainly when it came to Jenny and her lifestyle. There were also many scenes with both of Jenny’s parents and their friends which showed the audience how influential our friends really are and the lengths we will go to not disappoint them. These so called “friends” contributed to her parents distaste for the gay lifestyle. This film really was more about Jenny and her relationship with her family then Jenny and her queer lifestyle and that’s ok! That doesn’t make for a bad film just because it’s not “queer cinema”, but I do think that’s why so many critics and lesbians alike were disappointed with it.

Improvements

Less Predictability

Even though the family storyline was engaging, the film was way too predictable. We knew the string of events was going to go as follows: shocked reaction from the family, partial acceptance/denial, then the family comes around and attends the wedding. Ugh. Show us something to at least moderately surprise the audience! No one was shocked when Anne left her husband, no one was astounded when Jenny’s dad accepted her. We knew those stories were going to turn out that way. This movie was just too safe in that regard. It would’ve been much stronger if the audience couldn’t predict every scene. Spontaneity in a film never hurt anyone kids.

Characters with chemistry 

I might be eating my words a bit here. I just said how this movie doesn’t constitute as a queer film which is true and completely fine if that’s what the writers were going for. But from the perspective of someone who loves a film where ladies are getting down and dirty, I definitely craved that. Hollywood doesn’t understand that there is a total lack of great lesbian films out there so all of us gay ladies are just aching for a good movie to be made. I can guarantee that if the main female character in your film is gay, every lesbian in existence is watching your film. The least you could do is give us characters with good chemistry and show more than just a few tiny kisses! I found myself completely bored at the lack of passion and desire between Jenny and Kitty. Alexis Bledel was barely even in the film which I thought was a total waste of her talents.

Jenny’s Wedding is definitely a little outdated and “safe” per se, but overall isn’t a bad watch. My best advice to you if you haven’t seen it already is to take it for what it is and don’t get your hopes up. That’s the way to enjoy it. However if you’re looking for lots of girl-on-girl action, don’t even bother watching.  

Coming out on a college team

Kate Clare | Blogger | Full-Time Lesbian 

Coming out on a college team especially if you’re not 100% out of the closet can be one of the most intimidating experiences of your life. Not knowing exactly how your teammates are going to react is both scary and nerve-wracking.  However, with plenty of confidence you’ll be able to attack any situation with ease and style.

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Let me start off by telling you about my coming out experience on my team. Now I’ll be completely honest-I probably had a very different experience with this then most of you. To start, I’m openly gay. However, I’ve really only had conversations about my sexuality to my close friends and a small portion of my family. I’ve always kind of just let other people find out either through word of mouth or through seeing me live openly. I just never deemed it necessary to discuss my sexuality with every single person or group of people in my life-which included my college team.

When it came to my team, I definitely wouldn’t say I was close with them. Now don’t get me wrong-I had a few teammates who were my absolute best friends and they obviously knew I was gay, but as far as I know, the rest of them who I wasn’t as close with were totally clueless. It was a very unique experience because I had my few tennis friends on my team (I’m talking 2 or 3 here) who knew and were cool with it and then I had my friends outside of my team who knew. So then of course I had this other group of my teammates who I never discussed it with so to this day I still have no idea what they knew or didn’t know when it came to my sexuality.

I’ll give you a few examples. My best friend on the team and my roommate-I ended up having a sit down conversation with her about it our freshman year because I felt that she should know. And she was super supportive. I had two more teammates who just flat out asked me because they were curious-so I told them. Again, super supportive. Now on the other hand, I had a teammate who asked me about boys on a regular basis. Clearly having no idea. So as you can see, it was all across the board.

Now the point I'm trying to make by telling you my story is that the best way to come out on your team is to do whatever makes you feel comfortable. If you're not super outspoken about your sexuality (like myself) then don’t say anything at all and just let people figure it out on their own. Or just tell a few who you're close with. I mean-it's your life and in most cases, you get to decide how open you want to be. Now if you’re super close with your whole team then maybe you’ll want them all to know and you’ll want to have a special conversation with each of them about it. Or maybe you’re the type of person that wants your teammates to find out by making out with your girlfriend after the big game while they all watch. All of those are great no matter how different they are! Whatever makes you feel comfortable is always the best method. Just remember that you have control over who you have conversations with about your sexuality and who just finds out through other means. Always tell the people you're ready to tell first who you know would be hurt if they found out through someone else. Trust me-you won’t want that to happen.

Now you’ve come out to your team. Great! Unfortunately, a few of your teammates are completely appalled by your choice in sexual partners. So what do you do? To start, learn to be civil. I have news for you-not everyone is going to be ok with the fact that you like to kiss girls and that’s ok. People are entitled to their own opinions and they don’t have to agree with you or the way you live your life. And you shouldn’t force them to. Whether it’s religious beliefs, or their upbringing or whatever, there are always going to be people that don’t agree with your lifestyle. All that means is you don’t have be close with them. But if you’re on a team or in a work situation where you’re going to see this person all the time who isn’t accepting of you, then you’re going to have to learn to be civil. You don’t have to be friends but you will need to be able to at least speak to them in regards to your sport/work situation/whatever. Keep it professional. The more mature you act about it the better off you’ll be. Hopefully your good attitude about the situation will rub off on them too.

Of course though, this person or group of people who isn’t ok with your sexuality could easily turn into a wild maniac and not be able to keep it professional themselves. Then what do you do? If this person begins to negatively affect your life on your team then you need to take it up with higher authority and make it known what is happening. Tell your coach or athletic director and let them handle it. Discrimination based on sexuality is completely unacceptable and should not be taken lightly so if it becomes a situation of you not being able to do the job you're supposed to be doing then it needs to be dealt with by someone who has authority over the whole team.

Overall, coming out on your college team no matter how you choose to do it will be a beneficial experience. Whether or not it turns out how you envision it, it still means you're growing as a person and becoming more and more comfortable with your sexuality day by day. And that’s always most important J