I was either three or four years old when I had my first crush.
It was on a lifeguard named Maggie who taught me and my brothers swim lessons at the local public pool.
She was a teenager, and I tried to impress her with my cannonball skills.
When I was in first grade, a boy in my class proposed to a girl in my class with a plastic ring that he won at the local arcade.
She said "no."
Later that day, during recess, I remember standing in the middle of the pavement
while all of my friends ran around me playing tag,
and for whatever reason, I thought to myself,
"There's something different about me, I don't want a boy to do that to me,"
"and this difference that's about me - I don't have the words for right now, but"
"I know that it's bad. I know that it's wrong."
Even at that age, I knew that it wasn't acceptable, and that I shouldn't tell
anyone. And at that point in time, I walked myself into the closet -
deep, deep into the closet - and closed the door, locked it, and didn't come out for a very long time.
When this happened, I was six years old.
I was raised in the midwest - a suburban, modest, traditional, religious area -
and so I was pretty terrified for the next 11 or so years.
Around age 10, I remember manufacturing a crush on a boy, just to have it
in case somebody asked me who i had a crush on.
I chose a boy in my class randomly and came up with ideas of why I would have a crush on him.
This was the first but definitely not the last time that I did this.
At around age 13, I started using the internet more and asking it the usual questions:
"How do you know if you're gay? Can you grow out of girl crushes?"
"Is bisexuality real?" And I found somewhere - probably on tumblr - somewhere probably completely
non-reputable, there was an article that said, "by the time you're 18,
your sexuality is pretty much set in stone," So I told myself, "Well, there's no reason to come
out of the closet until i'm 18 and i know for sure whether i am straight, gay, or bisexual."
I went through middle school (which is sixth through eighth grade)
at a time when "you're so gay" was still a popular way to tease people.
I was called gay so casually by friends when we were just joking around,
and I wanted so badly to always respond, "if you only knew..." but I never did.
When I was 16 years old, I made a friend in high school who liked to analyze handwriting,
and so I gave him a sample of my handwriting, and after school one day, we were on Facebook Chat,
and he was going - analyzing the different characteristics that I had in my handwriting,
and at some point during the whole conversation, he said, "it looks here like there's a possibility
that you could be bisexual - is that true?" and that was the first time anyone had ever
asked me. And I just stared at the question for a couple of seconds and without thinking too much,
I typed "yes" and pressed ENTER and that was the first time I had ever come out to anyone.
It is astounding the amount of relief that you can feel from even just one person knowing.
Trying to get through this without crying!
Mick was this person for me - I still to this day will bury a body for that guy.
His - his complete lack of reaction to it when I said "yes" - he wasn't super positive or
super negative, he just said "oh" and then moved on - that was exactly what I needed.
And from then on, I knew that I could talk to him about whatever.
In general, the internet is really what helped me get through high school and college mentally.
Certain people started to know along the way, but in general,
I wasn't actually out until after college.
However, I do remember in senior year of high school,
I signed up for Netflix in order to watch "The L Word," which was basically like the
main TV show with lesbians in it at that time, and Netflix's streaming "online-only" platform
only had season two onward, so I actually didn't even see season one until I moved
away to college the next year and could get the discs shipped to my dorm mailbox.
So I was - I watched season two til the end, and then I watched season one.
Um - that's how in the closet I was.
Around the end of high school, I found out that there were creators on YouTube who were out,
as somewhere in the LGBTQ-range, and they were being open and honest about who they were, and it
really helped me, to be able to see them, and see people who are my age talking about this stuff,
- um - and have someone to relate to on things that I didn't have anyone in my real life to relate to.
I've had a lot of really great role models and people who loved me and wanted the best for me,
but there was not a lot of visibility, especially for people that I wanted to relate to
when I was younger.
It felt like a lot of people who were out and loud and proud about their sexualities had
a lot of troubles in their life or trauma because of it, and it did not help - it scared me. Um - so
I think that the most important thing about visibility is having a range - having really
diverse people and experiences, and the experience that I would like to provide the internet
is really kind of "boring normalcy" and that it's entirely possible to live a life that - I mean,
of course I have traumas like everybody does, but - just because you are not straight doesn't
mean that you are damaged in any way, and you can live a perfectly healthy life and still be queer.
The first YouTuber I remember seeing was Hartbeat; she doesn't actually post videos anymore
- um - unfortunately, but there were some really funny ones back in the day. If you want to
see some classic lesbian YouTube, check out Hart. - um - I think that she still hasn't posted.
When I did finally turn 18, I had a bit of a breakdown, because even though that article I
read was not at all reputable - uh - I had still been holding out some kind of hope,
and at that point, I realized that it's not necessary to claim to be straight or gay or
bisexual, and that you can be fluid with it. You can stay in the "gray area," you can give
yourself more time to figure it out, and that's when I really started to embrace the term "queer."
I still to this day - I'm 29 years old, and I feel like I'm still somewhere in that gray area -
I'm not able to define it any more than just saying, "I'm queer" or "I'm not straight," and
it seems to be the - the - um - most solid that I can get.
After college - so that was in 2014 - I actually started writing letters to people, and
would send them out via the mail. And I would just go on runs and bring letters
to this mailbox and drop them in the mailbox and then just keep running, and it was a way
to share myself with other people without having to sit down and make a big deal about
it. It was a way to make it more casual - and honestly, it was the easiest way for me to just
get it over with, without having to go through the anxiety of a face-to-face conversation.
I think that any way that you're able to come out (when you feel like it's time to do so) is okay,
and there's no right or wrong way to do it. I am happy with the way that I did that - I wouldn't
go back and change anything, and it was worth it for the wide variety of responses that I received.
One of my friends called to yell at me for apologizing, which I thought was pretty great,
and then another one sent me a letter that said something that still makes me cry - I'm
gonna try to say it without crying - she said, "I'm sorry you ever had to feel...
I'm sorry you ever had to feel more alone than you actually were."
I didn't actually come out to my parents until October of 2014, after I had moved to a completely
different city, and it wasn't because I thought that they were going to reject me or anything like
that - um - it just felt like the right time, you know. I was becoming more independent financially,
and just lifestyle-wise, and I wanted them to know. So on October 11th (coming-out day),
I sent them an email, and that was that. And on the same day, I actually posted it
to my Facebook page - so at that time, I was on Facebook, and I was friends with people
from middle school and from high school - uh - I posted a status that said something
like, "I'M A RAGING QUEER! Happy National Coming-Out Day!" and got some funny responses. So
that was also a perfectly fine way to come out, and I'm happy with the way that happened.
I do agree when people say that they don't think that everyone should need to feel the need to do
a whole "coming out" anymore - I don't think it's necessary in some circumstances now, even
internationally, worldwide, but there are still lots of instances of homophobia and people not
feeling safe to do so, so please be kind to people if they feel like they're not ready to do so,
or - um - if you feel like there's no need to do it anymore, maybe recognize that you're in a
position where maybe you live somewhere that's liberal, or you have very accepting parents,
and you don't feel the homophobia but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!
And although for me, my queerness is not any more special or profound than being over six feet tall,
or being of Norwegian descent, or being white, or being artistic, it's all stuff that I was
born with - I don't have control over any of it - but it still does impact my daily life. And
the reason that I'm talking about queerness specifically, and I don't necessarily make
whole videos about those other aspects of my life, is because I know that when I was young and I was
in the closet, I was scared. I thought that I was alone. It's not a very visible thing to know what
everyone's sexuality is, so you can feel really alone, and it was almost debilitating sometimes.
So I'm just here for those people. I'm - I'm not trying to preach to any straight people or people
who are liberal already or anything like that. I'm just here because I think that for young
LGBT people who are still in the closet, the more that they can hear and see people who are healthy,
happy, boringly-normal individuals who also happen to be queer or LGBT, and they're able to see that
in somebody else - it makes it so much more likely that they're going to be able to achieve
what they're looking to achieve in their own lives.
When I was a kid, I honestly did not know that I knew anyone who wasn't straight. Not until I was
in college (and past that) did I learn that there were people in my life who were always
queer of some kind, and they were around, but I didn't know.
I think I would have been spared a lot of stomach aches and tears if I had been able
to look to someone else, to point to them, and say, "they're doing okay, so so can I,"
and that's what I'm doing here now.
I'm doing okay - so can you.
I still felt (up until a couple of years ago) that there wasn't anyone who I could see
in the public - on the internet even - who was somebody who represented how I
am, and only a couple of years ago did I realize that maybe the reason that I didn't have anyone to
really look to for those aspects of my life is because I'M supposed to be that person.
So it is my honor to be visibly queer, and hopefully the obnoxiousness of me saying it
out loud is going to be so BORING and NORMALIZED by the time that future generations come after me,
that they won't even have to think twice about the fact that generations before had more
struggles. If future generations can live in complete "boring normalcy," just blend in with
the rest of the population in terms of quality of life, - uh - I'm perfectly happy with that.
To those of you who are LGBTQ and older than me, thank you for paving the way. There's no way that
I could have done this 40 years ago and been sitting here talking about it - um - so easily.
And for those of you who are younger than me, welcome.
Excited to see what you guys are gonna do with the future.
'till next time! [click!]