- So, it's finally happening.
The video that every other LGBTQ+ YouTuber has made.
I'm finally making a coming out story video.
And, like, here's the thing, Elle Mills already made
the best coming out themed video of all time.
Therefore, the pressure's off.
And now like, I know how this is meant to start.
I'm meant to say something like "I first knew I was
"different when I was seven years old.
"I was 13 years old, when I was 25 years old".
But here's the thing, I don't know when I first
started to maybe realise I was different.
I don't even know when I knew I was different.
So welcome to this mess of a coming out story.
Now I want to try to make this video clear and coherent
and step by step, but here's the thing.
Coming out is not linear, right?
And I don't even really remember,
but do you know what does remember?
Do you know what always remembers?
Your Facebook profile, so I'm about to go deep dive into the
last ten years of my Facebook to try and prompt my memory.
So you better start calling me Velma Dinkley cause
I'm gay as fuck, and I'm about to solve a mystery.
Chapter the first, the PSHE lesson.
So, PSHE for those who don't know,
is physical health and sex education.
It's like the generic class
in which you learn about the world,
and we had a guest speaker in when I was in year eight,
so I was like 11 or 12 years old.
This guest speaker does this exercise where it's like
"I'm gonna say a statement, and if you think yes,
"you go to this side of the room, and if you think,
"you think no, you go to this side of the room".
She was doing some statements, and we was like,
it was cool, cool, this statement's split.
Oh, this statement's split, oh 50 50.
And then she comes up with this one.
"Okay class, so yes or no, I would still be friends
"with someone if they told me they were gay."
And I was the only one who went to the yes side
of the classroom.
Now at the time, I did not think I was gay.
I know that much, because I said it a lot.
Because I was, and also I was very righteously angry
about the fact that like people thought that you were gay
if you stood up for gay people.
But this was something that I was like,
ruthlessly teased for, and I was like simultaneously
like feel, meant to feel really awful
for these things they were calling me.
But also getting really annoyed at them, because I was like,
"There's nothing wrong with being gay,
"this whole thing's all because I don't think
"there's anything wrong with being gay."
And they were like bullying me, calling me these thing
that I don't think is wrong, but at the same time,
the intention is there, the intention to hurt me is there,
so it kinda doesn't matter that I don't find this offensive
or I don't find this like an insulting thing
to be called, because I like, I know that you're trying to
say something mean to me.
And like, I would go, I remember one particular instance
I went into the classroom at lunch,
and like all of the popular girls were sitting at a table
in the corner eating their lunch,
and like, it went dead silent when I went in.
And I was just like,
oh subtle, like you were clearly talking about me,
and I clearly know what you were talking about to do with me
and like, they said something about me being gay,
and I was like, "Listen, okay?
"I'm not gay, but if I was, you, you'd be the first
"to know about it."
Spoiler alert, they weren't the first to know about it.
Chapter the second, debate me.
So Rowan was continuing her righteous stream of justice.
We had a debate class, right?
When I, I think it was like, that same year,
later on in the year, or the year afterwards,
in which we had to debate.
We had to pick our own debate topic, and I picked that,
LGBTQ should be allowed to like adopt children, basically.
That was my topic.
And it all seemed to go well, I was like hype hype hype,
let's debate, so I'm like packing up my stuff,
and everyone else has left,
and this teacher comes over to me,
and she's like, "Rowan, I know I allowed you to pick
"your own topic, but I hope you know
"that good Christian people would not have voted
"in your favour in an actual debate about that topic."
What the hell?
And like, looking back at it, there's so many things
that happened to me at school,
that I'm like, if this happened now, like I could see
there being like,
like a headline somewhere, being like,
how messed up is this?
But at the time, it was just me, on my lonesome,
and like, "Oh, this didn't feel very nice,
"but I don't really know what to do about it."
Chapter the third, the school dance.
This was a particularly trying time for me.
There was a boy who I was friends with,
I thought we were just friends, we'd been to like,
the cinema a couple of times,
and the last year we've been to the cinema,
I asked him if he wanted to come to our school, like, disco,
dance thing (sighs).
I did not think that it was a date.
I did not think anything we had been doing were dates,
but on the last cinema trip, which is like the, the night
before this dance, he went in for a kiss.
I did a real like, woosh, dodge manoeuvre.
Got me right on the cheek.
And then I awkwardly said goodbye,
and then I was like, (sighs) 'kay, cool cool cool,
cool cool cool cool, interesting,
this is gonna make tomorrow night a real awkward,
and it did, it wasn't even, and here's the thing,
it wasn't even a gay panic, it was like, my being gay
was so separate from my not wanting to be with guys,
if that makes sense.
Like, that was like it's own issue to deal with,
this thing that I hadn't even started to think about yet.
Chapter the fourth, baby's first pride.
At the time, as you can see, I had a very questionable
side fringe.
So the first time I went to Pride was year 11,
so I would have been like, 15, 16, then I think?
And I went the Pride with some friends,
and we were all straight, like we went to pride,
and it was like, we're just showing our support
we're being straight, having fun,
and like here's the bit that I remember, because,
Chapter the fifth, the cast party.
I know that I came out to a girl called Jaz
on the arm of that sofa that night,
but like, I genuinely don't know what got me
from the point of, I am at this Pride,
at which I'm very much straight,
to I'm on the arm on the sofa,
and I'm coming out to someone.
I clearly had something between those two dates,
and I genuinely don't remember what happened.
So like part six, the activist awakens.
Now you might have been like,
"Rowan, the entire time, you've been fucking gay rights way"
but basically, when I was in year 12, our computers
in school started to block sites for specifically
lesbian and gay content, so if you tried to go onto like
helplines, deport sites, the stonewall website,
it would just say, blocked for lesbian and gay content.
I was livid, me and a couple of friends were like,
let's get this sorted, so we were like booking in
appointments to see the head teacher, we were like
doing petitions, we were like this is unacceptable,
we're coming in to tell them how important it is.
Our head teacher leaves between year 12 and year 13,
so my like second to last time, my last year at school,
basically like, she doesn't care.
She like passes it on to the next head teacher.
I since went to reunion, saw that past head teacher,
and she was like greeting everyone else,
knew everyone else, and then it got to me,
and she was like, "Oh"
and I'm like, "It's Rowan."
And she was like, "Oh, why do I remember you?
"Oh I think you must have been very opinionated."
And I was like, "What, code for lesbian if ever I heard it."
So I like ended up doing exactly the same thing,
with the second head teacher, who said my all time
favourite quote of all time, which was,
"Rowan, you know I can't be homophobic,
"because I used to live in Brighton."
So that was like clearly not gonna happen.
And like this, I, this is some of the weird time,
shooshy thing, where I'm like, I feel like you think,
that you like, come out to yourself,
and you come out to other people,
and like that's the full process, but I genuinely feel
that I maybe like went in and out of certainty,
in and out because it told someone who,
like I told someone at the cast party just to like
feel what it felt like to tell someone,
to maybe voice this out loud.
And then like, was I really out to myself?
And I remember thinking, like a year after I came out
to someone at the cast party, like why are my parents
trying to make me come out to them,
because like maybe I don't know yet,
maybe I'm just confused.
So I think that like, this period of mass confusion happened
where I was like at the same time of being very vocal
about gay rights, and then like, also try to work out
who the hell I was.
And like, also I found this picture on Facebook
of me at a Queer Youth Network Meetup.
And Queer Youth Network, with this like website,
that used to go on and like, because I'm old,
we didn't have like, our own private computers,
so we had to use the family computer,
and it was in the hallway,
and I'd always like make sure to you know,
turn off the history and stuff.
For the Queer Youth Network,
like I must have been going to these meetups
and using that forum before I knew that I was out,
like I feel like I must have been just like,
floating around there, and I can't even remember like,
whether I was floating there first of all,
as like trying to be a supporter for like queer people,
or whether I went because I thought I would be queer.
Like, those things are so muddled in my mind,
like I really wish that I remembered these things.
But I, I'm like maybe that, maybe that is kind of like
a coping mechanism of like, when you're like so,
when your identity is shifting so drastically.
I mean, you're so uncertain of that part of yourself.
That like, you don't remember all of the like,
absolute agonies of trying to work it out.
But what eventually accumulated is that
in year 12 or year 13, I came out to my friends
in the classroom that you always hang around at lunch.
And it was so chill, they didn't even say anything about it.
The conversation just continued, and I was like,
"Damn, they so chill."
And there'd been another girl who had come out as bi
like years before, so I was like,
"Oh well, I know they're chill, so this is all fine."
Turned out, in chapter the, whatever chapter we're up to,
chapter the eighth, the MSN messenger coming out,
that I actually, the reason why they hadn't reacted,
is because none of them had heard me.
Because I came out to someone on MSN messenger
who was a friend, who had like gone to another school,
and she was like, "Wait, what?"
And I was like, "Yeah, I thought people would have told you,
"like I thought it would have gone through our grapevine
"of grape communication."
and she was like, "Yeah, I'm on MSN messenger with the other
"friend, she also said she doesn't know, so like,
"what the hell, Rowan?"
And yeah, it turned out no one had actually heard me.
And I'd done this whole, trying to casually slip it
into conversation and been like, too casual, too smooth.
Which is too smooth, is not a phrase that's ever been used
to describe me before or since.
That whole mess happened, and then like when we get to
year 13, for sure, year 13, I am out to absolutely everyone.
So I'm like, 17, 18 at that point.
And I know this, and I remember this,
because I remember so many girls from my year,
coming up to me and being like,
"Oh, are you gay, I heard you're gay,
"but you have long hair."
"But don't you wanna wear a dress and get married?"
And then you also heard girls in the year
who would be like, "Gay people shouldn't be allowed
"to have children, that's disgusting."
and like, those were all things that none of the teachers
decided that they needed to like, comment on,
or control, or like, punish.
Or engage with in any way.
So I went to Pride again, and this time, I am out,
I am ready to party.
First Pride being out, fun time,
I am marching with the Queer Youth Network.
I march with the Q, Queer Youth Network
like two or three Prides in a row,
after that first one where I went,
and I was like, being straight.
And I know I'm clearly out in this one,
because this is my brother.
My brother has been in many of these photos, by the way.
I was like, this is basically just like, Rowan and Eliot,
growing up, and he is clearly a great ally and brother.
And I went from zero to 30 like real fast,
because like this picture is me having been photographed
as an official project of like, teen LGBTQ class
activist people who are like, in the community.
And like I went, when I was going to University,
I would go, and I'd immediately be like, so what LGBT
like society and provisions do you have for people like I?
And then I would, I, like,
my first time I was at university,
I got an LGBT welfare role, and then like I ended up being
President of our LGBT society, so like,
I was, oh I got gay real fast.
But after that, I still had to settle on various,
bits of my identity, right?
So I to settle on, like queer as a label, right,
then like lesbian, or gay.
And I had to start exploring the way
that my identity intersects with like,
the A spectrum, which is something
that is like super recent, comparatively.
Like, that's, that's like ten years ago
that I first came out to someone, you know?
And like in that time, my identity has like changed
and shifted, like not drastically, but just in the way
that I experienced it, and then the labels that
I wanna put on it, and the way I feel about it.
Also like, deciding to come out, for me,
as like a conscious choice,
because I, I know how incredible it would have been,
when I was like a kid in school
who felt like she was like, so alone and that no one cared,
to have had like other people to look up to.
We had girls in my, in the year above, who there were rumours
about, and they were like these girls that we like,
oh my god, they're so cool, and they seem so happy.
And like, it was like this, what I talk about my challenges
of representation, but like in real life, that I feel like
I absolutely want to be that for someone.
I don't really mind being known as like,
the lesbian YouTuber, or the gay YouTuber,
the LGBT this, or the whatever.
Because to me, that's not anything limiting,
like that's just a part of who I am,
and it's an important part,
and like that can be really useful for people to see.
So yeah, this video was in no way as cool as Elle Mills is,
or as emotional as some other peoples,
as like revolutionary as others, but like,
do you know what, having coming out videos on YouTube,
I think is a fantastic thing for people to see
that there are so many diverse, different ways of coming out
and there's no wrong way or wrong way to do it.
And hopefully, this has been useful for you.
Or just funny, how much of a ridiculous human being I am,
if you want to help support me making these videos,
I'm, as always, gonna leave a link to my Patreon
in the description, along with all my social media links,
so you can find me all over the internet.
And until I see you next time, bye.