Diaries of a closeted lesbian

Fully Locked In

I can remember back to kindergarten, since then, I've always had 'crushes' on guys. They were mostly just the little kid crushes that everyone has. But looking back, all of my 'crushes' were on my best guy friends. They weren't really even crushes. They were more like, you're my friend and society says that girls have crushes on boys so I like you now. Seriously though, society puts so much stress on people to do things even when they're little kids that don't know whats going on. But anyway, I 'liked' those guys.

I liked guys up until 7th grade. I had about 3 lasting crushes that weren't only like a day or week or something so short that it didn't count. The last one that I had was a 4 year crush. It probably would still be going on if he didn't move away, but the thing that I realized when he did move away, is that he was my shield. He blocked me from even the slightest idea of me being gay. It just didn't enter my mind and I didn't consider it because I liked this guy. After he moved, I started noticing girls more, but being gay still didn't enter my mind for the rest of seventh grade. I did however become depressed, which is a up and down roller coaster still to this day.

Over the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I realized that something was up, but I didn't really know what. This may sound weird but I didn't really know what being gay was or that people could like the same gender. But there was this girl that I met on vacation. We went to the same beach on this island and both pretty much went there every day. There was this jumping dock floating out in the middle of the lake, so my cousin and I used to go out there. This girl also went out to the dock. We started talking about random stuff and she was one of the funniest, weirdest, nicest, friendliest people that I had ever met. She was perfect. For the rest of the week on the island, she didn't leave my mind. We hung out a lot and my family started saying that they thought my cousin liked her. This made me jealous and I wasn't quite sure why. He didn't actually like her so it pissed him off that they were saying that. This girl said something about dating some girl, which sort of confused me, but it also made me realize that that was a thing. What confused me even more was that she also said something about dating a guy. Now I know that she was bisexual but at the time, the whole thing just confused me. When we had to leave, there was a softball game going on that we were watching with her. We never said goodbye. I was filled with wonder and confusion about her. I tried to find her on Instagram because she told me that she had one but to this day, I still have not found it. I did see her since then, but we didn't really talk much.

It wasn't until 8th grade that I really began to know what being gay was. I left my friend group and joined another one that some of my other friends went to a while ago. Some of the people in that group weren't straight.... the majority was not straight. I found out a lot about the LGBT community from them. With this information, I began to realize that I wasn't straight around December of 8th grade. I started to accept it.... being raised in a christian home, being gay was not okay.... but I didn't know that until christmas.

My extended family on my mom's side was over for christmas. Somehow a conversation came up about Caitlyn Jenner. There were some people who were okay with it aka my grandma and my uncle's girlfriend, there were some that were against it aka my dad and my uncle, and then there were the ones that stayed out of it aka my mom, my aunt, and my uncle. There were also all of the kids. My sister just sat there listening, my little cousin sat there not listening, my cousin sat there laughing, and I sat there with my jaw wide open. The conversation consisted of on one side "he's just gay, its just for publicity, gay+trans there all freaks to me, and I just want them out of my face" and the other side consisted of "he's not just gay, he started to transition before in private, and you guys are assholes." My one main problem with this, was they were both using the pronouns he and him. She is transgender mtf. Her pronouns are she and her.

That was the first time that anything like that was discussed in my family in front of me. I realized that while in school, with some people, it may be okay but at home, its not. Everything that I had accepted about myself was immediately washed away. I had to start fresh.

At that time, there was also a lesson in church about these guys who went around this city in mobs, forcing other guys to "do it" with them. The town was burned. The way that my teacher was teaching it was her interpretation. They were burned because they were gay. My interpretation was they were burned because they were rapists. I felt as if she was telling me, "you're going to burn in hell if you're gay" but that goes against what the bible says. It says if you admit your sins and ask for forgiveness, you will be saved. She was preaching against the bible. I feel like that is what a lot of christians do. They pick out things in the bible that they like. Any sin can keep you from heaven if not forgiven. Any sin can be forgiven. All sins have the same weight but they pick that one to discriminate against. Why don't they tell liars that they're disgusting and wrong and are going to burn in hell? They should stop using religion as a reason for their homophobia and just tell the truth because if they lie then they definitely are going to burn in hell.

After those events, I became traumatized and Locked my closet door. I tried to convince myself to like certain guys but it didn't really work. It just made my roller coaster go down.