Growing up, I knew I was “not like the other girls” in my class. Not in the way you might be thinking and not in any way I wanted to be. When my friends told me about the guys in class they liked, or the celebrities they thought were hot, I laughed along and let the moment pass. I ignored the feeling in my gut and the nagging question, “What are they talking about?” The feelings that came so naturally to everyone else made me feel like I was being forced to walk in shoes two sizes too small. For years, I convinced myself that everyone didn’t really like the guys they were talking about and were amping it up in conversation. No one actually gets butterflies in their stomach when they talk to someone, right? I played along, picked guys to pretend to be interested in, and entertained my friends trying to set me up throughout middle school and high school. It made me feel like I belonged. The fear of what would happen if I was honest about the act I was putting on paralyzed me.
But like a lot of things, you can only fake it for so long. I was exhausted from trying to get approval from guys I didn’t even care about. I followed clothing trends even when I hated them, wore the same makeup I saw on TikTok, and destroyed my self-esteem to fit everyone else’s standard. One day it clicked (in reality, it took months to come to terms with it). I was done bending over backward to be someone I wasn’t, and never could be. I was an incredibly insecure 14-year-old who had been doing everything for guys to like me even when I hated it. I realized I liked girls in my first year of high school, and the pressure to fit into male-centered beauty was gone. I began expressing myself in every way possible (which led to some very embarrassing photos and phases of my life). But when you’re constantly exploring a new part of your identity, you get to know who you are, and as I fell in love with my new identity, I fell in love with myself.
I started from square one when trying to see how to “look” and “be” a good lesbian. The community I found myself in was so much more diverse than I could have imagined. People of different genders, races, sizes, styles, etc. were everywhere. This girl from the South was having major culture shock. The things I had been so insecure about for years because I was told guys didn’t like them (my weight, my interests, my style) were not only accepted but celebrated by the lesbian community. It was healing, to say the least. I realized that there were so many ways to be beautiful, funny, and intriguing. And I was all of those things. I was so at peace with myself, and grew even more in love with myself every day. I no longer care about fitting into this mainstream idea of beauty. I do not look like every other lesbian, and I am happy with that.
It is not an easy road, though. Just because I realized I was a lesbian didn’t mean I automatically unlearned all the conditioning from my youth. Undoing that is hard work. But dear God, is it worth it! I feel such pride in who I am and the way I look because I know how much work it took, how many nights I cried, and how many failed attempts it took to get here. I love being a lesbian. I love myself. And I could not have one without the other.
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