The Art of a Gay Awakening

I was having a conversation with my father the other day about my childhood, and how I regularly remember little quirks I had that were really gay. For the rest of the weekend, I kept recalling different things about younger Maya that should’ve set off some alarms, but alas, I continued to tell people I was “straight as a pencil.” Girl…

Soon after, I realized the beauty of a gay awakening. What is it about these random characters or celebrities that really called to me? What else did I do in my homoromantic youth that nobody noticed?

First things first, the girl that I consider to be my official gay awakening is none other than Roxanne Rover from “A Goofy Movie.” Weird, right? Well, the scene where Roxanne is in the white dress with the flower in her hair really spoke to me. I was entranced by her flowing hair and how beautiful she was. Max Goof knew what was up, and I was envious of him. 

I was more than aware of my girl-crush on Roxanne when I was younger. I just thought it was because I wanted to be her. In retrospect, I realize that Roxanne’s allure was my desire to be with her, not be her. 

As I went down this rabbit hole, I also remembered that I played “Episode.” For those who don’t know: “Episode” is basically a choose your own adventure game. You play a character in a story created by someone else and get to choose what happens (not really; for any rational decision you’d have to pay gems). At the beginning of these “Episode” stories, they would give you the choice of being romantically involved with men, women or both. To nobody’s suspicion, I wouldn’t even choose both; I’d choose women only. Since I was clueless, I just brushed this off by saying the women in the game were prettier, and I would choose men the next time I played (I didn’t). The funniest thing about remembering these moments of my youth is the excuses I’d use to prove my “heterosexuality.” 

Recalling these habits is one of my favorite things to do. As a young adult, I look back on how I acted as a kid and realize how far I’ve come. When these quirks pop up in my head, I realize that, fundamentally, I’m the girl I’ve always been. I’ve also had the privilege of realizing my sexuality earlier in life, while some people don’t realize till later. 

As I write this, I’m having a flashback of another memory from when I was younger. I had a “MovieStarPlanet” girlfriend. Was this risky? For sure. Did I ghost her? Affirmative. However, before I made like a banana and split, I was in a full-on relationship with a woman over a video game. I was not out at this time, and I can’t even remember how I justified this to myself. 

Honestly, thinking about little me makes me a little teary-eyed. I think that reflecting on who I am and what brought me here is always insightful. When I was 5 or 6 and watching “A Goofy Movie,” I had no clue I was gay. I just thought I had good taste. A gay awakening is a good story to tell to people, but it goes deeper than that. A gay awakening is an important turning point in your life. Despite my lack of awareness, I understand now after reflecting that all of these little quirks started happening after I laid my eyes on Roxanne Rover.

Being able to identify your gay awakening is always fun. You commonly find that people say Santana Lopez from “Glee” or Lucy Liu in “Charlie’s Angels” (the latter is personal). I also find that sometimes a gay awakening can tell you about a person. For instance, Roxanne Rover from “A Goofy Movie” is unorthodox, chaotic and random — three words that I would argue line up with who I am as a person. 

Having access to the internet as a young girl with — apparently — zero self awareness, gave me a lot of things to reflect on now. For a while, there wasn’t a night I would go to bed without watching Jenna Dewan’s lip sync performance of “Pony” or Julianne Hough’s lip sync battle to “I Just Had Sex.” 

Props to me for making it to middle school without anyone suspecting a thing. Who knows what would have happened if “The Last of Us 2” was released before I had come out (hint: incessant thirsting over Ellie Williams and Abby Anderson under the guise of straight-ness).  

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