It is not normal to wake up and feel nauseous before heading to school, feeling your feet hit the smooth hardwood floor and picking up little bits of dust and hair with every dragging of your ankles. Your body pregnant with a sensation that festers, not develops, and does so over a very long period of time. The feeling of somebody slowly stomping on your chest, now devoid of any movement. Stillness. I relish it. At least I can stand in the safety of my bathroom and feel the concrete in my head turn to rubble. Catastrophe. It is not easy being lesbian.
Lesbians are, to the average straight person (or non-lesbian in general), a byproduct of teenage heartbreak and angst-- the phrase “Girls take one “L” (A.K.A. loss) and add “GBTQ” to it” being a common phrase amongst the younger generation. To them, lesbians are a fetish: schoolgirl skirts, “scissoring,” sex being representative of their entire identity. And to a younger me, that seemed almost laughable until I was at the receiving end.
The first time I came to terms with my sexuality was January 2021, a month after leaving a seven month relationship with a boy in which I had to deal with not only internalized homophobia, but also the fact that I considered having my partner call me stupid and incapable on a weekly basis normal. Every day, I would allow myself to get yelled at for getting a better test score, hear him say that I was “overly ambitious” for wanting to pursue medicine, all the while having to be his therapist and fulfilling every ounce of his needs while he completely ignored mine. Every day, I would convince myself I was someone I’m not. Every day, I would cry in front of a Chrome browser titled “how to know if you are lesbian” while praying to a god I do not believe in that I wasn’t gay. Well, I was-- I am. I left that relationship and came out in March 2021.
It was freeing. Remember that feeling I had where it felt like someone was stomping on my chest? Yeah, that was gone. Finally becoming accepting of my sexuality and acknowledging me for well, me, is like the pinks, purples, and oranges of a sunset combined with a warm breeze and saltwater air. It is waking up to a chilly morning in which your floor is slightly warm from the heat running overnight and your face imprinted with the folds of your pillowcase. It is feeling the warm hand of the woman I love squeeze mine. Alternately, it is having that boy who called me stupid and incapable on a weekly basis finding out and telling everyone and his mom (quite literally) that the way I identify is a result of our breakup. To him, I existed solely to spite him and pine for male attention. To him, I am another unstable nympho who cannot cope with heartbreak or being left alone for more than five seconds. I am reduced to an argument and my existence is trivialized because, “there is no way she could be lesbian after we did all that together.”
Sometimes people reduce me to being lesbian and being lesbian only. A checkmark on a list. I remember every time I entered a classroom and someone would say “Look! It’s the faggot!” and boys in the football team I’d overhear saying that the only personality trait I have is my being lesbian as if they do not sit at lunch rating the perkiness and size of a girl’s breasts. I could argue that their only personality trait is being straight and misogynistic-- but I’d be met with weird looks because they are simply following what is normal and expected of them. After all, boys will be boys and women exist to please them. They are a manifestation of the societal norms and biases that work in their favor-- but strip orphans of two loving fathers, deny extracting possibly life-saving blood from gay and trans people, and are the reason LGBTQ+ youth experience higher rates of homelessness.
This is a harsh reality that will never go away unless we work to address inequities in our systems as well as dismantle heteropatriarchal, oppressive standards of living. The lesbian experience is painful. It is beautiful. It is running my hands through long, curly hair that rests on a pillow on a rainy day. It is feeling two hands grip my waist as I awkwardly try to ride her skateboard down the street. Everyday, I marvel at how brave we are for unapologetically loving women in a world where we are pressured into being with men. We are endlessly strong for cutting our nails short. For saying “no” to men who ask us if they can watch us kiss. For being lesbian. I am so proud to have Sappho, Angela Davis, and Storme DeLarverie representative of us-- people who set the world ablaze with their literature, politics, and riots. The “L” in LGBTQ doesn’t stand for “loss,” “loser” or “lame.” It stands for light, for love, for lustrous. The “L” in LGBTQ stands for lesbian.
