On coming out

I'm a queer teenager and here's my little blog entry on it!  

I am out to I'd say a medium circle of friends. I've know I like girls since I was little, like 9 or 10 but I didn't start to come out to anyone until middle school at like 13. Even then I didn't want to come out and it was my middle school friends who I guess could kind of tell and wouldn't leave me alone until I told them, which was actually a pretty bad experience I would say. After that I decided well might as well come out to some of my other friends. How I did that was rarely straight up saying it, mainly I would just try and bring up celebrity crushes subtly. Ok but in all honestly I think I kind of just looked gay so some people would just straight up ask me and I would just nod very awkwardly. 

In high school I'd say I got a little more confident in myself and my identity and at least to my friends I would like talking openly about it and not just my attraction but also about like social stuff. Like talking to my friends about how much it hurt when I heard people saying homophobic things even when it's not directed at me. I've gone to a pride event and I have some small flags scattered around my room. I'm not out to my parents or anything. I had school as my safe space, I could talk to my friends and write stories for english classes freely. Obviously there were homophobes but I barely got any trouble about it, like there were these two super religious girls who were in my friend group who would say some not so nice things but I could tune that out. I've gotten more into queer culture dare I say consuming queer media and trying to educate myself on politics.

This past year I've been living in Japan. Being in a new culture and place I've had no in person support network and I can't pick up on any signals. I know stereotypes aren't good but they can be useful, for example in the US if I saw a friend group were everyone had dyed hair and listened to musical soundtracks I had a pretty good reason to assume I could be safe around them. But now in Japan having lost all of that I've accidentally befriended homophobes :( I thought they would be cool because they like this one BL reality TV show but turned out they've been bullying this trans kid in our class this whole time. I only found out because she's straight up stopped coming to school! That's how bad it's gotten. I feel so bad for having befriended these people. I think I'm going to try and befriend the trans girl I just mention if she comes back to school (hopefully she will).

Even though I never really wanted to come out in the first place and I thought a new place where no one knew might be refreshing. No one asking me weird question at 13 about if I watch lesbian porn or if I was a top or bottom no more being afraid about someone telling someone I don't want them to. It seemed like it would be a good thing. But now that I'm here in this situation that I thought would be so great I'm definitely thinking it's not so great. I don't like people asking me my type in guys and assuming they can be homophobic in front of me. But I don't know how to come out, who I can tell safely, if there's anyone I can tell safely. I'm realizing how important having other out Lgbtq+ people was for me even if they weren't all perfect because of course they weren't! They're human. 

I've been thinking about maybe like saying something on instagram, since it's not face to face maybe it won't be as scary? But like literally my grandma follows me... maybe I should just block her? Even if I do that I don't even know what I would say? Maybe put like a ⚢ in my bio? But I feel like that's not enoughhhh I don't know maybe I'll just do that.

Thanks for reading xoxo!