Welcome Rebels to a very special post put together by myself, Yvng, and my fellow RBT member, Mars. In honor of Pride Month, we decided to go around and asked people who volunteered to tell their story through their pride journey. Sit back and dive into the wonderful stories these volunteers have to share!

Zawa

If I could say one thing to my teenage self, it would be that it gets better. The constant torment inside wishing that I could be someone better or someone different because I was not ‘the same’ as the rest of my classmates. My parents always told me that I am unique and special and one day people will realise it, but clearly at the time I did not believe them. It wasn’t till I went to university back in 2016 and plucked up the courage to go to a LGBTQ+ society house party in January 2017. One day I will not forget in a long time. I met two people who became my closest friends when I went through my time in University. We used to hang out, play video games and eat pizza together. I came out to them originally as bisexual, because that’s what I thought I was at the time. However hanging out with both them and the people in the LGBTQ+ society I found myself attracted to more people. I went out one night with my friends and we went to a gay club, and I met a transgender boy. We kissed and laughed and I may have been a little drunk but I knew it felt right and felt amazing. I talked to them outside and told them how I felt and that I was literally questioning my sexuality. They told me that it could be possible that I am pansexual, and I agreed with them. Two weeks later after thinking about it more (sober that is), I came out to my friends as pansexual. They were so overjoyed and proud to call me their friend by being able to express how I felt and feel comfortable in doing so. One of them bought me a pansexual flag, which I still have today and it is a reminder to myself that I should be proud of who I am.

My current boyfriend I met in January 2018 so a year after the event, we met online and I told him that I was pansexual. He accepted me straight away and still wanted to get to know me. We met in person and in July 2018 we got together and he is my best friend and more. Every day we talk he calls me his “panguin” (panda and penguin). It is a tribute to be being pansexual and my favourite animal being a penguin. Despite he is not part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, he loves and supports me and wants to learn more about it so that he can educate himself and not offend any of my friends. I am also now in RPF which I love who also love and accept me for who I am and is like a big family to me. So take it from me, to anyone who is worried about their sexuality or is even questioning it. You don’t have to decide it right now. You will know when the time is right and I promise you that things will get better. It could take years, days or months. Only you have the decision to know what is right for you.

Zee

So basically, I was on a discord friend making server, and I met someone who went by every pronoun and was a mermaid, so I was thinking to myself “What if, I like every gender?” So, at one point, I was just pansexual. Then, after doing some research, I ended up fitting the term of omnisexual perfectly! I then thought, “Well, maybe I only want to be with women and men?” So, naturally, that made me bisexual for a very long time, before I convinced myself that I could never really imagine myself being in a relationship with a woman, it brought me to a conclusion that I was an omniromantic homosexual. And how I figured out I was agender was a simple story. I knew I wasn’t male or female, was non-binary for a while, didn’t like that, became agender as a result.

Coric

Ever since I can remember, I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I never related to other girls with fashion and toys. At first my mom thought it would be a phase and kept dressing me up in girly dresses and put my hair up in all types of styles. I felt like I should’ve been a boy but I always kept it to myself thinking it was wrong to think how I was. I’ve always begged my mom to let me get my hair cut short but never really did. It wasn’t until my Sophomore year in high school where I met my friend and I learned more about the LGBTQ+ community and that I wasn’t the only one with these thoughts and that transgender was a thing and it opened a whole new door for me. And I knew then that I had to tell my family, I’m so grateful that my family is extremely supportive and even though the conversation was extremely awkward they supported my decision. Shortly after graduating high school I joined the military and my thoughts only got stronger, I was too late in reporting my thoughts to the medical and I missed the cutoff to get gender reassignment therapy and I had to go through 2 years without much help. I recently got out of the military and I am at the start of the transitional process.

Anonymous

It’s not really much of a story to be honest since it was only recently I started figuring stuff out. By recently I mean like a year or so ago lol. I can’t lie and say I never questioned things when I was younger, but I wasn’t as educated and I didn’t know any queer people so everything was a bit confusing and foreign and I just wasn’t aware of how much of a spectrum all of this is. But yeah, around this time last year I started questioning things a bit more, and I talked to people (unintentionally) about this, alot of people online actually and things started making a bit more sense. I was finally able to distinguish between the different types of attractions and whatnot and everything was a bit more clearer and that’s when I started properly realizing my attraction to different genders but also feeling more comfortable labeling myself as LGBTQ+.

Tbh, looking back on some moments when I was younger or even as a kid i’m like, how tf did I not know LMFAO. I’m still questioning things to this day, you know, I learn something new every day, about myself as well and this is a journey, it can’t happen overnight. There’s days where I dont think about it and days where that’s all I think about lol. I’m not out in real life (except to one person), so that’s something I’m always aware of sadly. Like, what kind of jokes I can make, what kind of comments and stuff like that which is one of the hard parts, not being able to say the things I want to. I’m not someone that expresses themselves anyway, but having the option to is always nice lol. With that said I still get all the (internal) panik when I see a cute girl or a cute guy walking by.

And that’s the end of this special post! Mars and I want to give a big thanks to the volunteers who reached out and wanted to share their pride story, this post wouldn’t of been possible without you all. I hope you all enjoyed reading people’s wonderful stories in going through their journey of being a LGBTQ+ member. Till next time this is Yvng Baller signing off

Yvng Baller – Lieutenant General