My mom worked a lot and left me in the care of two gay men who lived in our apartment building. They made my childhood x10 better and when I came out to them, they introduced me to everything LGBT+ when I was in my teens.
We were watching House Hunters when I was eight and two men wanted to buy a house. I asked my mom if they were roommates. She proceeded to gently explain to me that they were abominations to God. So. Ya.
Looking back, the amount of time I spent in the Sims just having two women live an ordinary, boring life is quite profoundly sad, if you really think about it. I mean, hetero players make their Sims become President, or an Astronaut, or build giant mansions made of marble and oak. I just had mine be content and happy - which seemed like such a fantasy at the time. *eesh*.
Hetero players do not make their sims become president. Is that even an option? They’re setting babies on fire and deleting the door like the rest of us, fam. It’s not sad at all that you played the Sims exactly how it’s meant to be played lol
Culture crusaders spent all that time in hysterics over boys criming in Grand Theft Auto, missing all the casual girl serial murdering in Sims.
I would've paid good money to watch Hillary and that lizard Jack Thompson try to whip up a frenzy over kids *deleting pool ladders* while sippin' Capri and danglin' their legs from the high office chair.
This is how I play too. I recently showed my girlfriend The Sims and she was asking what I did…I was like I just do stuff…go to work, cook dinner, raise kids, live life, with a girl. :)
Naya Rivera on Glee having an emotional relationship with Brittany was the first time I saw two women lovingly together and not just as sex objects. I’d already had my first crush on a woman by that point, but I didn’t know women could actually be gay. I thought “women just mess around and it’s sexual but no big deal they’re still straight really” (classic biphobia). Or that wlw relationships were all sexual and somehow darker and different.
I really didn’t know that women could be gay and love just like straight people or gay men. I honestly thought it just had to be different somehow. Santana’s speech about “I like girls the way I’m supposed to like guys” was the first time it ever clicked for me that the love was the same and it was just as beautiful.
Her version of “songbird” by fleetwood mac is my favorite love song in the world and I still will occasionally watch that scene. Her death was so tragic
> How did you learn that queer people exist?
My mum.
One of her best friends in the 80's - 90's was a gay man. He didn't come out until like the 90's but, that didn't stop my mum from seeing him as her friend.
One of my earliest memories, I must've been like... 5? My parents took me to visit my 'Uncle' - my mum's friend. He was living with his then partner, and my parents and them sat and talked about whatever, but my 'Uncle' saw I was just kinda sat there and knowing I liked Star Wars let me play LEGO: Star Wars on his Xbox.
When we left, on the way home I said in the car something along the lines 'Uncle [Name] and his husband', and my mum then had to explain to me why they weren't married because the government wouldn't let them and I remember saying that that was stupid. Remember, I was like 4 or 5, but it didn't confuse me at all. I still refer to him as my Uncle too.
I also first learned about trans people around the same age. In 2004 there was a contestant on Big Brother called Nadia, and she's a trans woman. My mum was watching this, and I remember her saying she really hoped Nadia wins, and like any 4-5 year old I asked "Why?" and my mum said something along the lines of "She was born a boy, but in her heart and mind she feels like me. Life's been hard for her because of that, and if she wins the money will help her be happy." and that was enough for 4-5 year old me that hadn't realised that I too wasn't cis and I said "Okay, that makes sense, I hope she wins too"
All of that is why it's total bullshit when someone says "kids won't understand queer people". If I could when I was 4, then no one has an excuse.
Edit: upon googling, I was definitely at least 5 with the first one because LEGO: Star Wars came out in 2005.
I was obsessed with reading from I was 7 years old. I literally ploughed through every book the library had. I am sure I was introduced to gay and lesbians that way (all the rest came much later).
(I am Xennial. No internet, and only 2 TV channels in my language as a kid, so books were how I got to know stuff that wasn't super mainstream).
Not an Xennial, but similar situation. Books were my comfort and how I got to know things since we couldn't afford a computer at home until I was in my teens.
There's a trans woman who is very well known on Italian TV by the name [Vladimir Luxuria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Luxuria). On top of her political activity (she was the first trans member of the european parliament!) she also popped in and out of random shows and events and interviews as I was growing up but I never really looked into it, until in 2008 she appeared on the italian version of Survivor.
She actually ended up winning that season, after which she donated half of the prize pool to charity, and nowadays she's one of the regular guests of the show, actually being the main host of the newest season.
She was one of the first queer people I discovered and didn't just chuck to the side because "oh yeah queer people, anyway", because of how actively I was watching Survivor back then and how involved she was.
Since then whenever the discussion of queer people came up, she was the first example I could think of, until in the late 2010's I started looking through new online communities and started talking with other queer people, and later realized "hey I'm a few of these letters too" lol
EDIT: also Xena I guess but I never questioned that back then lmao
When I was about 6 years old, my dad took me to a play that turned out to be about two teenage boys who fall in love and share a kiss. I didn’t really understand why they were so scared to be in love, my dad had to explain homophobia after. So thankful for that early exposure.
I'd heard vaguely of political stuff but didn't really process it for a long time. Lots of news about gay marriage and such, but I didn't really understand what they were talking about so it kinda blended into the same politics ball i think most kids put stuff that doesn't affect them into.
Then I got into anime and saw that musketeer girl in Familiar of Zero kiss louise (for plot contrivance/tactical reasons) and immediately went to look for more girls kissing. Watched all of sakura trick before fully processing what lesbianism is then took a month or so to realize it applied to me lol.
When I was a kid scrolling through Sonic fansites on Geocities, I stumbled across art of Sonic and Shadow kissing. I connected it to things I'd heard in passing about gay marriage (this was around when it was legalized in Massachusetts and my parents watched the news every day) and it all clicked into place. A lightbulb went off in my head, like, "ohh, this is that thing called GAY". 😂
Ooh this post unlocked a new memory I had somewhat forgotten I remember sitting with my mother and brother and they were discussing this teacher I had and saying how he seemed very gay (looking back I can confirm he most definitely did) and I was like what's that. I was like 4th grade I think?
Wait, is there a positive trans character in a show that old?
Before Orange itn Black, I've almost only seen terrible representation, where ridicule was the least malignant.
It feels like every episode of the Simpsons has a suicide joke or a trans joke or both. I for sure grew up thinking it was all a joke and I was just a guy that really liked eating out 😆 guess I’m glad I got here eventually.
Wow, that's fantastic.
What's striking is that even the character who is weird about it, doesn't have the same rote bigotry which has become so pervasive today.
It makes you consider how artificial the hatred it.
Coronation Street in the UK had a trans character from 1998 that was a main story line, she's played by a cis woman and was an active main character til 2014. I don't watch it so not sure if there has ever been a bad angle on her being trans but I think overall she's considered to be very positive and the actress is an ally.
Yeh it's sad to think we were better off in the UK before people really knew we existed. The general person on the street is generally not a transphobe but politicians love kicking us atm
There was an episode of Star Trek TNG from 1992 that revolved around trans character about to be sentenced to conversion therapy.
> On our world these feelings are forbidden. Those who are discovered are shamed and ridiculed, and only by undergoing psychotectic therapy and having all elements of gender eliminated can they become accepted into society again. Those of us who have these urges live secret and guarded lives. We seek each other out, always hiding, always terrified of being discovered.
> […]
> I remember when I was very young, before I knew what I was, there was a rumour in my school that one of the students preferred a gender, in that case, male. The children started making fun of him, and every day they were more cruel They could tell he was afraid and somehow that seemed to encourage them. One morning in class, he appeared, bleeding and in ripped clothes. He said he had fallen down. And of course the school authorities found out and took him away, and gave him psychotectic treatments. When he came back, he stood in front of the whole school and told us how happy he was now that he had been cured. After that, I realised how dangerous it was to be different. And once I got older, and knew what I was, I was terrified. I have had to live with that fear ever since.
There was a lot wrong with it from a modern standpoint (it was wrapped up in a heterosexual love story with the straightest man in Starfleet, and they don’t manage to save her in the end, although it is presented as tragic), and it was probably originally intended as a gay rights allegory, but I was legitimately floored when I watched it and realized it was from *1992*.
I've actually seen this one, yeah.
A good effort, but I feel like it wasn't direct enough because TNG didn't really talk about lgbt+ issues much at all.
The fact that the conversion therapy actually worked here wasn't really a point in favor of it either. I suppose the message was still that it doesn't matter even if it works, but the whole thing was a little ham-fisted.
It's actually a little disappointing how little Star Trek has dealt with queer issues. Glad you still found some value in this episode, though.
Also, Riker should have bisexual.
I was like 4 and some show featured a woman on stage calling up her wife. I have no idea what it was but I remember being like "wait, wife? That's so cool :0"
It was an episode of George Lopez. It was an episode where the daughter got a new boyfriend who was acting suspicious. The end of the episode George finds out that the boyfriend was cheating on her with a man. Now obviously not every queer person is a cheater but it was not a good first impression.
First time I learned about gay people was when I was 9. My oldest cousin came to visit at my aunt and uncle’s house while I was hanging out with my cousin who was my age, When my parents picked me up they were upset that he was there. I asked my mom why and she said that she couldn’t say, but that he was gay which meant he liked men, and that he was looking at stuff he shouldn’t while he visited my aunt and uncle. For the longest time I thought my mom hated him for being gay until like a year ago when she told me what he really did which was actually bad.
My first exposure to trans people was at church when I was also around the same age. There was a trans woman who apparently wanted to try going there after being gone for a long time. Of course she was disliked by everyone yet again and nobody wanted her back except for the pastor which was just sad. I had a lot of questions but my mom just said "some people grow up really sad and change their sex when they're older, im not answering any more questions".
I wish. My first exposure to trans people existing was Ace Ventura, when he makes out with this girl who turns out to be a “man” so he cries in the shower, then in a later scene viciously rips off her clothes while announcing “SHE’S A MAN!” Being a huge big reveal, followed by having everyone on scene throw up. On top of that my family was always quite uh…”traditional” to put it nicely. I didn’t know what was “wrong” with me for a long time. My first exposure to a real trans person was in secondary school, which then made me explore my sexuality. Then after a lot of exploration I came to realise I’m a lesbian. In terms of media I don’t go out of my way to watch lgbtq media but there has been lots in both movies and video games that have affected me and made me who I am today.
My parents told me when I was like 11 after there was a gay character in a show we were watching. They only told me and my brother though. Our other siblings were told later.
They’re conservative Christians so, despite the fact that we knew a gay man that we have met him and his boyfriend multiple times before this, we had no idea that it was even possible to be gay. Funny now considering that when I was like 5 or 6 I wanted to marry Truly from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Gen Z, we just watched a lot of old movies).
It's funny because there was a family with two moms in my 4-h club when I was like 7 but only one of them was super involved in all the things so I just kind of forgot the other existed and didn't realize gay people existed until a bit later when I met two girls (at the time, neither is a girl anymore) who were dating during middle school.
I read a lot of books as a kid and in one of them the main character (a girl obviously🙈) falls in love with another girl and a boy and has to decide if she wants to stay with one of them, ultimately she decides for the boy. I couldn’t understand why anybody would do that, why a woman would choose a man over a woman, that just didn’t make sense and i knew i would have chosen differently if i was in her place. This was a very confusing feeling, since im trans and didn’t know at the time🙃🤭
I learned about queers in the context of the Gay Agenda because we done went and stole the rainbow. Being a queervangelical kid in rural Texas was a trip!
Much of my childhood I have forgotten due to trauma. However I do remember the fuss about the 1st onscreen UK lesbian kiss in Hollyoaks.
As for when I realised I might not be cis.... In the back of FHM magazine there was an advert section. Including an advert from a crossdressing service/shop. Took me a while to realise it wasn't just the clothes though.
I have no idea. I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t aware gay people existed or any specific moment that it dawned on me. My mum’s best friend when I was growing up was a lesbian and had a partner, so possibly because of them? I really don’t know, though. I definitely had an awareness that gay people (perhaps not bi and certainly not trans people) existed from quite young in childhood - and I also remember specifically imagining how two women might have sex when I was pretty young (maybe 7 or so?) - but they were still treated as taboo and ‘other’ by society at large, so it never occurred to me that *I* could be gay.
I don’t remember what triggered it - probably something I saw in the media - but I do remember asking my mum what trans meant (I’m *guessing* this is maybe when I was a bit older, around 10/11 or so) and she said it was ‘when people are born in the wrong body and are supposed to be the other gender’. Which is obviously a reductive explanation now, but this would’ve been the mid-2000s. Around that same time I also asked her what scissoring was because it came up in relation to the Scissor Sisters - she explained it to me and I was like…oh. Okay then. 😂
I was 7 and I saw a movie where a group of Spanish flamenco dancers get stuck in a little village in Tuscany, and the three siblings, two guys and a girl, that host said dancers in their villa hit on these girls and I was like “oh, okay, cool…? I guess this happens, too?”. I didn’t realized what a lesbian is -or that homosexual existed- till high school. Than the movie finally made sense.
I was growing up around the time the fight for gay marriage was coming to a head, and I was made to do Catholic extracurricular classes literally from age 8-16. They had some choice words about people like us.
My mother is a lesbian, so I was always somewhat aware. It took me until 6 or 7 to actually understand what that meant though, and to make sense of what sexualities are, how they can manifest, and the types of sexualities that exist.
I guess I was lucky that I learnt about it straight from the source. The 90’s and early 00’s were a poor time for rep. I’m on the cusp of my 30’s, so most secondary source rep such as media went between poor to non existent as a child depending on what you had access to and where.
I was aware that women who love and couple with women was a thing, I just didn’t know what being gay, lesbian, or what even queer was until I was a little older.
My first exposure to trans people was murder victims on CSI 🙃
I think my first exposure to gay people was when my aunt and former uncle were protesting Disney hosting their first Pride event (I think it was gay day, or something like that) back in the early 90s.
First, from my very homophobic grandmother, who basically confirmed that gay men exist but said nothing about lesbians. When I was a teenager, I saw "Mean Girls" and Janis' character.
Connecticut was discussing voting on same-sex marriage (“unions”). They were talking about it on the radio one night while I was doing my homework. I was in 6th grade.
through porn (i was an overly sexual child) but i thought they were exclusively a porn thing. no one taught me about sexuality (not bc of religion, no one around me was religious) and so i didn’t actually know i could be queer. i watched lesbian porn and as a mid teen a friend introduced me to OISTNB and so then i thought lesbians were only in porn and tv. wasn’t until late highschool that i somehow realised lesbian was a sexuality that i could be. i went through the whole “am i bi?” phase before coming out as a lesbian but that’s where i learnt that lesbians (gay men were also discovered through porn) existed
Honestly as bad as this sounds, probably from porn. I went to a catholic middle school who wasn’t conservative enough to constantly be telling us how being gay was wrong, but not liberal enough to support lgbt rights. So they told us… nothing. And I think my parents just assumed I already knew that people could be gay by the time I was in middle school. If you asked me I probably had some vague idea of gay people existing, but I didn’t have any actual concrete understanding or examples until I started watching porn in middle school. Which uh was not good for my own mental health as someone who was bisexual and “crossdressing” in private.
When I went to high school I actually met (openly) lgbt people irl for the first time and found media with lgbt characters, but the two years before that were a rough time haha.
When I went to a big family reunion and saw the "married" line between my great uncle and his husband. This was in 2000 so they weren't even legally married, but everyone in my family considered that they were.
Oh, I remember Lisa Edelstein‘s character on Ally McBeal! Honestly, her plot was one of the instances where they were very ahead of their time.
While the transphobia from a lot of the characters was awful to watch, it was never framed as if they‘re in the right and sadly, it was realistic for that demographic at the time. She was always portrayed as a very desirable, smart, kind and real woman and it was clear that we were supposed to be on her side.
Her relationship with the lawyer on the show who was a permanent cast member was also really sweet, and while I wish that they ended up together and it really hurt to see him breaking up with her over other peoples‘ bigotry; the fact that he later realised he wanted her back and SHE was the one who turned him down because she realised she deserved more was really amazing.
Her storyline, like multiple others on that show, was handled with a lot of compassion and more nuance than almost all other shows at the time would have handled it with.
For some reasons when I was very young I was aware of the existence of gay or lesbian but since I was surrounded with a homophobic environment I thought it was sick or weird or like not possible.
One day I was watching a romance mecha anime and two girls kissed (side couple).
I was surprised and kind excited. I remember I closed the pc because I felt so shy and then I tried to gaslit myself saying that was disgusting. Not even 10 minutes I kept rewatching their kiss for at least 10 times lol
This kept happening for a few days and later I finally accepted and realized that two women can love each others because until then I always thought love was only for man and woman (I was a teenager).
Also it made me realize I was into women because I always I tried to impress girls whenever they were close and meanwhile with boys I tried to fight against lol
My mom was/is kinda closeted. Its one of those neither confirms nor denies but also doesn't say out loud things . Everyone knows . Im not sure she knows how everything she does is extremely not hetero .
Grew up in San francisco so it was everywhere. She Has had lgbt friends since childhood as my dad does as well(only remaining close friend from high school) It was very important.
My mom hung out in gay clubs in the Castro in the 80s and dated 2 different bi guys around that time and knew a bunch of drag queens and trans women too .
It was important for her for me to know lgbt history so she'd tape documentaries about gay history on KQED, and we'd watch them.
My parents had a butch lesbian friend who dated my Dad before she realized she was a lesbian and ended up coincidentally buying a dog from my mom's partner who's a dog breeder and named it after a thing associated with my families business(my dad was honestly quite pretty and has very soft features and flowing locks of hair so it makes sense to a degree.
My parents also knew some gender non conforming women who micro dosed T back then .
My dad also used to crossdress and do drag for work. I have a lot of old Kodak photos at my mom's house of my dad in a miniskirt , fishnets, a leather biker jacket and dyed hot pink hair and heavy makeup. And he passed well.
Most of my mom's friends since my parents got divorced are lesbians she knows through her dog stuff. Some are asexual some are Nonbinary.
With my Dad gone for the most part , I was raised a lot by my mom and her partner, and all their friends. Up until she had a brain aneurysm when I was 12 or 13 and lost a lot of her empathy and my life got bad from then on .
My mom is fairly gender non conforming too. Definitely lesbian mountain partner energy with all hiking boots and REI minimalist wardrobe. She has a cool tweed biker jacket and boots I want, but she won't tell me where she got it .
Being raised by a soft butch late bloomer ,my relationship to womanhood is complex.
She was dealing with her own internal stuff then, raised me more or less gender neutral.
So I was kind of raised Nonbinary,despite being a woman. I find it easier to just say im Nonbinary sometimes because I was kind of socialized that way.
Most if my friends growing up were lesbians, and bi women with a few gay dudes . We called Our friend group the emo unicorns. And then after getting sent away to the TTI. After she lost her capacity for empathy following the brain aneurysm,pretty much everyone there was some flavor of queer.
Gay femboy furries ,bisexual Nonbinary people, flamboyant gay Nicki Minaj stans and some macho gay guys and some lesbians and an asexual enby or two.
I didn’t know gay people existed until I was 14. It was when gay marriage was legalized. I never really thought about it before then. Never heard gay as an insult either. Wasn’t long after that I realized I was gay people.
Tony and Simon kissing in Eastenders. I remember all the drama about it and how they had to show a cut version of the kiss pre-watershed.
Like… there are a couple of queer people in my family, but I just never really questioned it or thought it was different. “Auntie Ann and her girlfriend Sue, cool, makes sense,” and I was not a smart child so I never made the connection between that at being queer lol.
The Eastenders kiss sticks in my mind because I remember it being a big deal at the time, so it was the first one that made me realise “oh ok, so this is a different thing” and also “why are people so mad about this?”
It was when I asked my (relatively) accepting grandparents about what "gay" meant when seeing it in the news on the day it was legalized in the US. The denial phase that lasted years after that came from having my head bashed in by my parents when they figured out that I had learned about gay people.
My dad had a gay friend and my parents explained to me at a young age what that meant and why it was normal. My dad is terrible in a lot of ways, but at least in this respect, he didn't totally suck.
One of my friends had a gay dad.
And other of my friends came out as gay when he was like 14.
And also a bunch of my friends were having gay sex back then without me realizing it.
Being one. I always liked girls, though I didn't know what it was at first, I was literally a child (5yo) when I liked a girl for the first time (that i remember😂).
I became more aware of it growing up and meeting different people.
My mom’s friend had a lesbian friend who I thought was a man until she said she was a woman.. she had really short hair and those huge ear piercings. Also my mom’s friend’s sister was a lesbian and brought her gf over
I wanted to ask them so many questions istg
I was probably like 7 or 8
my dad was friends with these two gay guys and they were the coolest dudes ever to six year old me. this is so going to age me but they would burn DVDs for my dad and i and it was the best thing ever. i just assumed gay people were cool- which i ended up growing up and realizing i was 110% right.
My bisexual friend I met in 3rd grade. He introduced me to queer people, I was a bit homophobic before but he made me realize I liked girls. We're still friends to this day
I knew of the concept of two women dating via Steven universe and the fandom, (so think like 3rd-5th grade) but I only learned a name for it by middle-school through a friend
good luck charlie series finale! the two moms were my first exposure that I can actually remember. that or forensic files or a similar program. there were quite a bit of murderer lesbian episodes that I somehow ended up watching on cable when I was supposed to be in bed. good times.
I heard about gay people in 5th grade. I heard a friend was gay and that's when I learned about them. Then I started learning more about the LGBTQ+ community and started questioning. Now I know I'm a lesbian.
I learned about gay people because my mom made a joke about a YouTuber I used to watch being gay for his best friend (I don’t watch them anymore mostly because I feel like their content just doesn’t fit my modern tastes)
They’re both straight but regardless that’s how I found out about it lmao
In the early 80s when my sisters and I were teens living in the wilds of south Jersey with no cable or nearby movie theaters (and not driving yet) going to visit our cool aunt (single and 12 years younger than my dad) in Philadelphia was a huge treat. She took us to eat at diners, go down to South Street to Zipperhead and all the fun shops, and a highlight was catching a movie at the Theater of the Living Arts, a repertory movie theater so you never really knew what might be showing.
One visit she took us to see Fame—we were familiar with the tv show but of course that was very sanitized compared to the movie. I don’t think she realized that we were not allowed to see R-rated movies at home—even when they were on tv and edited.
So the movie had its eye opening moments. But the part I remember more than that was before the movie started. There was a table full of free literature—leaflets, one page ads for bands and such, and freebie publications. One of which was Philadelphia Gay News. We found that hilarious! I remember my sister holding it us to show the other two of us. “look! The GAYS have a NEWSPAPER!” My aunt shushed us and said in a low voice, “cut it out, there are probably gay people in the theater with us right now!” This was amazing to us. “The gays” were Billy Crystal on Soap (a show we were definitely not allowed to watch) or the constant limp-wrist sorts of jokes on Three’s Company. They were something on tv, not…like…people you might see anywhere.
So my aunt, thinking she has navigated us past continuing to embarrass her, took us into the theater and we got in our seats and waited for the show to start. And my two younger sisters (I was around 15 so they would have been 13 and 11) started looking around at everyone on the theater speculating on which ones were gay. “Do you think they are gay? How about them?” While my aunt probably wished the floor would open and swallow us—or her.
Bless her, she still brought us up to the city for weekends a couple of times a year even after that embarrassment. And pretended not to notice that by my senior year in high school I would slip a copy of the Gay News into my purse or backpack….she was the first person in my family I came out to a few years after that.
Most likely because of my older sister, she’s a lesbian and she had some friends who were trans so that’s how I learned about all of that. It was kind of funny though, my mom was talking about the first time she suspected my sister was gay and I was just like I thought that we all knew the entire time lol.
Someone on a day time talk show talked about trans people but used the term intersex because they were confused. I looked it up and was devastated to learn this was not a word for me, then I found a YouTube channel by the name of Grishno, and learned about trans people and trans lesbians.
At age 9 or 10 I was a big fan of creative free build minecraft servers. Someone did a huge pride themed build with a bunch of plots and that is quite literally when I realized gay people actually existed and weren’t just something the Bible talked about. I went down a rabbit hole and came out a lesbian.
ummm lots of trauma and bigotry is how.
oh boi....
so, I was 10. I was talking to My older sibling about nature and morals and stuff, and they told me "it's not natural to be homosexual but some people are" not realizing that it was actually one of the most natural things in the world which would have defeated their own talking point about *ahem* cell phones and TV... but of course in order for me to know that, I would at least have to know what homosexuality was in the first place
so I was like "what's that"? And they explained with a whisper in my ear, as if they were leaking government secrets that senator mother shouldn't know about, that it's two guys being in love. I quickly became homophobic. Not because I was concerned about two consenting adults getting married, but because ew kissing i hate that cooties get these things away from me
Is it really homophobia if you hate straight couples too?
^It ^becomes ^the ^real ^thing ^later ^on, ^dont ^worry.
I later learned about the existence of trans people from randos making jokes about "getting a sex change for a million dollars". the topic was all over facebook, tho I wouldn't know because up until that point I only ever used the conputer to play the Plants vs Zombies game that I got for free off of a very safe website called FreeGamesSafeNoScamNoVirus. It was on a facebook post, so you know it's safe.
Me being 12, autistic, out of the cootie wars headspace, and unknowingly trans myself despite already being an "honorary girl", my first thought was "I wish I had a million dollars." I'd proceed to be super fucking oblivious to the terminology for another 5 years and to my own desire to chop my balls off for the 3 years after that.
Although I did find *cough* certain videos that were totally fine for me to watch as a 12yo **ahem** nothing wrong there at all.... Anyway, that combined with my mutations lesson in biology class, I proceeded to do something that only a supergenius could do: confuse transgender with intersex without knowing either word in the first place.
I was apparently the only one who made the connection that extra or missing chromosomes can also apply to XY, and would probably result in people developing both or neither sexual characteristics. I'll give my classmates the benefit of the doubt, since I needed that to be a fact because i desperately needed boobs to grow on my chest.
All of this was in countries where badmouthing the established religion is punishable by death. Here I am now wishing that the 2008 crash never happened and that I stayed in connecticut so that I could move out much earlier than I actually did and be 100% done with my transition by 21. Also so that I wouldn't have to get cucked by Windows XP. Yes, that happened. sort of... different story.
The funny thing is, I grew up homophobic but at no point was I ever transphobic, despite both those things being super prevalent among people around me.
Anyway, all my siblings came out to me as queer, except the teenager, but I'm 90% sure something is going on with him too. If not, that's fine because he can still find a different way to disappoint our parents.
I think my mom was the first to tell me that gay people exist (unfortunately not in a very open minded way), but the first time I saw two girls kiss was in Dodgeball (2004).
gay people? probably 14, first year hs
trans people? probably 16, third year hs after joining reddit subs
when did i come out? 16
its the prime example of information hiding!
"how did you learn queer people exist?"
dawg I am one😭
My only representation growing up was Susan and Carol from friends and that one trans woman from family guy (that scene with the dog puking for like 20 seconds after finding out he had sex with "it" sure did a number on me)
Wait, am I fuckin’ stupid? I didn’t think Cuddy was trans. Not that I would be mad if she was, I just don’t remember any real references to that being a thing.
I found out in 4th or 5th grade from barely restricted access to Google images looking at Lego Ninjago fanart from Deviantart. I saw too many disturbing things I shouldn't have seen (borderline porn) but I also learned about men kissing each other
I grew up doing children's theatre. It's a little hard to hide gay folks in theatre.
I was very lucky that my parents, though never exactly supportive of gay strangers, didn't outwardly say anything negative. I always just assumed you could love whoever you love and was never corrected.
My obsession with buffy the vampire slayer absolutely cemented that idea though.
I don't remember. I mean I guess Sonic the Hedgehog crossdressed and that became my favorite trope in cartoons for no reason in particular.
Does Ranma Saotome count as a lesbian? Like I'm struggling to think of the first lesbian I heard of.
I guess when I learned queer people were real and like, not an abstract joke... hmmmm....... well I def had to have been an adult.
A bully that sat next to me on the school bus asked me if I was a lesbian and laughed, and I didn't know what she meant, which then resulted in me using the power of the internet when I got home to learn about this
I knew queer people existed. I think it started becoming more prevalent in 2015 when Kaitlyn Jenner was growing more prominent. I remember I had sent the article to an ex friend and she was like ( TW) "Eww what a freak" and then insert trans slur beginning with s. I can't remember what I replied. Here I am now after years of watching right wing hunter avalone, Ash Hardell and jammidoger... A trans wlw.
Also that scene in wrong turn with the lesbians that made my mother cringe
There was an HBO series in the mid 90s that had stories of queer couples. I stayed up late on weekends to watch it in secret. Wish I could remember the name. There was a story about a hospital not allowing a woman to see her partner of 30 years that made me so mad (bc no legal protection back then).
I wanted sapphic relationships like the ones in the show so badly but didn’t really understand why for a very long time.
Sailor Moon.
My sister and I loved the show so much, and my mom was excited that we both enjoyed something together (constantly at odds as children), that she went on eBay and bought season 3 on VHS. This is before Cartoon Network aired the English dub for S3. My mom screened the season by herself first and then sat us both down, explained what Uranus and Neptune were to each other, and then we got to watch it.
Like a year or two later, the English dub of S3 airs on Cartoon Network, and my 9 year old self has a good and hearty laugh that the show was calling them cousins. I went to school and told everyone the truth lmfao
I didn't properly work out and understand that being queer was a thing until i was like 14 💀. My first exposure to it was some guy yelling homophobic things about lesbians on a tram though, on school camp when I was 12. People tried explaining what a lesbian was, i simply could not get my head around it. Took another two years to properly understand
Gay guys: like fourth grade. Someone else found out and it was like a big scandal to all of us. Lots of bad gay jokes
Trans people, lesbians, and bisexuals: around sixth grade I think. Pretty much the same way
Nonbinary people: sophomore year of high school after joining trevorspace.
Wings of Fire: Book thirteen. When Sundew introduced Willow as her girlfriend, thirteen year old me was confused and went on an internet search rampage because I had no clue that gay people existed. My brain basically exploded and so I told my dad and his wife told me that I was straight and couldn’t be gay. Now as a senior in high school, everyone knows that I’m a lesbian except for a few irritating boys. Also those two are potentially facing criminal charges for aggravated assault and childhood abuse (all against me, of course) so I chuckle in their ignorance.
One of our neighbors as a child was a lesbian couples in the mid 20's-30. Everything was normal, no one acted crazy in the neighborhood except them lol. They were loud the butch was the leather jacket type. I pretty much grew up thinking it was normal. Now I have internalized homophobia, still wondering how did that happen?.
My family mentioned Elton John was gay in the 90's, as if he had some weird, rare disease. It wasn't until watching V for Vendetta that I got to see a real loving gay relationship played out in a movie or tv show. Man, that sequence still gets me. "We had roses. And I apologized to no one". It would be years until I accepted myself, but that was the first time I stopped hating the idea that I might be into women.
My sister at 8 years old (I was 7) came to me at night, crying that she thought she was bisexual, and to not tell anyone. Tbh I didn’t really care at the moment 😭
By reading the webcomic „Rain” by Jocelyn Samara, where she created a pretty fun slice of life story that also had a bunch heartache in it ( because of the main character’s family’s reactions to her being trans ). The webcomic was released on deviant art for the more than a decade and it humanized gay people who were not really welcome in my hometown and also helped me understand a bunch of things about myself ( put words to feelings i had and that they weren’t irrational )
Uranus and Neptune from Sailor Moon, when I was somewhere between 6 and 8 years old. I noticed they were always together in every scene, and they seemed really close in a way I couldn't quite define. A few years later I learned they were a lesbian couple in the original Japanese version, and I thought "oh, that makes sense!"
I was just kinda always aware of gay and trans people as a concept. When I was like 12 or so, my parents overheard me saying something like “that’s so gay” and sat me down and explained why I shouldn’t use gay as an insult, and that was really the first time I actually thought about queer people as actually existing human beings instead of just a concept.
I am very, very lucky to have been raised in a progressive environment where that could happen.
I was in second grade. We took mandatory islam lessons in school. We're taught all kinds of homophobic and transphobic shit. I'm really glad that I was able to shake off these horrible beliefs at a young age.
I have gay dads.
Are the legends true? Do you hear double the dad jokes?
Lucky 🥺
Literally born into an advantage smh how are the rest of us supposed to compete /s
Same fr
My mom worked a lot and left me in the care of two gay men who lived in our apartment building. They made my childhood x10 better and when I came out to them, they introduced me to everything LGBT+ when I was in my teens.
Uhhh...Olivia Wilde. She was my gay awakening. 🫠
SAME HERE!!! I still have a massive crush on her <3
Yeah same! She's gotten even more beautiful now 🫠🫠🫠
Looking back i just this moment got what made her so fascinating back then
same, i watched house because i saw her on the cover of cosmopolitan and was obsessed, then she played a gay character and i obsessed even more
We were watching House Hunters when I was eight and two men wanted to buy a house. I asked my mom if they were roommates. She proceeded to gently explain to me that they were abominations to God. So. Ya.
Oh my god I know I shouldn't laugh but honestly, your mother is insane (no offence)
I laughed so loudly. Comedy gold. Sorry your mom was not great, u/mysticofarcana.
Ya she's in a cult lol
She is insane. And I laugh at the story too lol
when i realized i could make my girl sims "woohoo" together in the sims 3 as a kid LOL
Looking back, the amount of time I spent in the Sims just having two women live an ordinary, boring life is quite profoundly sad, if you really think about it. I mean, hetero players make their Sims become President, or an Astronaut, or build giant mansions made of marble and oak. I just had mine be content and happy - which seemed like such a fantasy at the time. *eesh*.
Hetero players do not make their sims become president. Is that even an option? They’re setting babies on fire and deleting the door like the rest of us, fam. It’s not sad at all that you played the Sims exactly how it’s meant to be played lol
Culture crusaders spent all that time in hysterics over boys criming in Grand Theft Auto, missing all the casual girl serial murdering in Sims. I would've paid good money to watch Hillary and that lizard Jack Thompson try to whip up a frenzy over kids *deleting pool ladders* while sippin' Capri and danglin' their legs from the high office chair.
Not directly President but Leader of the Free World is a job of the political career and one step before that is Vice-President.
This is how I play too. I recently showed my girlfriend The Sims and she was asking what I did…I was like I just do stuff…go to work, cook dinner, raise kids, live life, with a girl. :)
I did that too. I had no idea of the expansion packs that existed just because the stock game was plenty
Shit I’m old - I was doing that in the original 😬
Same here. And they were roommates. 😉
LMFOAOAO SAME as a 9 year old i always had same sex couples to be “inclusive”….. i was a very STRONG ally until i came out when i was like 12 😭
Naya Rivera on Glee having an emotional relationship with Brittany was the first time I saw two women lovingly together and not just as sex objects. I’d already had my first crush on a woman by that point, but I didn’t know women could actually be gay. I thought “women just mess around and it’s sexual but no big deal they’re still straight really” (classic biphobia). Or that wlw relationships were all sexual and somehow darker and different. I really didn’t know that women could be gay and love just like straight people or gay men. I honestly thought it just had to be different somehow. Santana’s speech about “I like girls the way I’m supposed to like guys” was the first time it ever clicked for me that the love was the same and it was just as beautiful. Her version of “songbird” by fleetwood mac is my favorite love song in the world and I still will occasionally watch that scene. Her death was so tragic
Santana’s narrative was really so impactful to so many of us ❤️
Leliana from Dragon Age: Origin flirted with my female character, and little old homeschooled me was having an identity crisis.
Zevran flirted with my male elf and I was like woah, this feels scandalous 😳😂 But in the end I just wanted Morrigan to be mean to me 😅😈
Morrigan broke many a queer woman's heart back in the day lol
Had to install mods so that my female elf could romance Morrigan and still have the baby and defeat Flemeth.
Magic babies for the win!
Her and Jack both broke my heart. Why are the sarcastic/mean ones always straight?! 😭
> How did you learn that queer people exist? My mum. One of her best friends in the 80's - 90's was a gay man. He didn't come out until like the 90's but, that didn't stop my mum from seeing him as her friend. One of my earliest memories, I must've been like... 5? My parents took me to visit my 'Uncle' - my mum's friend. He was living with his then partner, and my parents and them sat and talked about whatever, but my 'Uncle' saw I was just kinda sat there and knowing I liked Star Wars let me play LEGO: Star Wars on his Xbox. When we left, on the way home I said in the car something along the lines 'Uncle [Name] and his husband', and my mum then had to explain to me why they weren't married because the government wouldn't let them and I remember saying that that was stupid. Remember, I was like 4 or 5, but it didn't confuse me at all. I still refer to him as my Uncle too. I also first learned about trans people around the same age. In 2004 there was a contestant on Big Brother called Nadia, and she's a trans woman. My mum was watching this, and I remember her saying she really hoped Nadia wins, and like any 4-5 year old I asked "Why?" and my mum said something along the lines of "She was born a boy, but in her heart and mind she feels like me. Life's been hard for her because of that, and if she wins the money will help her be happy." and that was enough for 4-5 year old me that hadn't realised that I too wasn't cis and I said "Okay, that makes sense, I hope she wins too" All of that is why it's total bullshit when someone says "kids won't understand queer people". If I could when I was 4, then no one has an excuse. Edit: upon googling, I was definitely at least 5 with the first one because LEGO: Star Wars came out in 2005.
i love supportive moms😭
I love your mom!!
I was obsessed with reading from I was 7 years old. I literally ploughed through every book the library had. I am sure I was introduced to gay and lesbians that way (all the rest came much later). (I am Xennial. No internet, and only 2 TV channels in my language as a kid, so books were how I got to know stuff that wasn't super mainstream).
Not an Xennial, but similar situation. Books were my comfort and how I got to know things since we couldn't afford a computer at home until I was in my teens.
There's a trans woman who is very well known on Italian TV by the name [Vladimir Luxuria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Luxuria). On top of her political activity (she was the first trans member of the european parliament!) she also popped in and out of random shows and events and interviews as I was growing up but I never really looked into it, until in 2008 she appeared on the italian version of Survivor. She actually ended up winning that season, after which she donated half of the prize pool to charity, and nowadays she's one of the regular guests of the show, actually being the main host of the newest season. She was one of the first queer people I discovered and didn't just chuck to the side because "oh yeah queer people, anyway", because of how actively I was watching Survivor back then and how involved she was. Since then whenever the discussion of queer people came up, she was the first example I could think of, until in the late 2010's I started looking through new online communities and started talking with other queer people, and later realized "hey I'm a few of these letters too" lol EDIT: also Xena I guess but I never questioned that back then lmao
Lmao. Xena and Gabrielle. And then Buffy with Willow and Tara.
I grew up in theatre. 😂
When I was about 6 years old, my dad took me to a play that turned out to be about two teenage boys who fall in love and share a kiss. I didn’t really understand why they were so scared to be in love, my dad had to explain homophobia after. So thankful for that early exposure.
Captain Jack Harkness from *Doctor Who*
Oh yeah same.
I'd heard vaguely of political stuff but didn't really process it for a long time. Lots of news about gay marriage and such, but I didn't really understand what they were talking about so it kinda blended into the same politics ball i think most kids put stuff that doesn't affect them into. Then I got into anime and saw that musketeer girl in Familiar of Zero kiss louise (for plot contrivance/tactical reasons) and immediately went to look for more girls kissing. Watched all of sakura trick before fully processing what lesbianism is then took a month or so to realize it applied to me lol.
When I was a kid scrolling through Sonic fansites on Geocities, I stumbled across art of Sonic and Shadow kissing. I connected it to things I'd heard in passing about gay marriage (this was around when it was legalized in Massachusetts and my parents watched the news every day) and it all clicked into place. A lightbulb went off in my head, like, "ohh, this is that thing called GAY". 😂
Ooh this post unlocked a new memory I had somewhat forgotten I remember sitting with my mother and brother and they were discussing this teacher I had and saying how he seemed very gay (looking back I can confirm he most definitely did) and I was like what's that. I was like 4th grade I think?
My first trans character was Alexis from Ugly Betty and my first lesbian characters were… my Commander Shepard and Liara in mass effect 😭
Came here to say I saw that pic and immediately was like CUDDY
Funnily enough, i learned it from church telling us not to be gay.
Yep this resonates with me
Wait, is there a positive trans character in a show that old? Before Orange itn Black, I've almost only seen terrible representation, where ridicule was the least malignant.
Not entirely positive but for the late 90s, it was an okay try.
I feel this. All of my first exposures in the early 90s were horrible
It feels like every episode of the Simpsons has a suicide joke or a trans joke or both. I for sure grew up thinking it was all a joke and I was just a guy that really liked eating out 😆 guess I’m glad I got here eventually.
There was actually a pretty great attempt in a [1982 episode of the Love Boat ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgkWQpgZ1JQ)
Wow, that's fantastic. What's striking is that even the character who is weird about it, doesn't have the same rote bigotry which has become so pervasive today. It makes you consider how artificial the hatred it.
Coronation Street in the UK had a trans character from 1998 that was a main story line, she's played by a cis woman and was an active main character til 2014. I don't watch it so not sure if there has ever been a bad angle on her being trans but I think overall she's considered to be very positive and the actress is an ally.
I'm not into soaps, but I've heard good things from Coronation Street. Shame the UK has gotten so toxic since then.
Yeh it's sad to think we were better off in the UK before people really knew we existed. The general person on the street is generally not a transphobe but politicians love kicking us atm
There was an episode of Star Trek TNG from 1992 that revolved around trans character about to be sentenced to conversion therapy. > On our world these feelings are forbidden. Those who are discovered are shamed and ridiculed, and only by undergoing psychotectic therapy and having all elements of gender eliminated can they become accepted into society again. Those of us who have these urges live secret and guarded lives. We seek each other out, always hiding, always terrified of being discovered. > […] > I remember when I was very young, before I knew what I was, there was a rumour in my school that one of the students preferred a gender, in that case, male. The children started making fun of him, and every day they were more cruel They could tell he was afraid and somehow that seemed to encourage them. One morning in class, he appeared, bleeding and in ripped clothes. He said he had fallen down. And of course the school authorities found out and took him away, and gave him psychotectic treatments. When he came back, he stood in front of the whole school and told us how happy he was now that he had been cured. After that, I realised how dangerous it was to be different. And once I got older, and knew what I was, I was terrified. I have had to live with that fear ever since. There was a lot wrong with it from a modern standpoint (it was wrapped up in a heterosexual love story with the straightest man in Starfleet, and they don’t manage to save her in the end, although it is presented as tragic), and it was probably originally intended as a gay rights allegory, but I was legitimately floored when I watched it and realized it was from *1992*.
I've actually seen this one, yeah. A good effort, but I feel like it wasn't direct enough because TNG didn't really talk about lgbt+ issues much at all. The fact that the conversion therapy actually worked here wasn't really a point in favor of it either. I suppose the message was still that it doesn't matter even if it works, but the whole thing was a little ham-fisted. It's actually a little disappointing how little Star Trek has dealt with queer issues. Glad you still found some value in this episode, though. Also, Riker should have bisexual.
I was like 4 and some show featured a woman on stage calling up her wife. I have no idea what it was but I remember being like "wait, wife? That's so cool :0"
It was an episode of George Lopez. It was an episode where the daughter got a new boyfriend who was acting suspicious. The end of the episode George finds out that the boyfriend was cheating on her with a man. Now obviously not every queer person is a cheater but it was not a good first impression.
First time I learned about gay people was when I was 9. My oldest cousin came to visit at my aunt and uncle’s house while I was hanging out with my cousin who was my age, When my parents picked me up they were upset that he was there. I asked my mom why and she said that she couldn’t say, but that he was gay which meant he liked men, and that he was looking at stuff he shouldn’t while he visited my aunt and uncle. For the longest time I thought my mom hated him for being gay until like a year ago when she told me what he really did which was actually bad. My first exposure to trans people was at church when I was also around the same age. There was a trans woman who apparently wanted to try going there after being gone for a long time. Of course she was disliked by everyone yet again and nobody wanted her back except for the pastor which was just sad. I had a lot of questions but my mom just said "some people grow up really sad and change their sex when they're older, im not answering any more questions".
The first time I played undertale and learned about alphys and undine
I wish. My first exposure to trans people existing was Ace Ventura, when he makes out with this girl who turns out to be a “man” so he cries in the shower, then in a later scene viciously rips off her clothes while announcing “SHE’S A MAN!” Being a huge big reveal, followed by having everyone on scene throw up. On top of that my family was always quite uh…”traditional” to put it nicely. I didn’t know what was “wrong” with me for a long time. My first exposure to a real trans person was in secondary school, which then made me explore my sexuality. Then after a lot of exploration I came to realise I’m a lesbian. In terms of media I don’t go out of my way to watch lgbtq media but there has been lots in both movies and video games that have affected me and made me who I am today.
Unfortunately through watching day time TV such as Jerry Springer as a kid.
My friend was really nice and explained it to me in elementary school, without her I would have been so much more confused.
An American Dad episode
My parents told me when I was like 11 after there was a gay character in a show we were watching. They only told me and my brother though. Our other siblings were told later. They’re conservative Christians so, despite the fact that we knew a gay man that we have met him and his boyfriend multiple times before this, we had no idea that it was even possible to be gay. Funny now considering that when I was like 5 or 6 I wanted to marry Truly from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Gen Z, we just watched a lot of old movies).
It's funny because there was a family with two moms in my 4-h club when I was like 7 but only one of them was super involved in all the things so I just kind of forgot the other existed and didn't realize gay people existed until a bit later when I met two girls (at the time, neither is a girl anymore) who were dating during middle school.
I was told being gay was wrong in church. Didn’t even know that was a thing until they said it was wrong
I read a lot of books as a kid and in one of them the main character (a girl obviously🙈) falls in love with another girl and a boy and has to decide if she wants to stay with one of them, ultimately she decides for the boy. I couldn’t understand why anybody would do that, why a woman would choose a man over a woman, that just didn’t make sense and i knew i would have chosen differently if i was in her place. This was a very confusing feeling, since im trans and didn’t know at the time🙃🤭
I learned about queers in the context of the Gay Agenda because we done went and stole the rainbow. Being a queervangelical kid in rural Texas was a trip!
Xena and Gabrielle are the best long term lesbian marriage that has ever been shown on television and I will fight anyone who argues with me.
Much of my childhood I have forgotten due to trauma. However I do remember the fuss about the 1st onscreen UK lesbian kiss in Hollyoaks. As for when I realised I might not be cis.... In the back of FHM magazine there was an advert section. Including an advert from a crossdressing service/shop. Took me a while to realise it wasn't just the clothes though.
I have no idea. I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t aware gay people existed or any specific moment that it dawned on me. My mum’s best friend when I was growing up was a lesbian and had a partner, so possibly because of them? I really don’t know, though. I definitely had an awareness that gay people (perhaps not bi and certainly not trans people) existed from quite young in childhood - and I also remember specifically imagining how two women might have sex when I was pretty young (maybe 7 or so?) - but they were still treated as taboo and ‘other’ by society at large, so it never occurred to me that *I* could be gay. I don’t remember what triggered it - probably something I saw in the media - but I do remember asking my mum what trans meant (I’m *guessing* this is maybe when I was a bit older, around 10/11 or so) and she said it was ‘when people are born in the wrong body and are supposed to be the other gender’. Which is obviously a reductive explanation now, but this would’ve been the mid-2000s. Around that same time I also asked her what scissoring was because it came up in relation to the Scissor Sisters - she explained it to me and I was like…oh. Okay then. 😂
I was 7 and I saw a movie where a group of Spanish flamenco dancers get stuck in a little village in Tuscany, and the three siblings, two guys and a girl, that host said dancers in their villa hit on these girls and I was like “oh, okay, cool…? I guess this happens, too?”. I didn’t realized what a lesbian is -or that homosexual existed- till high school. Than the movie finally made sense.
My uncle is gay, so I pretty much always knew about it. Took me a while to realise I wanted to be gay too, but in a girl way tho
I was watching a tv show my mum loved and there was a queer character and when I saw her and what she was feeling, everything clicked for me
I was growing up around the time the fight for gay marriage was coming to a head, and I was made to do Catholic extracurricular classes literally from age 8-16. They had some choice words about people like us.
My mother is a lesbian, so I was always somewhat aware. It took me until 6 or 7 to actually understand what that meant though, and to make sense of what sexualities are, how they can manifest, and the types of sexualities that exist. I guess I was lucky that I learnt about it straight from the source. The 90’s and early 00’s were a poor time for rep. I’m on the cusp of my 30’s, so most secondary source rep such as media went between poor to non existent as a child depending on what you had access to and where. I was aware that women who love and couple with women was a thing, I just didn’t know what being gay, lesbian, or what even queer was until I was a little older.
Undertale on tumblr
tbh it was when i accidentally stumbled upon south of nowhere (& then snuck downstairs when I knew reruns were on to watch it secretly)
My first exposure to trans people was murder victims on CSI 🙃 I think my first exposure to gay people was when my aunt and former uncle were protesting Disney hosting their first Pride event (I think it was gay day, or something like that) back in the early 90s.
First, from my very homophobic grandmother, who basically confirmed that gay men exist but said nothing about lesbians. When I was a teenager, I saw "Mean Girls" and Janis' character.
10 year old me had tiktok, and it popped up on my fyp
My mom
Connecticut was discussing voting on same-sex marriage (“unions”). They were talking about it on the radio one night while I was doing my homework. I was in 6th grade.
Either the AIDS Crisis or from my friend in kindergarten being bullied for having a pink coat.
through porn (i was an overly sexual child) but i thought they were exclusively a porn thing. no one taught me about sexuality (not bc of religion, no one around me was religious) and so i didn’t actually know i could be queer. i watched lesbian porn and as a mid teen a friend introduced me to OISTNB and so then i thought lesbians were only in porn and tv. wasn’t until late highschool that i somehow realised lesbian was a sexuality that i could be. i went through the whole “am i bi?” phase before coming out as a lesbian but that’s where i learnt that lesbians (gay men were also discovered through porn) existed
Honestly as bad as this sounds, probably from porn. I went to a catholic middle school who wasn’t conservative enough to constantly be telling us how being gay was wrong, but not liberal enough to support lgbt rights. So they told us… nothing. And I think my parents just assumed I already knew that people could be gay by the time I was in middle school. If you asked me I probably had some vague idea of gay people existing, but I didn’t have any actual concrete understanding or examples until I started watching porn in middle school. Which uh was not good for my own mental health as someone who was bisexual and “crossdressing” in private. When I went to high school I actually met (openly) lgbt people irl for the first time and found media with lgbt characters, but the two years before that were a rough time haha.
When I went to a big family reunion and saw the "married" line between my great uncle and his husband. This was in 2000 so they weren't even legally married, but everyone in my family considered that they were.
Oh, I remember Lisa Edelstein‘s character on Ally McBeal! Honestly, her plot was one of the instances where they were very ahead of their time. While the transphobia from a lot of the characters was awful to watch, it was never framed as if they‘re in the right and sadly, it was realistic for that demographic at the time. She was always portrayed as a very desirable, smart, kind and real woman and it was clear that we were supposed to be on her side. Her relationship with the lawyer on the show who was a permanent cast member was also really sweet, and while I wish that they ended up together and it really hurt to see him breaking up with her over other peoples‘ bigotry; the fact that he later realised he wanted her back and SHE was the one who turned him down because she realised she deserved more was really amazing. Her storyline, like multiple others on that show, was handled with a lot of compassion and more nuance than almost all other shows at the time would have handled it with.
Frankie Grande. Before I knew about him I knew about my gay cousins but I didn’t really know what gay meant
didn't expect to see both a House MD and a Transcowboy reference at the same time on this sub
For some reasons when I was very young I was aware of the existence of gay or lesbian but since I was surrounded with a homophobic environment I thought it was sick or weird or like not possible. One day I was watching a romance mecha anime and two girls kissed (side couple). I was surprised and kind excited. I remember I closed the pc because I felt so shy and then I tried to gaslit myself saying that was disgusting. Not even 10 minutes I kept rewatching their kiss for at least 10 times lol This kept happening for a few days and later I finally accepted and realized that two women can love each others because until then I always thought love was only for man and woman (I was a teenager). Also it made me realize I was into women because I always I tried to impress girls whenever they were close and meanwhile with boys I tried to fight against lol
My mom was/is kinda closeted. Its one of those neither confirms nor denies but also doesn't say out loud things . Everyone knows . Im not sure she knows how everything she does is extremely not hetero . Grew up in San francisco so it was everywhere. She Has had lgbt friends since childhood as my dad does as well(only remaining close friend from high school) It was very important. My mom hung out in gay clubs in the Castro in the 80s and dated 2 different bi guys around that time and knew a bunch of drag queens and trans women too . It was important for her for me to know lgbt history so she'd tape documentaries about gay history on KQED, and we'd watch them. My parents had a butch lesbian friend who dated my Dad before she realized she was a lesbian and ended up coincidentally buying a dog from my mom's partner who's a dog breeder and named it after a thing associated with my families business(my dad was honestly quite pretty and has very soft features and flowing locks of hair so it makes sense to a degree. My parents also knew some gender non conforming women who micro dosed T back then . My dad also used to crossdress and do drag for work. I have a lot of old Kodak photos at my mom's house of my dad in a miniskirt , fishnets, a leather biker jacket and dyed hot pink hair and heavy makeup. And he passed well. Most of my mom's friends since my parents got divorced are lesbians she knows through her dog stuff. Some are asexual some are Nonbinary. With my Dad gone for the most part , I was raised a lot by my mom and her partner, and all their friends. Up until she had a brain aneurysm when I was 12 or 13 and lost a lot of her empathy and my life got bad from then on . My mom is fairly gender non conforming too. Definitely lesbian mountain partner energy with all hiking boots and REI minimalist wardrobe. She has a cool tweed biker jacket and boots I want, but she won't tell me where she got it . Being raised by a soft butch late bloomer ,my relationship to womanhood is complex. She was dealing with her own internal stuff then, raised me more or less gender neutral. So I was kind of raised Nonbinary,despite being a woman. I find it easier to just say im Nonbinary sometimes because I was kind of socialized that way. Most if my friends growing up were lesbians, and bi women with a few gay dudes . We called Our friend group the emo unicorns. And then after getting sent away to the TTI. After she lost her capacity for empathy following the brain aneurysm,pretty much everyone there was some flavor of queer. Gay femboy furries ,bisexual Nonbinary people, flamboyant gay Nicki Minaj stans and some macho gay guys and some lesbians and an asexual enby or two.
Proposition 8 going on the ballot in California. It probably kept me in denial for years longer than I would have been otherwise.
Unfortunately, Jerry Springer and Ace Ventura were my first exposures to trans women. :/
Ellen
When I found jazz Jennings when I was around 12-13 I think. Watched her vids for 2 years almost daily or weekly because “that’s interesting”
Zoey from the Yogscast introduced me to 'The Gay'
I didn’t know gay people existed until I was 14. It was when gay marriage was legalized. I never really thought about it before then. Never heard gay as an insult either. Wasn’t long after that I realized I was gay people.
My parents took me to a church that had 3 gay ministers
When I was 5 years old, my grandmother (dad's mother) got remarried to a woman because she figured out she was a lesbian.
Thirteen was hot
I've never watched House. Her name was "Thirteen"?
It’s a nickname House gave her
That's a weird nickname to give an adult woman.
Tony and Simon kissing in Eastenders. I remember all the drama about it and how they had to show a cut version of the kiss pre-watershed. Like… there are a couple of queer people in my family, but I just never really questioned it or thought it was different. “Auntie Ann and her girlfriend Sue, cool, makes sense,” and I was not a smart child so I never made the connection between that at being queer lol. The Eastenders kiss sticks in my mind because I remember it being a big deal at the time, so it was the first one that made me realise “oh ok, so this is a different thing” and also “why are people so mad about this?”
i stumbled upon a twitch stream when i was really young and my eyes opened so hard
Buffy. LESBIAN WITCHES!!!
13 from house!! I thought how wild of a character she is and she’s so hot??? I had the biggest crush on her
I did not know Cuddy was trans!! I love her even more now!
Oh she was a trans character…now that House joke makes so much sense!!
It was when I asked my (relatively) accepting grandparents about what "gay" meant when seeing it in the news on the day it was legalized in the US. The denial phase that lasted years after that came from having my head bashed in by my parents when they figured out that I had learned about gay people.
A YTer I watched with my mom as a kid had a husband so she sat me down to explain that people could be gay, and that was okay.
I read about a pregnant trans male and his male partner in a magazine when I was a kid.
Half the teachers in my grade school in the 70’s were queer.
I was in like 9th grade. Spent hours everyday on reddit. I discovered r /196 subreddit and then the pipeline began
My dad had a gay friend and my parents explained to me at a young age what that meant and why it was normal. My dad is terrible in a lot of ways, but at least in this respect, he didn't totally suck.
My parents were good friends with this lesbian couple that would come over a lot
Always knew it existed only found out what it was called in 2020 when i started watching gay and lesbian tiktoks.
One of my friends had a gay dad. And other of my friends came out as gay when he was like 14. And also a bunch of my friends were having gay sex back then without me realizing it.
Being one. I always liked girls, though I didn't know what it was at first, I was literally a child (5yo) when I liked a girl for the first time (that i remember😂). I became more aware of it growing up and meeting different people.
My mom’s friend had a lesbian friend who I thought was a man until she said she was a woman.. she had really short hair and those huge ear piercings. Also my mom’s friend’s sister was a lesbian and brought her gf over I wanted to ask them so many questions istg I was probably like 7 or 8
my dad was friends with these two gay guys and they were the coolest dudes ever to six year old me. this is so going to age me but they would burn DVDs for my dad and i and it was the best thing ever. i just assumed gay people were cool- which i ended up growing up and realizing i was 110% right.
My bisexual friend I met in 3rd grade. He introduced me to queer people, I was a bit homophobic before but he made me realize I liked girls. We're still friends to this day
I knew of the concept of two women dating via Steven universe and the fandom, (so think like 3rd-5th grade) but I only learned a name for it by middle-school through a friend
good luck charlie series finale! the two moms were my first exposure that I can actually remember. that or forensic files or a similar program. there were quite a bit of murderer lesbian episodes that I somehow ended up watching on cable when I was supposed to be in bed. good times.
I was born.
never I just knew people had different opinions and feelings and didn't poke my head into others matters
My mom telling me about a lesbian cousin whom she hated 😐
the song, "she keeps me warm"
Watching Golden Girls and the Birdcage with my grandma 🥲
When I asked if wanting to be a girl was normal and got immediately shot down by homophobic comments leading to tons of issues I've managed to resolve
I heard about gay people in 5th grade. I heard a friend was gay and that's when I learned about them. Then I started learning more about the LGBTQ+ community and started questioning. Now I know I'm a lesbian.
I learned about gay people because my mom made a joke about a YouTuber I used to watch being gay for his best friend (I don’t watch them anymore mostly because I feel like their content just doesn’t fit my modern tastes) They’re both straight but regardless that’s how I found out about it lmao
In the early 80s when my sisters and I were teens living in the wilds of south Jersey with no cable or nearby movie theaters (and not driving yet) going to visit our cool aunt (single and 12 years younger than my dad) in Philadelphia was a huge treat. She took us to eat at diners, go down to South Street to Zipperhead and all the fun shops, and a highlight was catching a movie at the Theater of the Living Arts, a repertory movie theater so you never really knew what might be showing. One visit she took us to see Fame—we were familiar with the tv show but of course that was very sanitized compared to the movie. I don’t think she realized that we were not allowed to see R-rated movies at home—even when they were on tv and edited. So the movie had its eye opening moments. But the part I remember more than that was before the movie started. There was a table full of free literature—leaflets, one page ads for bands and such, and freebie publications. One of which was Philadelphia Gay News. We found that hilarious! I remember my sister holding it us to show the other two of us. “look! The GAYS have a NEWSPAPER!” My aunt shushed us and said in a low voice, “cut it out, there are probably gay people in the theater with us right now!” This was amazing to us. “The gays” were Billy Crystal on Soap (a show we were definitely not allowed to watch) or the constant limp-wrist sorts of jokes on Three’s Company. They were something on tv, not…like…people you might see anywhere. So my aunt, thinking she has navigated us past continuing to embarrass her, took us into the theater and we got in our seats and waited for the show to start. And my two younger sisters (I was around 15 so they would have been 13 and 11) started looking around at everyone on the theater speculating on which ones were gay. “Do you think they are gay? How about them?” While my aunt probably wished the floor would open and swallow us—or her. Bless her, she still brought us up to the city for weekends a couple of times a year even after that embarrassment. And pretended not to notice that by my senior year in high school I would slip a copy of the Gay News into my purse or backpack….she was the first person in my family I came out to a few years after that.
I thought that was Cuddy
God I love Olivia Wilde's look so much
Most likely because of my older sister, she’s a lesbian and she had some friends who were trans so that’s how I learned about all of that. It was kind of funny though, my mom was talking about the first time she suspected my sister was gay and I was just like I thought that we all knew the entire time lol.
Someone on a day time talk show talked about trans people but used the term intersex because they were confused. I looked it up and was devastated to learn this was not a word for me, then I found a YouTube channel by the name of Grishno, and learned about trans people and trans lesbians.
people kept asking me if I was gay lol
At age 9 or 10 I was a big fan of creative free build minecraft servers. Someone did a huge pride themed build with a bunch of plots and that is quite literally when I realized gay people actually existed and weren’t just something the Bible talked about. I went down a rabbit hole and came out a lesbian.
ummm lots of trauma and bigotry is how. oh boi.... so, I was 10. I was talking to My older sibling about nature and morals and stuff, and they told me "it's not natural to be homosexual but some people are" not realizing that it was actually one of the most natural things in the world which would have defeated their own talking point about *ahem* cell phones and TV... but of course in order for me to know that, I would at least have to know what homosexuality was in the first place so I was like "what's that"? And they explained with a whisper in my ear, as if they were leaking government secrets that senator mother shouldn't know about, that it's two guys being in love. I quickly became homophobic. Not because I was concerned about two consenting adults getting married, but because ew kissing i hate that cooties get these things away from me Is it really homophobia if you hate straight couples too? ^It ^becomes ^the ^real ^thing ^later ^on, ^dont ^worry. I later learned about the existence of trans people from randos making jokes about "getting a sex change for a million dollars". the topic was all over facebook, tho I wouldn't know because up until that point I only ever used the conputer to play the Plants vs Zombies game that I got for free off of a very safe website called FreeGamesSafeNoScamNoVirus. It was on a facebook post, so you know it's safe. Me being 12, autistic, out of the cootie wars headspace, and unknowingly trans myself despite already being an "honorary girl", my first thought was "I wish I had a million dollars." I'd proceed to be super fucking oblivious to the terminology for another 5 years and to my own desire to chop my balls off for the 3 years after that. Although I did find *cough* certain videos that were totally fine for me to watch as a 12yo **ahem** nothing wrong there at all.... Anyway, that combined with my mutations lesson in biology class, I proceeded to do something that only a supergenius could do: confuse transgender with intersex without knowing either word in the first place. I was apparently the only one who made the connection that extra or missing chromosomes can also apply to XY, and would probably result in people developing both or neither sexual characteristics. I'll give my classmates the benefit of the doubt, since I needed that to be a fact because i desperately needed boobs to grow on my chest. All of this was in countries where badmouthing the established religion is punishable by death. Here I am now wishing that the 2008 crash never happened and that I stayed in connecticut so that I could move out much earlier than I actually did and be 100% done with my transition by 21. Also so that I wouldn't have to get cucked by Windows XP. Yes, that happened. sort of... different story. The funny thing is, I grew up homophobic but at no point was I ever transphobic, despite both those things being super prevalent among people around me. Anyway, all my siblings came out to me as queer, except the teenager, but I'm 90% sure something is going on with him too. If not, that's fine because he can still find a different way to disappoint our parents.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
I think my mom was the first to tell me that gay people exist (unfortunately not in a very open minded way), but the first time I saw two girls kiss was in Dodgeball (2004).
gay people? probably 14, first year hs trans people? probably 16, third year hs after joining reddit subs when did i come out? 16 its the prime example of information hiding!
"how did you learn queer people exist?" dawg I am one😭 My only representation growing up was Susan and Carol from friends and that one trans woman from family guy (that scene with the dog puking for like 20 seconds after finding out he had sex with "it" sure did a number on me)
Wait, am I fuckin’ stupid? I didn’t think Cuddy was trans. Not that I would be mad if she was, I just don’t remember any real references to that being a thing.
Somehow saw a video randomly about srs, and then I figured it all out pretty quickly.
I don’t really know when I found out queer people existed. I have two out gay uncles so I think I just always kinda knew that way.
I got lucky and my parents just told me in the same mommy/daddy marriage talk
Emily from Pretty Little Liars… Learned what Bisexual means and that was the beginning of a 10 year long "am I gay?"-path down to lesbian town lol
I found out in 4th or 5th grade from barely restricted access to Google images looking at Lego Ninjago fanart from Deviantart. I saw too many disturbing things I shouldn't have seen (borderline porn) but I also learned about men kissing each other
t.A.T.u
I grew up doing children's theatre. It's a little hard to hide gay folks in theatre. I was very lucky that my parents, though never exactly supportive of gay strangers, didn't outwardly say anything negative. I always just assumed you could love whoever you love and was never corrected. My obsession with buffy the vampire slayer absolutely cemented that idea though.
I don't remember. I mean I guess Sonic the Hedgehog crossdressed and that became my favorite trope in cartoons for no reason in particular. Does Ranma Saotome count as a lesbian? Like I'm struggling to think of the first lesbian I heard of. I guess when I learned queer people were real and like, not an abstract joke... hmmmm....... well I def had to have been an adult.
A bully that sat next to me on the school bus asked me if I was a lesbian and laughed, and I didn't know what she meant, which then resulted in me using the power of the internet when I got home to learn about this
I knew queer people existed. I think it started becoming more prevalent in 2015 when Kaitlyn Jenner was growing more prominent. I remember I had sent the article to an ex friend and she was like ( TW) "Eww what a freak" and then insert trans slur beginning with s. I can't remember what I replied. Here I am now after years of watching right wing hunter avalone, Ash Hardell and jammidoger... A trans wlw. Also that scene in wrong turn with the lesbians that made my mother cringe
My uncle is gay soo
There was an HBO series in the mid 90s that had stories of queer couples. I stayed up late on weekends to watch it in secret. Wish I could remember the name. There was a story about a hospital not allowing a woman to see her partner of 30 years that made me so mad (bc no legal protection back then). I wanted sapphic relationships like the ones in the show so badly but didn’t really understand why for a very long time.
Lol my memory is shit, as far as i knew I've just seen people who didn't act straight irl and just thought they were odd until i saw them on tv more.
My brother is bi
Shego from Kim possible. She wasn’t confirmed queer but she brought it outta me for sure 🫡
Sailor Moon. My sister and I loved the show so much, and my mom was excited that we both enjoyed something together (constantly at odds as children), that she went on eBay and bought season 3 on VHS. This is before Cartoon Network aired the English dub for S3. My mom screened the season by herself first and then sat us both down, explained what Uranus and Neptune were to each other, and then we got to watch it. Like a year or two later, the English dub of S3 airs on Cartoon Network, and my 9 year old self has a good and hearty laugh that the show was calling them cousins. I went to school and told everyone the truth lmfao
I didn't properly work out and understand that being queer was a thing until i was like 14 💀. My first exposure to it was some guy yelling homophobic things about lesbians on a tram though, on school camp when I was 12. People tried explaining what a lesbian was, i simply could not get my head around it. Took another two years to properly understand
I am 90% sure I eventually looked it up on Wikipedia when I was like twelve, 😭
one of my closest friends as a kid had two moms! 💖
My parents told me
Gay guys: like fourth grade. Someone else found out and it was like a big scandal to all of us. Lots of bad gay jokes Trans people, lesbians, and bisexuals: around sixth grade I think. Pretty much the same way Nonbinary people: sophomore year of high school after joining trevorspace.
As someone who's only watched House MD from clips I have a question. Cuddy is trans? Or is the actress trans?
Wings of Fire: Book thirteen. When Sundew introduced Willow as her girlfriend, thirteen year old me was confused and went on an internet search rampage because I had no clue that gay people existed. My brain basically exploded and so I told my dad and his wife told me that I was straight and couldn’t be gay. Now as a senior in high school, everyone knows that I’m a lesbian except for a few irritating boys. Also those two are potentially facing criminal charges for aggravated assault and childhood abuse (all against me, of course) so I chuckle in their ignorance.
One of our neighbors as a child was a lesbian couples in the mid 20's-30. Everything was normal, no one acted crazy in the neighborhood except them lol. They were loud the butch was the leather jacket type. I pretty much grew up thinking it was normal. Now I have internalized homophobia, still wondering how did that happen?.
My family mentioned Elton John was gay in the 90's, as if he had some weird, rare disease. It wasn't until watching V for Vendetta that I got to see a real loving gay relationship played out in a movie or tv show. Man, that sequence still gets me. "We had roses. And I apologized to no one". It would be years until I accepted myself, but that was the first time I stopped hating the idea that I might be into women.
My sister at 8 years old (I was 7) came to me at night, crying that she thought she was bisexual, and to not tell anyone. Tbh I didn’t really care at the moment 😭
By reading the webcomic „Rain” by Jocelyn Samara, where she created a pretty fun slice of life story that also had a bunch heartache in it ( because of the main character’s family’s reactions to her being trans ). The webcomic was released on deviant art for the more than a decade and it humanized gay people who were not really welcome in my hometown and also helped me understand a bunch of things about myself ( put words to feelings i had and that they weren’t irrational )
Uranus and Neptune from Sailor Moon, when I was somewhere between 6 and 8 years old. I noticed they were always together in every scene, and they seemed really close in a way I couldn't quite define. A few years later I learned they were a lesbian couple in the original Japanese version, and I thought "oh, that makes sense!"
Porn and south park :( also playground insults
I was just kinda always aware of gay and trans people as a concept. When I was like 12 or so, my parents overheard me saying something like “that’s so gay” and sat me down and explained why I shouldn’t use gay as an insult, and that was really the first time I actually thought about queer people as actually existing human beings instead of just a concept. I am very, very lucky to have been raised in a progressive environment where that could happen.
It was on the loud house when someone said they had two dads
sonic x shadow fanart on deviant art (i was like 10)
lady gaga
gay uncles and my family friend was trans
When I found out gay was a thing people are and not just something shouted as a playground insult
I was in second grade. We took mandatory islam lessons in school. We're taught all kinds of homophobic and transphobic shit. I'm really glad that I was able to shake off these horrible beliefs at a young age.
I just remember the loud house theories, but idk the exact characters