How "Due to Popular Demand, I Am Coming Out" speaks to me as an LGBTQ teenager.

OK so I wasn't sure if I was going to post one of these because it sets the expectation that I'll be able to post every day, but I was scrolling through the Poetry Foundation website yesterday (nothing like taking your own advice) and I found an EXTREMELY lesbian poem that was posted as the poem of the day so I knew I had to share it here. It's called "Due to Popular Demand, I Am Coming Out" and it's written by Despy Boutris, and I don't think any way I could describe it would do it justice so I'm just going to talk about my connection to it before sharing it with you. This section is going to contain a LOT of yapping about my life (this is my blog after all), and some heavily glossed over detail about an abusive friendship that has made coming to terms with my sexuality a struggle for years at this point.

Important context about me: I am a lesbian. I don't think anyone is even remotely surprised, but I just thought I'd put it in writing in case the flag in my profile picture was confusing. There was never really a moment of realisation for me - you'd think, given that I grew up in a Catholic (ish) family and Catholic community in rural Ireland that I'd realise something was up, but I just thought everyone thought boys were gross. Most people actually agreed with me as a small child, so my admiration for pretty ladies and total disinterest in boys (despite a fairly strong interest in other traditional "girls toys") could be rationalised pretty easily.

As I grew up, I would develop feelings for some of my female friends that, now I look back with my infinite wisdom, I'm starting to realise were probably crushes. One example that really stands out to me is a friend I had in primary school I'll call Nina. We didn't hang out in school every day, but I found myself quite drawn to her. I remember going over to her house when I was probably about 10 years old and listening to her talk about how she was going to be part of an arranged marriage one day (Nina is Nepali, and she expressed that she was happy to be part of that) and I just felt crushed. Yeah, totally hetero feelings to have about your good friend. I still see her Instagram posts from time to time. But I didn't really consider being lesbian as an option - I mean, I probably knew that lesbians existed, my parents didn't exactly keep them a secret, but I just never thought of myself in that way. I just thought my lack of interest in boys was normal. Are you sensing a pattern?

Anyway, like I said, there was never really one moment of realisation. But there was a moment where a friend at the time (who I now no longer speak to, for my mental health and our joint safety) literally straight up - pun intended - told me I had to be a lesbian.

I know that sounds crazy, and honestly the context only makes it sound worse. Basically, when I was like 11/12, I was in an extremely small school, the kind where everyone knows everyone, and there was a boy in my class I've decided to call Peter. Peter was, for want of a nicer term, an absolute creep. He made demeaning comments about women, he Naruto ran to class, and he genuinely believed that he turned into a wolf when he got mad (he threw a chair at our teacher this one time and growled at him. I don't even remember why). And of course, with my luck, he also had a massive crush on me! Catch of the century. So, he asks me out on Valentine's Day 2022 by sticking a card in my backpack (and some pretty nice chocolate, which I'm not ashamed to admit I kept and ate even after I threw the card away). The card was creepy. So naturally I wasn't about to say yes to the wolf guy. I present the dilemma to my friend, who (after having a good laugh) suggests I just tell him I'm a lesbian so he'll leave me alone. I was a bit iffy about this plan at first because I genuinely didn't think I was gay, but she offered to tell him, I was a sheep, and I really wanted this guy to leave me alone, so after a long 10 minutes of being convinced, I said yes and my friend skipped merrily to the *crowded* area Peter was in and just announced that I was a lesbian. In front of a fairly substantial group of our peers, in a small Christian military community. What could possibly go wrong in that situation I wonder. 

I didn't really take that into consideration at the time, because I was just glad to have the creep off my back, and it was something me and this friend now apparently had in common - she was openly pansexual, and I just thought she was the coolest person on the planet. I wanted to be like her so desperately that it ended up worsening my relationship with my family, driving me to self harm and an eating disorder, and actual hallucinations of creatures coming to take me away - but that's probably a story for another time.

Of course, it didn't take long for my "news" to circulate to the girls in my class, and that was where the worst of it would come from. People would ask invasive questions about my body (the ginger hair didn't help), they would keep me out of social circles, they would act uncomfortable with me changing for PE near them, and I heard the words "dyke" and "lesbo" thrown around more than I heard my actual name. It affected me more than I let on. I was already horribly insecure because I've never really been good looking, and this just amplified that noise. I felt disgust at myself. I truly believed that what my friend said was true because it made me realise that I didn't like guys the way the others did, and that was scary. I felt inhuman, almost. A disgusting, slimy creature thing rather than a real person. I started resenting my sexuality and slowly shrank back into the closet, trying to backpedal into false bisexuality so I could at least be perceived as sort of acceptable, and people would want to include me again. It didn't really work, but I felt like I was trying something at least.

I tried accepting my sexuality again in early 2024, when I had escaped the original toxic environment and had moved to boarding school, but that was fairly short lived. Again, small, sort of Christian community. I didn't receive any direct homophobia there (a couple comments were made, but they didn't really effect me at that point), but I heard enough of the rhetoric that the more "popular" groups would spout that I was sort of scared to be open again. Back to half assed bisexuality, I guess. That self hatred had never truly gone away, and my sexuality still scared me.

I'd just like to clarify that I do not think bisexuality is a cover up identity or anything like that - bisexuals, I love you and you are valid always! I just hid behind that identity because I personally was too scared of being completely other-ed by my peers. In my logic, I thought that if I at least liked boys in some capacity, people would be more likely to accept me and overlook the attraction to women part. FYI, that doesn't work. Cruel people will always find something to be cruel about. 

Acceptance is difficult for me still. I'm in a new area now, and I'm out to all my friends, since my first kiss being with a girl pretty much confirmed that I was 100% exclusively into girls. I'm open as I possibly could be about being lesbian. But I still feel that fear, and shame, and disgust. Some of that comes from my own past struggles, but the growing homophobia and intolerance in the UK certainly doesn't help. The rising number of people my age falling down the alt right pipeline and hating people like me simply for existing, for loving as they love, is actually frightening. I want to be open, and proudly queer, and I'm blessed enough to have a group of wonderfully supportive friends, and the support of my parents, and an environment where I don't have to hide. I'm in a position of privilege because I'm white, and lucky enough to have parents who can afford a house, and lucky enough to have immigrated safely. There are people who have it a lot worse in the slowly more conservative climate we're boiling alive in. 

But tomorrow is never guaranteed. I don't want to live in a world where being queer is something I have to still be ashamed of, I don't want to live in a world where I have to keep being the scared child I was years ago. That future might become reality (reality many queer people are facing in places where it's punishable by death to be openly yourself), and that is simply a scary thought.

That's why poems like this are important. You have to be able to take humor in what they call you and continue to be yourself regardless.

Anyway, sorry for that doom and gloom. Here's the slightly silly lesbian poem I found yesterday that triggered something deep and meaningful in me: