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Girls always casually kind of talk to each other about their crushes, but I was
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always so afraid to just mention mine.
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I decided I'd treat myself like I was nothing
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then I felt like everyone would just leave me. One day I was driving with my
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dad to the beach
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and he goes, "Edson, look at those girls in those bikinis," and I just thought to myself
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look at the guy next to them! And immediately after that, I always thought myself,
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am I allowed to think that? You really look in the mirror
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and um... that's not you. I didn't think that for once nobody was going to not
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like me
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I felt that I wasn't gonna like myself.
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*music*
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It's already challenging enough being a teen, because you're just trying to figure out
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who you are
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in the world. So, for a teen trying to figure out Who am I?;
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Who do I want to be in relation to other people?; How do I like other people?
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Am I romantically attracted to certain people?; Am I sexually attracted
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to certain people?
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Whoa! That's a lot to deal with.
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Well, I first started to question my sexuality
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when I was 12 or 13 in seventh grade.
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My name's Amelia and I've been out as a lesbian
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for about two years now. Most my friends had already come out
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as various different things and I just started to wonder
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kind of about myself. At first I came out as bisexual
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because I felt that it would be easier.
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I later came out as a lesbian. I always knew that something was different.
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I never knew what it was. I'm Edson Montenegro. I identify as gay as of
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middle school in 2009. I mean I knew I could talk to my parents about absolutely
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anything and at that point it was like school, people are frustrating me,
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but that kind of depth of
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personal issues- I still wasn't necessarily a 100% ready to
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really
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say, "You know what? I am gay." I didn't really think that I was ever a lesbian,
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but I knew that I was attracted to women.
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So, I guess that's where bisexual comes in for me.
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My name is Ana Escalante and I identify as a bisexual woman.
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Up until the 11th grade I was very
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embarrassed by the idea being gay.
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As time went on, I knew that it wasn't going to go away.
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I saw women the same way I saw men. It can be really challenging to talk about the
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LGBTQ community
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because as in today there are SO many different
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gender identities and sexual orientations. It can be really confusing
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for people.
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One of the most common questions we'll get asked is, "What is the difference
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between gender and sexuality?"
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L, G, and B are sexual orientations. It's about who you're attracted to.
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Who you might be romantically attracted to or sexually attracted to.
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Gender is more about who you identify as.
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You can identify as male, you can identify as female,
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gender-neutral, genderqueer, or gender fluid.
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It's empowering because there's all these different identities.
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But, then it's also overwhelming because there's all these different
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identities.
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Where do I fit in all of this?
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My super specialty has become working with gender non-conforming kids and
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transgender adolescents and young adults.
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The gender journey actually starts at birth and sometimes even before birth.
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"Is it a boy or girl?" That's one of most prominent questions that's asked when somebody
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is pregnant.
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Looking at that baby's anatomy, we start making stories about what that child
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should do as they grow up. I was
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confused about who I was. I always had like
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you know, kinda like a little voice in your head saying, "No, if you be this way you're never
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gonna make it anywhere in life."
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"Your family will hate you." I'm 13
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I identify as a transgender girl, or just Zoey.
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So one day I'm talking to my brother and my brother's like,
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"You're not a girl." And then he's like, "You have that."
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And I was like, "I know I have that, but doesn't everyone have that?"
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I knew that I felt different.
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I identify as a heterosexual male. And I was
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walking around dressing like a little boy
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up until 14-15 once puberty started.
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I knew that I didn't feel like I was a girl.
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I didn't have the knowledge
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or the language to be able to verbalize it
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to anyone around me. What's fascinating about younger gender non-conforming kids
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is they don't have a coming-out process. They just
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like what they like and they tell us. My dad, he used to throw away my mom's
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high heels cuz I used to walk around in the house with them. They start to understand
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at 6 or 7 when they get into first grade
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"Hey, you're a boy. You shouldn't like dolls, that's not okay. I'm not going to be your friend if
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you like pink and that's your favorite color." And so they start to
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internalize those messages.
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I was extremely self-destructive.
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I was self-loathing. I wasn't
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physical with myself. I wasn't hard on anyone else.
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I just - I didn't like myself. They're sitting
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on what feels like a huge secret for a really long time
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and that be really damaging. So I tried hiding who I was from myself.
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Cuz at the time I didn't know what transgender was or the name of it.
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And I was telling her, "Mom, I'm a girl. I know I'm a girl. I was born this way."
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And I was telling her, "I need to be who I am." There's a tremendous
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process of being ostracized if you're different.
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People were posting about me, calling me "f**."
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"Why haven't you come out yet?" One of my friends was really homophobic.
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She told me I was gonna burn in hell once.
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That can feel like a tremendous target on their back, especially in middle school.
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You know, I was called so many things like, "nerd," like
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"he-she," like they are thought I was gay. I've definitely heard
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other people like friends make homophobic comments and I'm always that one person
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that
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stops them and corrects them. I'm Isabel and I identify as a straight female.
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And I have two moms and I am an ally
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to everybody on the LGBTQ spectrum. I feel like I have a responsibility
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to go out into the world every day and be as
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kind and
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sensitive toward the subject of LGBTQ
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as I possibly can. You never know
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how much it can mean to have you step up and say
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"That's not appropriate. What do you even mean by that?" Other teens that might be
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hearing you that might "be in the closet," that might identify as gay,
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can just be looking at you very differently thinking, "Wow, there's an ally.
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There's someone out there."
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"Raise your hand if you heard someone say the phrase, 'that's so gay.'"
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LGBTQ outreach is really important for TEEN LINE because people can be
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really misinformed about the community.
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"Do you think that teen is going to feel safe? No."
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Once they can understand what it means and how it hurts and affects other
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people
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they will usually stop. "A high percentage of LGBTQ youth
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in the foster care system"... This is just a topic we don't always talk about.
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And when we talk about it, we usually hear about suicides
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or all these other things that can be really negative and heavy and we don't hear
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about how
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actually the community can be really awesome and really
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empowering. Hello, everybody.
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One of the highlights of our work with TEEN LINE is coming in and training
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their new TEEN LINE teens. Kind of the most fun ways that we do that is through this
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vocabulary game.
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I think that it's really important for people to understand
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the language and knowing what is okay to say and what's not okay to say.
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And simply what things mean, because
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there's a lot of language out there and it's always changing.
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I think that the way that we've asked people to describe their gender
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experience in the past is very
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limiting so, that is why I developed the gender abacus,
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so that people can have a more complete way to explain what their experience is.
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So you can see we start with sex - so your assigned sex at birth based on your
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anatomy.
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This second rung of the abacus is gender identity - who you are. Do you feel
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mostly male, do you feel mostly female? Do you feel
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half of both? Do you feel a little more female than male?
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Show us. But, the abacus gives people an opportunity to visually represent what
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that experience is like for them.
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The third rung the abacus is gender expression. How you want the world to see
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your gender.
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And then sexual attraction. But one kid said me, I thought this is great,
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"Can you just have a randomizer button there so that it goes blpsh." You know?
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It just goes where, the beads land wherever.
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Because that's sort of how I feel about my sexual attraction.
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I think it was probably my sophomore year. I was in a social psychology class
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and that was the first time I had heard of gender-identity disorder.
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And it all clicked. From that moment,
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I did come out to my sister almost immediately.
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What she said to me what is, "I have no idea what that is,
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but I love you. I'm always going to support you and I'll help you
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figure out how to come out to dad."
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Coming out to my parents was a really gradual process.
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I had talked to my mom about things I was having
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questions about or I was confused about and she just kind of slowly picked up on
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everything.
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Well, my mom was totally cool with it- was kind of like our little secret.
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And she said, "Nothing's changed, I still see you as my son."
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After that is when I told my Dad and he said, "If anyone breaks your heart then I'm
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gonna break them."
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And that- that's the thing that really just made me feel good, because I just
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realized that
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you know, he cares.
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If you're coming out, it's really, really important to
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make sure you're safe and if it's not a safe environment,
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it might not be the right time to come out. Sometimes, unfortunately, there's still
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those families out there that
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don't support. It's important to identify those people in our life
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that are safe and that could be a teacher, that can be someone else's parent,
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that can be your friend. To have my mother and my father
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just be by my side... all I can say is that I was incredibly blessed.
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I can only hope that in the future that other people
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are as blessed as I am. 5th grade year,
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you know, it all broke out. I finally became myself.
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The reaction I got from my mom was really good. I was so happy.
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My mom's like, "Alright. We're going shopping for your clothes." And then that was
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the day that I got my clothes. At the time it felt like, "Wow. That's who I am."
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Like,
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finally I'm complete now. I have a close friend at my school
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who this past year came out as a lesbian and she just like
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came into the room and stood up and she was like, "Everybody!
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I'm coming out. I'm lesbian." And we all
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just like started clapping and we were all so happy for her.
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What's important to remember is that everyone
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is going to have their own coming-out process. Everyone's going to have their own
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journey
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and all of those are okay.
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If you've made this decision to come out, there's a lot of things out there to
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support you.
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There are a lot of books out there that you can read.
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There are so many opportunities to find support. So maybe
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you can't find someone in your school, let's say, who identifies as asexual...
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but there's a thriving community on the Internet that you can turn to
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and that can be really empowering. You can turn to social media, you can turn to
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Instagram, you can turn to Tumblr and Facebook
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and youth groups and community centers and there's always TEEN LINE.
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If a teen calls in from anywhere in the world,
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they're going another teen who understands. Who's trained to just
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actively listen, provide empathy, and link them with resources based on anything
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they're going through.
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If you have a Gay-Straight Alliance at your school,
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to reach out to the advisor- let them know what's going on with you.
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GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance, but it's pretty much an..... A GSA is a safe
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place for students to go
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and be heard and to feel validated.
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We try to introduce ourselves
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at each meeting and share our gender pronouns. Hi guys, I'm Nicole or Charlie.
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My PGP's are she/her or he/him. It's
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kinda fluid. You don't need to stress about getting it right.
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It's important that all students are involved.
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It is called a Gay-Straight Alliance, so all students are welcome to attend
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meetings. I love going to the GSA.
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It's really great just being out at school and
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not worrying so much about other people judging me for who I am.
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It's really important for teens who think they may identify anywhere
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within the LGBTQ community to have safe spaces
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to bounce ideas. They need to
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be able to communicate that they're not sure if they identify
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as gay or bisexual. Or they need to communicate with someone, anyone, safely
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I'm not sure where I am, but, you know, this journey
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is unraveling before me. My dad, when I did come out to him,
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you know, he had no idea about gender or identity, but once he
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saw how happy I was, he was on board with me.
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When I transitioned, I had a lot of acceptance from school kids.
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They gave me hugs, they listen, they cry.
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And they're like, "Oh my god, you're so beautiful because you overcame this"
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I'm just like, I'm just being who I am, man. Like, it's nothing big.
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When I entered my current high school in 9th grade,
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I really felt like I could be myself. So, it was just so liberating knowing that
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whoever gravitated towards me, would gravitate towards me.
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And I dunno, it just felt like my wings were spreading.
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People on the spectrum can live successful lives and be happy
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and accepted where they are and for who they are.
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We say acceptance isn't enough,
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to tolerate someone isn't enough. We need to embrace
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different communities, including LGBTQ. Sometimes I get