Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • My mom when she ... when I told her I was gay, actually took me to like, a psychiatrist.

  • And I remember coming out, and the psychiatrist being, like, there's nothing wrong with your daughter.

  • She's perfectly healthy.

  • (laughs)

  • And I was like, "Yeah!"

  • And my mom was like, "No!"

  • Watching TV you see a lot of, you know, fairy tales.

  • And you see men and women, men and women getting married.

  • You hear it in songs.

  • You, just everything you're surrounded by ...

  • Like hetero norms.

  • So, I was really trying to mold myself into what a straight man looks like.

  • A lot of it's kind of blur because I was trying to be someone other than me.

  • It was just like kind of a transition from like "I'm a tomboy, I'm a tomboy," to like "Oh, I'm like, really, really different."

  • I had a best girlfriend.

  • A friend that's a girl who's my best friend.

  • And about the same time that I came out, she did as well.

  • And it was just really helpful to have two people doing that at the same time.

  • And it kind of brought us closer together.

  • Even when I was coming out, like, I still had the things that I've heard from like friends and family growing up.

  • About, you know, gay people.

  • There was still those attitudes leftover in my mind.

  • So I had to, like, really educate myself, and immerse myself into that community and that world.

  • I've been more comfortable with talking about it.

  • But it's still not something that I'll come out and say: "Hi, I'm Jen. I'm bi."

  • One of my closest friends, I had been talking to her about how I had been dating a girl.

  • And I really thought she was really cute.

  • But I also liked a guy, too.

  • And she said, she got really fed up with me, and she said, well you have to pick sometime whichever one you're going to be with.

  • What does their gender have to do with how I feel about them?

  • When people find out you're gay, it raises something in them.

  • They feel in danger.

  • They wanna change you.

  • And I've even had a priest, once in high school, tell me that I need to redeem my life.

  • In my sociology class, in front of the whole class.

  • And I had an argument with him.

  • Speaking up for myself, publicly,

  • was a really, really, empowering moment for me at such a young age.

  • There are so many different colors on the LGBTQ spectrum.

  • You know, there's trans,

  • there's, you know, lesbians, bi, you know,

  • gender fluid, gender queer.

  • There's so many subgenres of, like, you know, people that exist in our community.

  • At the end of the day,

  • I really had to accept that there wasn't really a single subculture that was gonna define me.

  • I had to accept that I was made

  • of all of these things,

  • and that all of these identities

  • don't necessary make me.

  • Be accepting of yourself.

  • Even though other people might not do it.

  • Maybe I lost a few Facebook friends over it,

  • but at the end of the day, that's okay.

  • How you feel is not what everyone says that you are.

  • I know that sounds really confusing.

  • You're gonna have to own it.

  • You're gonna have to get your spoon,

  • and you're gonna have to dig down deep,

  • and be, like, all these layers are mine.

  • And the sooner you do it,

  • the sooner you'll really know yourself.

My mom when she ... when I told her I was gay, actually took me to like, a psychiatrist.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it