Personal Narrative: My Freshman Year Of High School

Freshman year would start off with me being in the class and afraid to be out. My parents had alway said that if "you like just girls, we know something bad happened to you", luckily they changed their mind when I came out in March of 2013 as gay. This would not be the last time I would have to come out, but coming out the first time would start my leadership in the LGBTQIA+ community.

My freshman year of high school I was determined to start my schools Gay Straight Alliance. Finding the right teacher to sponsor it, the students who would want to attend, and the service that needed to be provided to those who attended it took not months, but years to figure out. Part of the problem is I overscheduled myself and couldn't commit as fully as I needed to. Though, I am not active in it as I wish I was, finding group and taking the inituative to start it off is still a very important moment to me. My future would hold more events and moments ahead of me that would allow me to take some level of leadership revolving around LGBTQIA+ issues.

For the rest of my high school career I have taken part of Grass Roots lobbying against anti LBBTQIA+ bills in Oklahoma when I could, I've been on a float in the pride pradade for multiple years, educate indviduals often in one on one conversations about gender idenity and sexuality, and have been members of LGBTQIA+ groups, but not necesarily a leader in them.

This is only one part of my story, the easy part, the social parts, but my life is more than about society itself, it's about idenity as

well.

Sexuality is something often talked about, but gender and the multiple different types of it is often ignored. I had never felt like either a boy or a girl, but no one ever came me a word for this for a very long time, no told me this feeling was natural. The fact I could never present more neautrual as someone who was never viewed as either, always irritated me. So I went along with what was persumed, until one day someone asked me my pronoun and it wasn't that I didn't know why they asked that, it was saying she felt wrong, but he didn't feel right either. I did some research and learned about the agender idenity and they/them pronouns, making me realize what I felt was a complete lack of gender and that was normal. This would have to be the second time I came out, this one harder on others than the first time.

People, no matter how much of an ally they want to be often misgender one over and over again in the same sentence without every meaning to. They will often accept you in the moment and a moment later respond with "I've known you your whole life, you can't expect me to suddenly not view you as a girl. I will probably never use the right pronouns, besides they refers to groups, not individuals." It goes from acceptance to a feeling of complete and utter rejection. Whereas me coming out as gay was easy and had a feeling of warmth and acceptance, coming out as agender was much harder. Not only is it rejection from family and friends, it's rejection from others in the LGBTQIA+ community. Prejudice does not just exist among straight cisgendered people, it exist within the very community I'm a part of.

Finding a way to overcome these struggles when it comes to hetronormativity and cisnormativity, will take a very long time. Especially overcoming the idea of there being a gender binary. One day I hope not to correct people every single time they use "she", "women", "lady", "ma'm" that gender is not persumed, but coming to that point will take hard work that I hope to be part of. My leadership can only expand, my idenity grow, and my confidence take its place.