I love your reason for making this post. It gave me a good laugh to start the day.

I grew up Christian. Not because my family was religious (my mother and younger brother were athiests) but, because I liked to spend time with my gandma and she was Christian. At the time, I was under the impression that one man and one woman was how it was supposed to be. The first time I heard about gays and lesbians was during the 2008 US presidential election (I would have been about 8 or 9). My mother asked me, "What do you think of gays and lesbians? Do you think they should be allowed to get married?" After she explained what that meant, I said something like, "If they're happy and love each other, why not?" That was that, and I never thought about it again.

A few years later, at the start of the summer between middle school and highschool, I saw something on tv about this guy playing basketball. He was talking about "coming out" to his teammates and all the support he was grateful for. I didn't know what he was talking about but, his shirt was black with rainbow letters and I distinctly remember thinking, "huh, that's a little fruity. Maybe he's gay." Right after I thought it, he said he was gay. That was when I had an epiphany. I kept thinking, "He knows who he is. How does he know who he is? Who am I? How do I know who I am?" I then started to reflect on my life up until that point. I remembered the handful of times the older generation of women would call their female friends "girlfriends", how that always confused me, and how it made me uncomfortable to even think about calling any of my friends "girlfriends". I looked back on this "game" people used to do in middle school where they would go up to people and ask them "are you gay" and if you hesitated and didn't immediately say "no" then you were labled gay for the rest of the day. I remembered whenever my friends would talk about "cute boys" and they would ask me if I liked anyone how I would always say "no, none of them interest me". It was like my brain finally realized that being a lesbian was not only real but that I might be one too.

I was 14 at the time and I spent the whole summer and following school year doing research about lesbians and the LGBT+ community. However, most of that time was spent reading shoujo ai manga online or watching anime with implied relationships. About a month or two before I came to my conclusion was when I found out about the discrepencies between christianity and being gay. I didn't think it was true. I grew up believing God was a being of love for everyone he created. He had a plan for everyone so why would he make people knowing that they'd go to hell? I then found a video of a man who explained everything so well that I was able to reconcile my (at that point, potential) orientaion with my faith.

At the end of it all, I gave myself three tests. The first, I would have to say outloud "I'm straight, I'm bi, I'm gay, I'm a lesbian". In my head I was thinking, "If it's hard to say then it's probably true. I know I'm not straight so that should be the easiest to say. There's a lot of stigma around the word "lesbian". If I'm not one, it should be easy to say because it wouldn't be applicable to me. If I am one, it might be harder to say". The first three were easy. When I got to saying, "I'm a lesbian", is when I stopped for a few moments because I started to get anxious. When I finally said it, it wasn't as loud as the other ones. Then, I did it again to match the volume of the other statements I made. Finally, I said it a third time, just because I could.

My second test was probably the dumbest out of the three. I went on my ipad and typed "men" and "women" and looked at pictures to see if I felt anything or not. The only thing I got from that was, "Beautiful people are beautiful people. It doesn't mean I'm attracted to someone just because I can see they're beautiful."

The last test was the most interesting. For this one, I had to close my eyes and imagine my future and who I saw in it. First, I pictured my future waking up next to a man. It was one of the strangest experiences I've had. I had such a rush of adrenaline and started to get very figity. It felt like I was suffocating and I started crying. There wasn't even anything much to what I was picturing. The scenario was simply in a bed, look over, and who's next to me? I did not like picturing a man at all but I also didn't anticipate that I would feel like that. Even thinking about it now feels strange. After that, I pictured the same scenario but, instead of a man, seeing a woman. It felt like the biggest weight was lifted from my chest and like I could finally breathe and I was smiling like a lunatic.

I didn't think my thrown together "tests" would yield much. Even less, I didn't think I'd get so emotional. I think in the midsts of my research, "research", and self reflection, I had already come to the conclusion. I think my "tests" were my way of stepping over that line of acceptance for myself. There were still some doubts within me like, "What if I'm lying to myself? What if this is a phase that I'll grow out of? Even though I haven't ever experienced any sort of attraction towards men, what if I'm bi"? It took me a few years to get rid of those thoughts.

After I accepted who I was, I became an athiest (an unrelated coincidence), my dreams for the next few months were about having a girlfriend, and I was also able to realize, a few months later, that I had a crush on someone. In my last year of high school, I tried to start a GSA. The principal vetoed it so, it never happened (and apparently I was the second person to try and start one; the first person graduated a few years prior).