LESBIAN VISIBILITY WEEK

At 14 I had no idea that a girl could love another girl, I had no idea I could love another girl. I did know in a way because I had started to fall in love with my best friend... 1/20

We’d met when we were 12. I had taken some school trip pictures for her but kept “forgetting” to send them... I hadn’t forgotten but I wanted to keep talking to her. 12 year old logic! 2/20

We became close, best friends I’d say (best I’ve had). My feelings blossomed for her over the next few years. In believing that you had to and could only love boys, I thought that it wasn’t a crush. By the time I was 16 I was falling head over heels for that girl. 3/20

By 16 I had come out to myself as a transgender man... and asexual/aromantic. I believed if I didn’t love boys that well then I was completely incapable of love. I had “worked this out” by 14, after two so called relationships with boys. I felt absolutely nothing for them. 4/20

Soon enough she found out about my messy feelings for her and she dropped me out of her life, I was crushed. See now this fuelled my belief that I was disgusting, unnatural...whatever nasty homophobic things you can think of. 5/20

My one and only response to my love for women, for this girl, was met with disgust and rejection. Given the transgender seed was well and truly embedded and that the roots were fully fledged... I believed I must be a heterosexual male. 6/20

I desperately wanted to be such because well then surely I’d be “normal” and she wouldn’t have reacted that way. If I was male then I was allowed (felt allowed) to love women. 7/20

It was a time of very messy feelings but ultimately I came out and started to live as “Percey”. Whatever identity label went with that name...it wasn’t me. It was all an act of fiction to escape being a lesbian....to escape being what I thought that meant. 8/ 20

I hadn’t even heard the word lesbian, if I had I had little understanding yet I certainly felt the negative ideas/feelings about it. I knew I could only love women deep down, I believed this to be a bad thing. I didn’t process this, I didn’t let it surface. 9/20

At 12 I knew I loved girls not boys... I just didn’t know I could. I dressed “differently” and didn’t care about how my hair looked. 10/20

At 14 I knew I loved my best friend... I just didn’t know it could be love. I suddenly felt different as I didn’t care about makeup and how my hair looked like other girls did. 11/20

At 16 I thought I knew the answer to All the “whys?” ... I must be a man. A straight man who was asexual. 12/ 20

My lesbian self got lost before she could even be found... I say all this for the 12 year old girl who didn’t mind looking different and was just meeting her first soon to be love. Give things time. 13/20

I say this louder for the 14 year old girl who struggled to fit in and understand “why?” She was so different. You don’t have to say yes to boys who ask you out, its ok to not feel for boys. 14/20

I shout to the back to the 16 year old who thought she was a man because she didn’t love boys... had short hair...hated dresses and didn’t wear make up. You are a woman, A Lesbian woman! It is not dirty, gross or something you chose to be.. it’s a piece of you. 15/20

None of this is about identity, I spent so many years searching for my “identity “ and asking “how do I identify?” When in reality there is no identity in being a lesbian or a woman. My only identity is who I am as a person. 16/20

I refuse to identify as lesbian and as a woman, I spent years doing things based on fictional ideas. If you have to say “I identify as...” then you are simply not, you cannot choose to be a lesbian. You just are or aren’t. 17/20

If being a lesbian was truly about choice (however you frame that choice) then I chose to be a man, a straight male. Did that work? 18/20

I truly stand by the fact that I was born this way just like I was born female. I have always known deep rooted that I love women as a woman. If you choose facts over identity there simply is no justification needed for you can just live. 19/20

I am a Lesbian, I am visible today for my younger self then.

A quote from Anne Lister (my ancestor)

“I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs.” #lesbianvisibiltyweek 20/20