Pride series part #3- Representation
I didn't understand how much representation mattered, and I used to think it was overrated. I believe this had more to do with the fact I didn't know and accept who I was both with my disability and sexuality. I'm not saying that representation doesn't exist-especially in the LGBTQ+ but I never saw it, was exposed to it. Honestly, for years I didn't even know that these identities were a reality. When I finally met someone in my life who is lesbian it opened the world for me, it took me some time to get to the world, but I learned of its existence. Here is the third installment of my pride series, two posts on representation and how it impacted my life.
I loved watching sports and playing sports way before I understood I was gay. Sports gave me a place to use the abilities I had to move my body as best as possible within my disability, while also giving me an emotional safe haven that just got larger through the years. The first time I went to an adaptive sports camp-and the only time unfortunately I remember it being the first step in loving my body and what it could do. The older I got and more exposed to watching and following women's leagues and the reality of LGBTQ athletes, it gave me a space in which I already felt comfortable (watching and playing sports) to explore the athletes and their identities and in doing so taking locked away feelings that I felt I was completely alone and just weren't an actual thing and actually seeing how normal it was even if in the circles of society I lived in didn't allow for it. Sports didn't make me gay, they just gave me a space to figure it out and to feel not alone. When I came back from living in Florida for a year for rowing, I was finally starting to acknowledge and process my identity. Before I actually understood how many LGBTQ athletes were in the female leagues and felt that sense of community in a much larger sense I spoke to the only out lesbian athlete I knew, Moran. Her being out actually sparked a really messed up interaction between my mother, an old therapist and me but that's another story, she was willing to sit with me and just give me a space to process and question the journey and the normalcy of it all. While it may seem like a small interaction I think we met for coffee just twice to discuss the topic, the ability she had to hold space for me, and answer questions but also just to reassure me that I was far from alone on my journey and that things do get easier. The WNBA became a safe haven for me, I remember it was Elena Delle Donne who was the first athlete I found, because of her sister with cerebral palsy, and then seeing pictures of her wedding, it became something that was real. Somehow just knowing how many queer women in the WNBA and in soccer, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapino, and others, I didn't feel crazy anymore. Writing this out I actually remember an interaction I had in 5th grade when I wanted to play sports with the boys from my class on the grass and an older boy yelled out “why do you want to play sports with us, you gay or something?” I didn't understand at the moment what he meant and the recess monitor didn't let me go into the yard anyway. Could I love sports and be super involved and not be gay, yea sure, did sports make me gay, no I was born this way, sports just gave me a space to feel safe and not alone.
I loved watching sports and playing sports way before I understood I was gay. Sports gave me a place to use the abilities I had to move my body as best as possible within my disability, while also giving me an emotional safe haven that just got larger through the years. The first time I went to an adaptive sports camp-and the only time unfortunately I remember it being the first step in loving my body and what it could do. The older I got and more exposed to watching and following women's leagues and the reality of LGBTQ athletes, it gave me a space in which I already felt comfortable (watching and playing sports) to explore the athletes and their identities and in doing so taking locked away feelings that I felt I was completely alone and just weren't an actual thing and actually seeing how normal it was even if in the circles of society I lived in didn't allow for it. Sports didn't make me gay, they just gave me a space to figure it out and to feel not alone. When I came back from living in Florida for a year for rowing, I was finally starting to acknowledge and process my identity. Before I actually understood how many LGBTQ athletes were in the female leagues and felt that sense of community in a much larger sense I spoke to the only out lesbian athlete I knew, Moran. Her being out actually sparked a really messed up interaction between my mother, an old therapist and me but that's another story, she was willing to sit with me and just give me a space to process and question the journey and the normalcy of it all. While it may seem like a small interaction I think we met for coffee just twice to discuss the topic, the ability she had to hold space for me, and answer questions but also just to reassure me that I was far from alone on my journey and that things do get easier. The WNBA became a safe haven for me, I remember it was Elena Delle Donne who was the first athlete I found, because of her sister with cerebral palsy, and then seeing pictures of her wedding, it became something that was real. Somehow just knowing how many queer women in the WNBA and in soccer, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapino, and others, I didn't feel crazy anymore. Writing this out I actually remember an interaction I had in 5th grade when I wanted to play sports with the boys from my class on the grass and an older boy yelled out “why do you want to play sports with us, you gay or something?” I didn't understand at the moment what he meant and the recess monitor didn't let me go into the yard anyway. Could I love sports and be super involved and not be gay, yea sure, did sports make me gay, no I was born this way, sports just gave me a space to feel safe and not alone.
NANOWRIMO posted these pictures of books on pride flags, and it reminded me what I wish I had access to as a child and even as a young adult, books that made me feel not alone. Books that put into words and stories of a world which growing up I didn't even know existed. There are books for young adults and I had a computer with internet as a teen but I didn't have any internal vocabulary for which to search and realize I wasn't alone. Later on, there was an internal process that happened once I found lgbtq+ literature of different types, ones that helped me process and understand feelings. Different books became manuals and personal Bible's to my coming out story and life. The latest one that has turned into a personal bible with pages of handwritten notes on the book is Untamed by Glennon Doyle, her process of coming out later in life made me feel so seen and that I wasn't behind in life, along with just so many life lessons and words to live by. Words have the power to make others feel seen and I hope my writing can be that for someone else.