“I am here now.”
When I was in middle school, no one from my school knew I was gay. Maybe at that time, no one knew what homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender were. Since I knew I was different, I hid the fact that I had a crush on a girl.
Years passed, I would sometimes find an old classmate on Facebook and realized that so many of my peers were in the community. Among those, there was this boy I was really close with back in 6th grade. He was extremely well-behaved, great at Literature, and never picked on other girls. But because of that, he was subject to all the other boys’ teasing and mean jokes. He wouldn’t mention it, but I knew he was upset. By the end of 6th grade, his family moved to another city and we lost contact.
When I found his Facebook, I noticed he’s much better looking (laughs), and had a ton of followers. I thought if we both knew that we weren’t very “straight” back then, we wouldn’t have felt so alone, always carrying a secret throughout our time at school. I realized that coming out not only removed a burden for myself but I now have a voice in the previous silence surrounding everything LGBTIQ, the voice that says, I am here now and I hope you feel safe enough to walk with me. In a world of 7 billion people, my coming story is probably a grain of sand, but within my network, knowing my story can motivate someone to be less lonely on their journey to discover themselves.
When I was 13, I saw that everyone grew up to marry a husband and have kids, there was no LGBTIQ person insight. I felt like I was the only person in this life that had a crush on another girl. Now I’m 22, I’m not labeling myself as anything and I feel freer than ever.
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Rồi Sẽ Ổn Thôi (“Gonna Be Alright”) is a project that collects coming out stories from the LGBTIQ+ community and their loved ones in Việt Nam. To find out more details or to read more stories from the project, please visit our official social media site on Instagram at ComingOutVN.
