Happy Pride to the girls, the gays, our trans friends, those who aren’t yet out, and the ones who feel like they’re behind.
It’s really easy to get stuck comparing ourselves in so many areas of life, and queerness is definitely one of those for me.
There are so many categories of queer women that I look at and think, “they’re so far ahead of me”: the teenage girls who already know they’re queer, the ones in their 20s who have already been dating women for years, the groups of women who have a huge, solid queer community, the women who are already married to each other… If I’m not there yet, am I queer enough?
As a single 36-year-old, I compare myself to the Straights too, like my younger brother, who got married last year and now just had a baby. While there are so many things about my life that I love, it’s hard not to wish I was further along toward reaching some of the big life milestones. (But hey, when it comes to battling health issues, I’m ahead of the crowd…!)
The more I compare myself to others, the worse I feel. But I think comparing my current self to past versions of me can be helpful. Zooming out and seeing how much progress I have made, even when it doesn’t feel like a lot.
So this year, as Pride Month ends, I’m looking back at the versions of me that existed the past six years of Pride. I think the me of 2020, who was finally starting to realize her queerness, would be happy to see how far I’ve come.
2020:
This Pride Month was clearly not much fun for anyone, thanks to the pandemic. For me, it was a time when I was spending a lot of time with my thoughts and starting to face some realizations about myself. I know I wasn’t the only one, thanks to my TikTok algorithm feeding me many other women having similar experiences.
Around this time, I watched a YouTube video from one of my favorite content creators, Alayna Joy. After being out as bi for years, and engaged to a man, she was now breaking off the engagement and coming out as gay. This was an “oh sh*t” moment for me. I watched the video multiple times, hearing Alayna describe her experiences with compulsory heterosexuality, realizing that something buried deep in my subconscious definitely related. Not that this meant I was gay, but that there was definitely enough queerness in me that I couldn’t ignore. I was in a long-term relationship with a man, which made it easier to shove these thoughts further back in my brain, but I was realizing it was time to pay some attention to them.
I also dyed my hair blue at this time, which was part of me exploring my own personal style, and breaking out of the box I felt I had to stay in when I worked full time in local TV news (we had a style consultant who would come and guide us on what we could wear and how we should do our hair, and blue was definitely not an acceptable option). I was starting to test out ways of looking more queer, even if no one else perceived it in that way. I think I was hoping people might perceive me in that way, just a little bit. Even if they just thought, “hmmm… that girl is a little different.”
2021:
I bought myself Alayna Joy’s “I don’t know either” rainbow merch shirt, finally admitting to myself that I was queer, in a small way. Not yet knowing where I stood on the rainbow spectrum (hence the “I don’t know”), and definitely not yet ready to say anything about it out loud to anyone else. I hid the shirt deep in my dresser drawer so no one would find it and know that I was questioning anything. The only person who knew I really thought I was queer was me. I had told my therapist, but she told me it “didn’t really matter,” since I was with a male partner and loved him and did not want to leave him. Not having this part of me truly acknowledged in what was meant to be a therapeutic space was harmful, but I’ll spare on of my lecture on biphobia and bi erasure… for now.
I knew that I needed to listen to the part of me that knew I was queer, even if it didn’t make sense to everyone else. I knew that just getting to know myself better was worth it, even if it didn’t change my lifestyle or my relationship. I mean, no one told Elizabeth Gilbert that her self-discovery didn’t matter in Eat, Pray, Love, right?!
2022:
By this point, I had dropped my previous therapist and found a new one (thank goodness!) - one who is queer and had much more appreciation for what I was feeling. She started to help me work through my thoughts, unpack my past and current experiences, and accept the fact that I didn’t have to have all the answers in order to consider myself queer (spoiler alert: I still work with them now, four years later, and we’re still figuring all of these things out).
I was also joining community spaces that allowed me to explore these questions in private, with others who were in a similar place. I found an online support group for “late-blooming” queer women, and learned that I wasn’t the only one figuring out my queerness much later than I wish I had. This let me see others in the middle of the discovery process, not just the ones who had found answers and shared them publicly.
A couple of other big life things had also happened since Pride 2021 - my mom died, and I got engaged. Losing my mom definitely put a pause on a lot of my self-exploration for a while, but getting engaged felt like it added some urgency to the situation. While I know it is absolutely ok to get married and then come out as queer later, I felt like I had some things to figure out before I walked down the aisle. (I also was really struggling with the thought of getting married without my mom around, but that is a topic for a different day.)
I kept experimenting with more queer style, this time shaving the sides of my head, adding to the undercut that I’d had for a few years (and yes, I know you can get haircuts like this and not be queer… but for me, it definitely felt like a small way of expressing something I wasn’t yet ready to express in any other way).
2023:
I was so sick of watching Pride months pass by without being able to admit I wanted to be part of it - not just as an ally (the ally to queer pipeline is so real, by the way), but as a member of the community. As the beginning of June approached, my body couldn’t handle staying silent anymore. It felt like something in me was going to explode if I didn’t let it out. So one night in late May, while my partner and I were making dinner, the words flew out of me. I don’t even remember what I said, but the message was, “I’m not straight and I don’t know what this means but it means something.” It was absolutely terrifying, but neither my life nor my relationship ended (contrary to what I thought might happen). Instead, it let my truth be seen by another person, which allowed me to openly go to a few Pride events. I finally wore that T-shirt I’d been hiding to a parade, and went solo to a drag event at a gay nightclub.
I did all of this mostly on my own, not fully ready to make any queer connections, but ready to at least stand in a queer space and feel like I maybe, kind of - at least a tiny bit - belonged.
This was the Pride when I finally added another person to my very small inner circle of people who knew I was queer. I came out to a friend who also identifies as bi, which felt very safe and validating. Unfortunately, somehow that turned into basically my whole friend group knowing, which was overwhelming and uncomfortable at the time, but also helped speed up the process a little bit. I went to another Pride event with some of that friend group, and remember two main things happening: 1. Having to defend myself against biphobic people who doubted I could be engaged to a man and also bisexual, and 2. I kissed a girl (I know, I really buried the lede there!).
2024:
This Pride, I started to notice that I felt more like I belonged in queer spaces. I lived in a small town at the time, and while the year before, I went to Pride events there on my own, this year, I had friends to meet up with at those same events. I had my own little queer community, and that felt good.
While the last year’s Pride had felt like huge progress in my coming out process, by this point, I was ready to be done hiding from anyone. For years, I had scrolled social media during Pride month, watching others come out, and I wanted to join them. But before I did that, I wanted to come out to my immediate family members. So when my dad visited me for Father’s Day, we took a long walk and I opened up to him. Then, a couple of days before the end of the month, with the pressure of posting before the end of June (clearly nothing has changed… as I’m finishing this current post on July 1st…!), I called my brother and told him. Both were very supportive (though Dad called a couple of days later with a lot of follow-up questions), and I’m very lucky and grateful that’s the case (though that shouldn’t feel so lucky and rare!).
And then I did it. I posted it on social media.
I was done hiding.
2025:
My first Pride being fully out felt amazing (well, besides the fact that I was recovering from breast cancer surgery and also going through a breakup at this point…). Turns out it’s much easier to find queer friends when you talk openly about your queerness. I even went to an open mic event, and when they needed more people to fill time, I went on stage and talked about my queerness and my gender-affirming boobs. I was starting to really take on the “loud” part of “loud and proud.”
Somewhere along the way, my Pride wardrobe started growing too. When you’re newly out, it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of wearing rainbows publicly.
2026:
And now this year. The version of me at Pride this year was ready for queer joy, and to celebrate and be proud of everything I’ve been through to get me to this point. The past year was full of so much fear and grief, but I got through it all (shoutout again to my amazing therapist) and have learned so much about myself in the process. I’ve been single for over a year now, which is the longest period of time that’s been the case since I was 15 years old (and admittedly, that probably has some connection to the fact that I didn’t realize my queerness until my thirties).
This year, I finally feel like I’m queer enough.
Not because I’ve figured it all out, but because I’ve stopped waiting for that to happen in order to let myself belong.
Sure, having a girlfriend would be cool (so would just having the guts to talk to girls), but I’m not in a rush. I’m enjoying spending time with myself, and building my queer community, which keeps growing. I’m getting more comfortable in my body (new boobs and all), and figuring out who I am in this next chapter of my life.
While this is definitely not how I originally imagined my life looking at 36, and I still have many moments in which I wish I had reached more of the traditional life milestones, I’m learning to trust myself and the universe, knowing that I’m in the right place at the right time, and things will happen when they’re meant to. “Queerness” doesn’t just apply to sexuality - it applies to anything that doesn’t fit into traditional cultural norms. And I’m figuring out how to lean into that, and let go of the image I originally had for my life. And I know I’m not the only one feeling this way.
Last weekend at a Pride event, I was chatting with a new friend who also came out in her thirties. We were talking about not having the energy to stay out super late and party all weekend. “If only I’d figured out my queerness in my twenties… Pride months would’ve been so different,” I said. And her response was perfect: “We arrived at the right time for us.”
And that’s the truth. While I can sometimes wish I was further ahead, I also know that the version of me who existed in 2020 would be so excited to see how far I’ve gotten. Looking back at the past six years has made me feel weird and emotional. I’ve made so much progress.
And that is something to be proud of.
If you are feeling like you’re behind, try zooming out. See if you can find things you’ve done today that your past self wouldn’t even believe. I would guess you’ve made more progress than you think.
Love this! I enjoyed reading about your queer evolution and Pride experiences. You have so much to be proud of!
"We arrived at the right time for us.". Sigh. So right.