Demographics
First Name: Katie
Age: 21
Gender/Pronouns: Nonbinary (she/her or they/them)
Sexuality: Bisexual
Region/Area: moved around often
Race/Ethnicity: White, Greek
Story
I realized I was part of the community when I was about 14 but really knew when I was 15. I then met my first girlfriend and was happy exploring but was not ready to come out to family yet. I came out to my sister sometime while I was 15. A few months later my dad found out I was dating a girl (first gf) who I had around as my friend for months by then because we had a shared iCloud and he started reading my texts. He confronted me and said gf one evening and threatened to call the police on her as she was 18 and I was 16 and he claimed we had sex (I lived in NY and 17 is the age of consent). My gf left the house, I ran outside, and my dad proceeded to chase me around the house at night. He sat down with me the same night and said that he understood I was born this way and I couldn’t change and asked if I was gay or how I identified. I memory blocked a lot from that night but I think he took my computer phone etc all forms of communication because I remember sneaking onto the family computer to post on a tumblr page that I was still alive or something. The next day he completely ignored me. I wrote a letter explaining everything and sat down to give it to him. He read it and then basically invalidated everything and said told me that he was in charge/control over me now but that when I turned 18 I could go and become a prostitute for all he cared. The letter was to both of my parents but I found out much later my mom wasn’t aware it existed. She didn’t know what was going on the entire time throughout this. Later the same day/week my dad brought me into his room, closed the door, and proceeded to tell me why being who I am was not okay. He told his 15 year old that if someone put his grandchildren in front of him and told him to shoot one and one was adopted and one was related by blood to him that he would shoot the adopted one. I heard every bi stereotype under the sun like that I would have a wife and a boyfriend in the future or a husband and a girlfriend at the same time. It was an absolutely dreadful experience to be locked into a room with someone telling you such horrible assumptions about who you are and who you will become. Not to mention the realization from this process that I could no longer trust my dad. My mom later found out as well and told me that I shouldn’t tell anyone in the family about it or any other friends or family I honestly don’t know what her excuse was for that but I feel like that one is pretty common. They also forced me to break up with my girlfriend at the time which obviously didn’t stop me from being gay lol. I started dating a trans guy later the next year and that was an entirely separate kind of story but not exactly coming out. I am still slowly coming out to my extended family at 21 and still trying to undo the trauma. So happy to see progress in the world and meet people with good stories but mine was certainly not a good one. Because of this I hope to get involved with lgbt youth in the future because I know how hard the anticipation can be before coming out when you expect a bad outcome, as well as how a relatively bad outcome can actually be to live with. I was lucky that I was able to continue having a home and friends and siblings that supported me throughout.