One of the biggest steps in being happy with who I am this summer came in the form of actually coming out as demisexual. Don’t get me wrong, I rode that emotional high of coming out and being accepted by my friends and family for weeks after. For all the stress I felt, that moment of just putting it out there and being accepted was just so empowering. It was everything I could have ever wanted and I just remember looking back and thinking: “why the hot fudge sundae did I have any reservations in coming out?” It really perplexed me how I had lived without being honest with who I am.

But it’s days like yesterday that have me seething and remembering full well on why I was so hesitant for years to even start venturing into figuring out just who the hell Kristina Atienza really is.

I know people mean no harm, or at least I honestly hope so, but when there’s such raging cases of ignorance and rudeness towards people who don’t identify under the stereotypical norm, it’s actually painfully obvious why I was so terrified to start looking to accept the fact that who I am doesn’t fall into the rigid societal norm.

Look, I was given the impression that if you didn’t fall into the norm of what everyone else defined themselves as, you were a freak. I mean there was even a point that someone wasn’t allowed to talk to me because their parent was afraid I was into them that way (and friendship I never sought to salvage, but that’s an argument for another day.) It was so common for people to use terms like gay or lesbian as dirty, offensive words that it scared me to even think about.  Harsh; I know. But I was a little kid, people just kept enforcing this taboo about being different and I just wanted to not have people hate me. I just wanted to be accepted.

It took a lovely YouTube webseries called Carmilla for me to even realize that I actually didn’t know much at all about sexuality, identity and myself. I really took the time to understand myself during the Carmilla season One binge watch I treated myself to last Christmas. About halfway through, it was the silliest thing that happened honestly. I was just like, “Wow this show is great. Also she looks great, actually they all look great. Wait this cast is practically all females – hang on a second.” Ironically enough, I went into last Christmas break thinking I was 100% straight and it turned out I was 100% wrong about that. So I stopped myself during the show and honestly just started googling different sexualities and discovered that holy socks of Batman, Demisexuality was a thing that totally described me. It was the slightest of nudges out of the closet of ignorance I didn’t even know I was in, but it was all I needed to begin the journey of self-discovery and acceptance that was 2015.

Just seeing such casual ignorance towards people who might not be straight, identify outside the binary, or generally choose to be open about who they are just hurt to see. We need to stop being this way. We need to stop trying to convince others that living by the norm is the only way to be happy in this society. We need to stop being cruel and harsh to those who just are being true to themselves. In light of all the losses and tragedies we’re facing at the hands of others, we need to be loving and accepting for those who might be trying to figure out their way out of the dark loneliness. We just need to accept that sometimes guys like girls, guys like guys, girls like girls, girls like guys or people just like people who don’t identify within the binary. Love is love, please let people be comfortable with who they are so that there’s more love in this world.