a 7 minutes read…
STORY NO. 1
“Back when I was a teenager, we were smack in the middle of the AIDS epidemic and there was a lot of fear that it would become airborne, so that
"normal" people would start to become infected next to "the gays".
It was the first time I experienced such extreme hatred and fear of the LGBTIQ+ community and unfortunately it happened at the exact time I was questioning my own sexuality. I had always fallen for both boys and girls, but the lack of any positive role models and the overwhelming negativity surrounding the LGBTIQ+ community pushed me firmly into the very back of the closet. I was seriously scared someone might find out my secret. So, I simply made the choice to pursue a heterosexual lifestyle and to ignore my "other side". This was fine for a long time, but with the arrival of the internet and chat rooms I discovered there were people exactly like me, living the same kind of double life. At the same time, my heterosexual relationship was nearing its ending for reasons too personal to discuss here, so I started to explore my other side. It was an amazing journey and with it came the realization that I really felt whole for the first time in my life. It certainly was a time of personal evolution and I am so happy I took that step.
Now I am happily married once again, but this time to a man.
Together we have four children (two that are mine and two that are his) because we both went through the same life experience prior to meeting each other. If I look at the world today, I think there is much more room to be who you are and to make choices that fit you, at least here in the Netherlands. However, at the same time I think we still have quite a road to travel to remove the burden of heteronormativity, let alone how much more needs to be done at an international level.”
- Steven
STORY NO. 2
“Being part of the LGBTQ+ community as GAY is always a journey. To live for the moments you have in life, trying to express yourself the best ways you can can be hard in different countries and in different cultural groups. Being queer is something I am proud of, and the fact that most of the people living together are starting to be more accepting and understanding towards the queers is heart-warming.
In the past few years I was not openly gay to the world.
I always tried to find the best moment to share how I feel, but for some reason it never came until Christmas 2021. Sharing how I feel and finally opening up to my family and friends was amazing. The pressure is off of my shoulders, and now I can share all my stories openly without any fears. The feeling of sharing came when I moved to the Netherlands to study. Seeing the difference here, and how people are usually talking about queers, and how others feel like they can be themselves was eye-opening. Seeing that I wanted to be part of the happiness - so I stepped up and shared my story. 2022 started wild, new year new me, especially that this year is my first being open and doing what I love, and love who I love. Talking about love: lucky me! Life sent me a gift. A gift who I can never thank enough to love me as he does love me.
I am happy, and living in the happiest relationship without no fear,
being myself, sharing my stories with my love of my life.
I know this whole story was chaotic, I just cannot be thankful enough for all the things happening to me. I just wanted to share, so maybe I can help with my story to others, that they are not alone, and they are never alone. Hope is there always, and we are also here for each other! Love is love <3 “
- Peter
STORY NO. 3
“In my view, how queer matters are tackled by countries and people is a measure of the development of their sense of power, empathy, self-esteem and even self-awareness. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to disrespect all the people who still can't fathom the concept of queerness, of divergence in sexuality, gender and romantic orientation, since I also could not grasp it until I spent time introspecting on how things were the way they were.
The message I'm trying to convey is that
being in a privileged position can be blinding to our own soul,
only looking after ourselves and our equals, ignoring the problems other people have because our own problems are the only ones that seem important enough. Once one takes time to open one's mind, everything seems to fall apart as social constructs and accepted truths fade away, and this is a scary step many are not willing to take.
Gladly, over the years, the degree of acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals has increased as a consequence of an improvement on critical thinking among younger generations. More people than ever feel comfortable sharing their identity with friends and family, and even if the governments across the world have contributed, being more accepting by promoting queer matters, it is the underlying evolution of our understanding as a civilization what actually leads the way.
The paradigm of self-awareness that also brought attention to mental health, climate issues, and power abuse and corruption, is the one that managed to awaken and open our minds regarding the "different" and the oppressed,
hence making queer matters, matter; having gained a greater impact and evolved greatly, and for the better, in the last years.”
- Curro
STORY NO. 4
“Visibility has been two-fold. While it brings new communities together, it also brought visibility towards the haters.
I have experienced more violence (verbal), backtalk and discrimination instead of being invisible as a binary trans woman.
Being the sole fault for "leftist wanting gender neutral toilets" is an often regarded sentiment from the right.”
- Anonymous
STORY NO. 5
“WE ALSO HAVE A DREAM
'"I have a dream". This is how Martin Luther King expressed his desire to eliminate discrimination towards black people. Like many others, he dedicated his life to fight against the unfair, to defend an oppressed community. He fought for freedom, for equality, for a better world...
Nowadays, plenty are those who also have similar, if not the same dream. The LGBTQ+ community is an example of this.
How is it possible that, in the 21st Century, homosexuality is still illegal in 69 countries?
How is it possible that in Europe, therapies can still be imposed on queer children? How many more streets will we have to divert for them to understand that our rights are, no more and no less, human rights? How many more Pride Days will we have to claim the same rights?
Having witnessed cases like the homophobic murder of Samuel in Spain, or the transphobia that J.K. Rowling and Maya Forstater pridefully support, I think that there's still a long way to go; and specially, for the forgotten within the LGBTQ+ community: asexual, transgender and non binary people.
However, it is also true that, even though we're far from the equality goal, we're taking important steps towards it. Slowly, the different commitments governmental institutions are having without rights are increasing. The majority of us have probably had to actually come out, nevertheless, society's attitude towards it is increasingly respectful (there are always unsupportive people, but I want to think that their number is decreasing). Its proof: openly declaring oneself as a homophobe or making jokes or comments on the same line is something criticized and not encouraged, something that would not occur in our parents' days.
The evolution of society in terms of equality is indubitable, but it can't be forgotten that there's still work to do.
We also have a dream of being able to live being ourselves.
And that dream requires everyone's contribution, from within and outside the LGBTQ+ community, to become a reality.”
- Miriam
STORY NO. 6
“Queer rights are being acknowledged and are growing in strength, however I find the gay community a little toxic and less supportive of each other than id like it to be. People are being judged inside the community instead of supporting each other.
“Okay you identify as a spoon, Yas girl slaayyy” “
- Anonymous
STORY NO. 7
“I have felt the evolution of queer matters throughout the years moving forwards as well as moving backwards. This might sound strange, but wait, let me explain.
As a young queer kid in high school who was out, probably only to my two best friends, I found a community and representation mainly online. Specifically the world of fanfiction.
For those who might not know, fanfictions were fan written stories posted online, often about characters of the latest popular book or tv show. Give a bunch of teens creative freedom to write new storylines for these popular characters, and you just know the craziest things will come out.
So, do I admit to reading stories about Bella from Twilight dumping Edward, to run away to Paris with his much prettier sister Alice instead?
Yes.
Is it extremely cringy thinking back to it? For sure. Do I regret spending hours of my time doing this? Not at all.
These were the queer baiting golden days. There was namely not a chance in the world big producers would put actual queer characters in their popular tv shows or movies. But hinting towards it, by giving the fans shots with the two close male friends looking just a little bit TOO long in each other’s eyes, was the way to go. Fans could still go wild within their own fanfictions or edits, but nothing out of the ordinary would really be happening in their show.
Strangely enough I wasn’t actually too upset by this at the time. I just knew and accepted that gay couples were not something that would be shown on tv. Actually I was mainly feeling happy that I lived in a day in age where I could “fangirl” about gay couples online, instead of not knowing about this vibrant community at all.
The internet felt like this amazing safe space, where everything remotely queer was being celebrated.
And even though deep down you knew they wouldn’t ever show a real gay kiss on tv. These queerbaiting hints that they dropped sure kept high school me on the tip of my seat. Cause oh wow.. just imagine if one day they did.
Even typing this now feels strange. Because I know I’m already a master student.. but my time in high school really wasn’t THAT long ago. Yet I don’t recognize this feeling anymore at all. The days where I had seen EVERY show out there that included a gay kiss (at one point in their 7 seasons) are far behind me. It even feels like shows on Netflix nowadays are not complete without at least 2 or 3 queer characters.
It blows my mind that in my short period of being out, I can already notice such a big shift.
It makes me so happy to reflect back on that! Also because I believe that representation is the best way to overall more acceptance.
But with more visibility also comes more involvement of people.. who are, to put it nicely, not really the target audience of sappy queer romance. Haters hidden behind the safety of anonymity on the internet going wild in the comment section of a Netflix Instagram post featuring a sapphic kiss.
Because even though the internet was my queer safe space.. it is now also the place where I get confronted most with homophobia and discrimination.
It sure is strange growing up privileged. Not really giving politics a second thought. Only to meet the harsh reality of discrimination later in life.
I am happy that I was born in NL, so when we are looking at how I have felt the evolution of queer matters throughout the years here, I am happy to say I already grew up with the knowledge gay couples can get married. And that loving a girl would not stand between my dream to have a family.
I didn’t consciously live through the moment gay marriage was legalized here.. and I’m immensely happy about that. This might sound like a strange comment, because isn’t living through this milestone an amazing celebration? Well I don’t really think so.
Having the whole country debate and have an opinion about YOUR future.. not funny.
(You need a lot of strong self-confidence and good mental health to possibly get through that.)
I might just be spoiled when it comes to discrimination. As a high educated cis white woman growing up in the Netherlands I never had to deal with any form of intense discrimination or backlash, just for being me and living my life. So when I got to meet it.. I was not really pleased to say the least.
So called “beautiful moments” like stadiums turning rainbow during last summer soccer EU finals, still are more traumatic than beautiful. “Posers” “attention seekers” “sick people” are the comments from all over the world that decorate the news stories about these events.
When I first got confronted with people with these opinions (also in real life) I was shocked, hurt, and mostly confused.
How could people have such strong opinions about people they haven’t even met?
How could they have such strong opinions about me? I remember thinking if they would just look a bit further than their own ego and take the chance to get to know some of us, they would see how loving, kind, and beautiful the people in this community are.
[insert privilege check here] That was also the moment I realized so many other marginalized groups (e.g. people of color) have been dealing with confrontations like this their whole lives.. not just as adults.
So yes I have felt the evolution of queer matters throughout the years moving forwards as well as moving backwards. Where I am happier than ever with the amount of representation I see around me, I have also felt hurt by loud homophobic calls that have been reaching me more and more as queer people also start to take back their spot at the forefront of attention.
My Muslima friend who is all too familiar with the fight for equal rights, discrimination, and her place in this country told me “If they knew they were going to get it their way, they wouldn’t feel the need to be screaming.
Having haters just means you are standing steady and tall.”
Or how we would say in Dutch “hoge bomen vangen nu eenmaal veel wind” en ik ben trots op onze lengte.
I look forward to reflecting back on our progress in 5 years’ time again. Hopefully laughing about how silly and strange the situation I painted today is. Because we again made progress I didn’t even think was possible today.”
- Kyara