Do You Like Girls?

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“Do you like girls?” he asked me.

“Do you like girls? Are you a lesbian?” my brother insisted.

“Yes!” I replied.

“It’s just a phase, you know that?!” he said. “Marriage will change your whole idea about sex, ask me!”

“It is not like I chose it,” I explained. “It is not like I can change it. It’s been there ever since I was young.”

I have always liked girls. I battled it for so long, yet I couldn’t do anything about it. So I decided to give up. I really couldn’t take out my real personality and replace it with something else. My journey for survival began right after this conversation.

Sometimes I wish I never said yes. It ruined my life.

I wonder why it is such a hassle to come out. I wasted two years of my life and am still struggling to get my life back on track. It doesn’t matter that I lost my home and any sense of security and stability. I wonder what he was thinking when he kicked me out. Shou 3am bi rabbeeni?

Life, however, has been good to me. Maybe it took some time for me to see the sun behind the dark clouds. But in the end, I did see it. Maybe I regretted coming out to my brother back then, but I am glad that I went through those struggles at an early stage of my life.

Every single experience that I went through made me stronger. It made me believe in who I am. It made me insist that this world needs a change. It made me believe that I am not free until ALL of us are free. It made me a feminist activist.

Contributed by Juju

Tags: coming out, family, Homophobia