My Coming Out Story. 🏳️‍🌈

My name is Adrienne Abella. I am the lead creatrix here at Little Black Diamond, and I am a queer woman. As I’m writing this, I am feeling terrified and I have no idea if I’ll actually end up sharing this story with you all or not. 

As a pre teen, I fell in love with my best friend and kissed her during a sleepover. Some kids at school found out and started bullying me after school. 

I felt so lost, confused and humiliated. I won’t even repeat the names I was being called, or the harmful things they were saying to me. 

“Gay” was still being spewed around as a hurtful slur in the late 90s and early 2000s. And no one was discussing the spectrum of sexuality when I was this age. But I was secretly obsessed with lesbian anime fanfiction at the time. The storylines, the heartfelt writing, the tender touches of my favorite characters–it felt right and safe to me, unlike the standard hetero cis male gaze hardcore pornography that everyone else (mostly boys) seemed to be consuming.  

My dad found out I was reading this illicit fanfiction by digging through my internet browsing history. He confronted me and I felt incredibly shamed–so much so that I panicked and hyperventilated into a paper bag. So I lied. I said someone at school had sent me those links, and I clicked on them without knowing what it was. 

There was no way I could tell him the truth. And even if I could, the attraction I was experiencing was incredibly baffling. Was I gay or was I straight? There was no discourse about bisexuality, pansexuality or the full spectrum of queerness at the time. 

The bullying at school continued. Verbal name calling escalated into physical violence. I got into fights, and my grades started to plummet. So did my mental health. 

I tried coming out to my mom. She did her best to smile at me reassuringly, and said “It’s just a phase. I went through that too.” 

The situation at school got so bad that my parents decided to send me to private school. I have forgiven them–they were doing their best to help me the best way they could at the time. From then on, I learned to hide this part of myself. 

Until I started raving! The freedom, the community and the safety to be your most authentic self sent sacred signals to my soul that this was a place where I could begin to let my love and devotion to the goddess out of its cage. 

Since then, I’ve been channeling my devotion and awe to the feminine form in my art and designs through radical self expression. Little Black Diamond has always been and will always be my first love song to gorgeous goddesses everywhere. I think womxn are absolutely incredible, inspiring and breathtaking.

We deserve happiness, we deserve to thrive, we deserve freedom.

Now more than ever, it is important for us to let our authenticity and love shine in the face of oppression as conservative legislators push for laws that strip queer, transgender, fluid, femme and birthing peoples’ rights to simply exist. 

For these reasons, and in utter defiance to these legislators making their vile push to strip people of their rights, I am finally sharing the story of my identity as a queer woman for the first time ever.  

I hope this summer of pride inspires you to reflect upon ways that we can all embrace, celebrate and uplift each other. 

xoxo

💎 Mother Diamond