Warning: fangirl. Approach With Extreme Caution.

i dont see this kinda stuff at all on this site so i thought id share what ive learned

some of yall know that conservative parents (not all of them, but a lot, probably most) of lgbt+ kids have the potential to become very horrible and abusive when they find out. these next few things are mostly for After theyve already found out. i dont have any tips for not being outed to ur parents because i fuckin failed at that so

- if you’re a kid, 13-15, youre gonna want to argue with them. don’t. that’s a horrible idea

- seriously just go along with whatever they say

- if youve been outed to them, make up a story about how youre trying to change from your disgusting ways and youre becoming a better person now and blah blah blah

- if you were outed as trans, wait a month or so (that way it seems less fake, theyll think you grew out of your phase), then start presenting as your assigned gender. make it Extreme. for example: if you were assigned female, be as. stereotypical. as. possible. call yourself a girl a lot. do stereotypical girly things. get personalized things with your deadname on them. it will hurt you, but they could hurt you more. the internet is your best friend, tell everyone on there to call you by your chosen name and pronouns as often as possible. if youre transmasculine, i cant stress this enough, /do not bind if you are somewhere your parents will see you. they will notice your lack of chest. wear loose clothing or multiple layers. but do not bind/. if you need to feel less dysphoric, wear deodorant thats scented in whatever way makes u feel comfortable. it’s cool and pretty subtle (unless you drowned yourself in old lady perfume or axe body spray) but itll make you feel good without giving away your Secret

- if you were outed as gay, and theyre religious, go to church. theres always another gay teen thats being forced to go there. talk to everyone, make friends with everyone. try to find someone else who’s gay (or trans, or nonbinary, or ace/aro, or honestly just someone who’s accepting but it is preferred that they r not cishet that way u both get somethin out of it u kno? help a fellow lgbt+ teen out). if you can pass for a hetero couple™, pretend to date. go ALL OUT. keep this up as long as you find necessary, then, if you want, you can stage a breakup. this isnt necessary but crying to your mom about how he left you for that b*tch in chemistry can bring you two closer and make your act more convincing

- i dont have advice for being outed as bi bc im not bi but please feel free to add any advice. u can try the last tip, since lots of conservatives dont believe bisexuality is A Thing and will assume if ur with the “opposite gender” ur not bi anymore

- you’re not a bad person if you pretend to agree with all the homophobic/transphobic shit they say. you’re not in the wrong here. they are. youre just trying to stay safe, ok? dont feel guilty

- i was outed as bi (i’m a lesbian) and i had other friends who were outed as bi. my parents assaulted me and sent me to live with my far-less-conservative mother and while it may have taken her time to realize its not just a phase, i never had to fear for my life. all of my bi friends had uncomfortable talks with their parents but since their parents didnt believe bisexuality is real, they stayed safe by always being in het-passing relationships. and since ppl who don’t believe bisexuality is real think you’re either secretly gay or straight and trying to be cool, these friends didn’t stay single because the more time they spent single the more their parents started to believe they were secretly gay. they sought out straight boys and they sold that shit until their parents switched to “straight but trying to be cool”

- this is gonna sound weird but if you have a big enough circle of closeted kids, summer church camps are actually really fun. there were about 7-8 of us and church camp was the best part of our summers because our parents weren’t there and there were only a limited amount of adults to supervise us, and none of them were really trying that hard to anyway because we were teenagers in a closed environment we’d have to try pretty hard to get lost. it’s not fun being the only gay kid and i imagine it’s also not fun when you have vigilant chaperones so try to find out who else is going and who your chaperones are before you make a decision.

- i never got to go to other summer camps but i’ve heard they’re far more enjoyable than church camp if you can also bring your circle of closeted friends to those, because you also get to be away from your parents and in this case it’s without any risk of “gays are going to hell” sermons. summer camp was the only time for any of us that we could actually be ourselves without much filter or restriction and it’s a good break for your mental health

- if you’re talking to your trans friend and referring to them by their chosen name and someone they don’t want to be out to asks who you’re talking to, pick a random object. i’m serious. teens are already considered ~random~ and goofy so if you tell someone you assigned a completely serious name to a keychain or a bag or a plastic fork they’ll believe you. and it works if you have to use the same name for multiple objects because you can just tell people you just like that name. and if all your friends start doing it, people will assume it’s some weird inside joke. my friends and i did this for each other and kids sure looked at us weird, but none of us got outed as trans.

- if you’re outed as ace make up a story about how its because you’re scared about what you learned in sex ed or you’re saving it for marriage or you’re scared because you heard someone at your school is pregnant. those worked for my friend but not really for me, but in my case i was expecting my parents to be okay with me being ace so i wasn’t really trying that hard to sell it.

- if your parents monitor your internet history, try to avoid lgbtqia+ content on your computer unless it’s a personal computer you’re positive they don’t have access to (and even then, make sure they aren’t home, because if they walk in and see anything remotely gay on the monitor it’s pretty hard to explain it away). even if you always clear your browsing history, 1) you’ll look suspicious and 2) there are applications they can install that’ll track your browsing history separately. try to use a smartphone if you can. when you clear your history on that you can say it’s to make your phone run smoother or to keep from cluttering your storage. and if they happen to walk in the room while you’re looking at something, you’ll probably have a chance to switch to a completely not-gay-at-all app and pretend you’ve been doing that the whole time.

i can also say firsthand that church camp is fun if your counselors are cool. in 2016 my counselor liked girls (she didnt give me any more detail than that) & so did like, 4 of my cabin-mates. it was awesome, we’re still friends to this day. but u gotta either 1) have a group of friends that are going already or 2) casually bring up The Gays to make sure everyones safe to come out to

no more confusion. no more “oh, no, the comic is called homestuck, the website is mspaintadventures.com”

homestuck just became so much more accessible to the masses solely because, like many of us when we first showed interest, they will type “homestuck.com” into their browser and instead of dead results they will literally be able to instantly find out what homestuck is. no more mspaintadventures needed.

When I was in middle school, I knew that bisexual people existed. Many people had told me it was wrong, but I knew they existed, I knew it was an option.

Eighth grade rolled around and my friends started talking about how hot male celebrities were and I got this fuzzy feeling of confusion: I wasn’t attracted to them like I was supposed to be.

So there I was, thirteen years old at a lunchroom table, assuming the only orientations that existed were gay, straight, and bisexual. I wasn’t attracted to guys. I assumed I had to be gay.

And gay became an integral part of my personality. I created a tumblr, followed gay blogs, shipped girls together, I did everything I thought a gay girl was supposed to do.

Only, as the years passed, I felt less and less at home, because every time I saw a post about how hot a female celebrity was I got this fuzzy feeling of confusion: I wasn’t attracted to them like I was supposed to be.

But I ignored it. I was fifteen years old, laying in bed, scrolling through posts I didn’t fully identify with. The only options were gay, straight, and bisexual. And I wasn’t attracted to guys.

In sophomore year of high school, I came out as gay.

Over winter break, I spent a lot of time on the internet, feeling broken and confused. I was gay but I wasn’t attracted to girls. I scrolled through the lgbt tag, looking for an answer, and came upon a list of identities.

I found asexual and demisexual in it. Gay had been a huge part of my identity for two years. I grabbed demisexual and ran with it, because maybe, if I found the right person and got close enough, something would click.

It never did. As the school year flew by, I thought about asexuality more and more, and in early spring, I settled with it. It made me feel a little broken, but hey, I was still homoromantic, so I couldn’t be all that broken, could I?

By the summer between sophomore and junior year, I no longer felt broken. I still had a safe space in the queer community and I was loud and proud about who I was.

That same summer, I met a bisexual girl and an aroace girl, roommates at a summer program. My asexuality and homoromanticism became something I talked about often, an even bigger part of who I was.

Junior year of high school, a girl asked me on a date and I said yes. After all, I liked spending time with her and I wanted to be closer to her, that’s what romantic feelings were, or so I thought.

A month into the relationship I realized my feelings couldn’t be romantic. I liked cuddling with her and I liked talking to her, but I never wanted to kiss her. I never wanted to hold her hand.

I looked back, and I realized every single ‘crush’ I had was exactly like this. I wanted to cuddle and I wanted to be closer. I never wanted romance. I just wanted a stronger freindship.

It was terrifying. I felt so utterly broken and confused because if I wasn’t gay, who the hell was I? I remembered aromanticism and I talked to my aroace friend, and for the first time I truly identified with what was being said.

Despite this, I continued to feel broken. I found some aromantic blogs, and I sent anons, and I read the faqs, and day by day, I accepted myself more

But there was still something missing. The fandoms I had become a part of, the girls I still shipped, that hadn’t changed. What changed was the fact that suddenly I wasn’t welcome there.

Because my junior year is this year, and as I was finally feeling comfortable with myself, the discourse began. I am told that I’m basically straight, that I have no place in the community I have called my home for three years.

Maybe if that’s all it was, I would be able to brush it off as hate and reassure myself I was queer, that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

But the thing is, I’m also being told that I’ve never experienced oppression, that I never felt like an outcast because of who I was.

And you’re partially correct, I have never felt like an outcast because of who I am. But every day I have felt like an outcast because of who I’m not.

Since I was old enough to talk I’ve been told I will have crushes. Since I was in middle school, I’ve been told by my parents it’s okay who I have crushes on, that if I like a girl it’s okay too.

But I’ve never been told it’s okay not to have a crush. In fact, during truth or dare, every time I said I didn’t have a crush people told me I was lying, and I learned to make them up.

Since I was in middle school, I’ve been told it’s perfectly normal to be sexually attracted to girls or guys or even both. All are normal.

But I’ve never been told it’s normal not to be sexually attracted to anybody. And so when I was lectured by adults on how I need to be careful when having sex, even if I’m really attracted to the person, I smiled and nodded, not bothering to correct them.

Since I joined tumblr, I’ve been flooded with posts about how it’s okay to love who you love. No matter who you’re attracted to you’re a valid individual. I never had to look to find these posts.

But I’ve never just stumbled across a post telling me it’s okay to not have crushes and it’s okay not to be attracted to anybody. I had to search those out by following ace and aro specific blogs.

So now I’d like to present to you the definition of oppression:

oppression [uh-presh-uh n] noun 1. the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. 2. an act or instance of oppressing or subjecting to cruel or unjust impositions or restraints. 3. the state of being oppressed. 4. the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc.

bought a really nice looking fountain pen

that sounds like a joke but fountain pens are cheap as shit and when you use one people look at you like you’re a fucking wizard

this hero 901 cost me $3 on ebay and i don’t know why people assume that this is a pen for intelligent people but they do

it works better when i am using a nice notebook and not the avengers notebook that makes it look like the hulk is grabbing my sweet pen

i write in code which for some reason leads everyone to assume that i am some kind of da vinci motherfucker, instead of the reality, which is that i am writing about dicks and don’t want anyone to know

it looks like i am constantly taking notes on everything which is both intimidating and inaccurate, just the way i like it

i bought a usb clicker/laser pointer for $11 and now it seems like i’ve got this shit on lock, like i am so pro at giving presentations i even own accessories

holding a clicker makes you seem at least 10% more like you know what you’re talking about i’m pretty sure

i check the weekly freebies on creativemarket every monday so now i have a huge folder of pro-looking website themes and powerpoint templates and fill-in-the-blank resumes (also a lot of autumnal clipart and watercolor flowers and script fonts but that is less relevant)

i bought a ceramic coffee mug at world market years ago and it makes me look like a productive coffee-drinker because no one knows it’s full of hot cocoa

i don’t know why drinking coffee makes you look busy it just does even though i’m pretty sure it statistically reduces productivity

bonus: not only does no one know i’m just drinking Depression Chocolate but they think i am being Environmentally Conscious rather than Poor As Shit

extra bonus: i can take a sip whenever it looks like someone is going to ask a question and then they ask someone else

i almost never have to answer questions and i leave the room a lot because i have to pee constantly so double extra bonus

“That’s a very good question, and one that deserves an in-depth answer, so if you’d like to leave me your card I’d be happy to discuss it with you later one-on-one” aka “how DARE you suggest i waste everyone’s time answering this question right now” aka “lmfao i have no fucking clue what you just said please let me secretly google that okay”

bonus: now it seems like you are a sophisticated grownup who assumes everyone has A Card and if they have to settle for writing their email on a scrap of paper you can feel smug about it even though in your heart you know that you are no better

i’ve got anxiety and poor impulse control and anxiety about my poor impulse control so i generally say jack shit about shit and this constant silence is often misinterpreted as aloof observation

no one knows that my air of mystery is actually a bad case of the shy and i am too shy to correct them so it works out

when i’m on my laptop and i don’t want anyone to notice how much i’m dicking around i turn the brightness way down so they can’t snoop without being obvious

in the coming years, outside forces are going to try to tear our community apart by exploiting existing rifts. now more than ever is the time to pull together as a community and examine our internalized biases.

this is a comic i’ve rewritten half a dozen times, and gone back and forth on posting.