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Posted by Sage Pennington in Pride Month
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Hi all,

As it’s Pride Month, a few of us had the idea for LGBTQ+ members to share a bit about themselves and their experiences. As an ice-breaker, I thought I’d take the plunge first. While I hope others join me, there is no expectation for anyone to do so.

For those who don’t know me, I’m Jack, and I joined STF back in 2003, having just finished school with a bit of free time before starting university. I had only been attracted to other guys, so it should have been fairly obvious to me that I was gay. However, at the time I wasn’t out, and I thought (or perhaps hoped) it was a phase. While not obvious to a younger me at the time, there were two factors that contributed to that feeling.

The first was that during my time at school, UK schools were banned from promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material. They were further banned from teaching that homosexuality was compatible with having a family relationship. This meant that the concept of being gay while also having a normal family life was not something that was discussed and, if anything, left me feeling that I had a choice between either having a ‘normal’ family life or being gay.

The second was that I had aspirations of serving in the UK military and successfully applied through the RAF’s engineering sponsorship scheme in 2002. Only a couple of years earlier, the UK had removed a ban on LGBTQ+ people serving in the military, having effectively been forced to by a European Court of Human Rights ruling that the ban was unlawful. At the time, critics argued that allowing LGBTQ+ people like me to serve would be ‘bad for morale’, and so again I felt that having a successful career in the military and being gay were at odds with each other.

And this is where Star Trek played an inspirational role in my life; in particular, the concept that no matter their backgrounds, everyone was accepted as part of one family, the ship’s (or station’s) crew. STF has always felt the same to me; we are all here to role-play and have fun, regardless of who we are and where we come from. Having taken a break from the club for 8 years and then coming back last year, it still feels like the same family, even with old members leaving and new members joining.

But STF means even more to me. I eventually came out (albeit gradually) to friends starting in 2010, having accepted who I was a few years earlier. There were those in the club who really supported me both before and during that period, helping me understand my feelings and being there for me when I felt low. For some reason, it felt ‘safer’ talking to club members about things than some of my friends outside of STF. Seeing other LGBTQ+ people and characters within the club, and that everyone accepted them for who they were, helped with that.

So, where am I today? I am exceptionally fortunate to have married my wonderful husband last year, and I am still enjoying my time serving in the RAF. Those perceived choices between being gay and having a family life, or between being gay and having a successful career, never materialised; I found that these are very much compatible with each other and it was amazing to be able to marry the person I love, whilst wearing the uniform of the service that I am proud to be part of (cheesy picture is in my profile for this month). Don’t get me wrong, there have still been rare moments where some poor soul has decided to deride me for who I am, but I very much consider myself lucky. I will always be grateful for STF, and everyone involved in the club, in helping me to better understand myself and have the confidence to be who I am.

Jack

Hi,

First, a big thank you to Jack for starting this. My story is… a bit different from his. But that’s the point here, right?

I didn’t know trans people existed when I was young. So when I got to be starting to be interested in dating, I knew there was something different about me but I couldn’t quite define what it was. So I thought I must be gay. I thought I was just built different, but I was interested in women, so I changed my label to bisexual. And then a friend came out as trans. And I learned about that. I knew I identified with that life experience. It still took me several years to reconcile that having such a close connection to the trans experience was cause for introspection. When I did, I was immediately scared. I joined an online forum and eventually put forward the question of “Is this what I think it is?” And they hit me with a resounding no. I turned to a friend and she helped me calm down and understand it. And then she took it on as a personal cause to have me be out to everyone. I told my family and their reaction was “no you’re not.” And I set to the slow task of persuading them. But my friend thought it wasn’t going fast enough. So she decided to walk into the house and tell my parents everything they were doing wrong. And that set everything back. my parents screamed at both of us for a while and blamed her for “converting” me. It took two years to convince them that it’s a real thing. Even now, they still don’t always want to listen when I need to tell them something. Losing that friend and becoming disconnected from my family did have an upside though. It drove me out to seek community. And I made some of the best friends ever, two of whom I live with now.

Figuring out I’m gay was a lot simpler. I realized I’d grabbed onto bisexuality because I knew there was a queerness living somewhere inside me. Once I had figured out gender identity, I realized I wasn’t actually attracted to men, I had wanted a queer identity where I could be interested in women. And so further introspection had me figure out that I’m gay. Now I have someone I’ve been dating for a couple months, and she’s amazing. Things are looking up on that front.

My queer experience has had a lot of harassment and slurs in it, but I’ve also encountered some of my favorite people in the world. I wouldn’t trade those connections for anything.

-Sage

All my characters are queer as hell so this should have been obvious, yes? (And yes, they are all queer in various ways and often reflect my own queer experiance or are my way of exploring other aspects of queer identity)

Having grown up in the 90s and early 2000s (in America) being queer wasn’t really discussed or shown except as a punchline or a joke. It never came up in school and it certainly never came up during Christian Church service except in the pearl-clutching ways. Being queer never entered my radar really until I reached high school when I began to encounter peers who were. I was a known weirdo and thus spent most of my K-12 as an outcast who hung out with the other outcasts. Wouldn’t you know it but lots of those outcasts were those kids who didn’t fit in to the “normal” mold. Highschool is when I figured out I was attracted to both men and women and for longest time that was it. LGBT. That’s all there was to it, right?

In middle and high school I used to pray to god for a boyfriend. That was the normal thing to do after all. You start dating. I wanted to be normal. I did end up dating a few people but every person I was interested in I just. . . faded away. I had no interest in maintaining the relationship. Keeping up with expected communication and what I thought were “standard” relationship things was difficult. Eventually I just. . . stopped. A guy even told me “you don’t want to do the relationship things”. I won’t learn until my late 20’s about this aspect of myself but we’re not quite there yet. Then I had a traumatic experiance with a guy I had a crush on but that’s a whole side-quest and a half. Long story short I had a phobia about kissing people that weren’t my family.

I stopped trying to force myself to find someone to date in high school and college came and went without meeting that “special someone”. Time moves on. All my cousins find people and get married but I’m still single. I didn’t have a problem with being single because I’m really comfortable with myself. Dated a guy around the start of COVID and then just. . . slowly stopped texting. Didn’t even formally break up. Then I made some new online friends and I started dating them. We dated for about 2 years before I decided to fly out and visit him. During the course of the relationship I made myself say “I love you” even though I didn’t feel it. They said it, so I should be feeling the same right? Why don’t you love someone after dating two years? This guy is my best friend. Well, during the trip I hade a panic attack because I think subconsciously I knew this couldn’t continue. I couldn’t keep faking and pretending that everything would work out because I’m hitting the relationship milestones.

I broke up with him. God it was a painful experiance but I was more upset about how hurt he was by the break up than I was about the loss of the relationship. Eventually I would learn about aromanticism. A person who feels very little or no romantic feeling. That was me. Everything clicked into place. My “crushes” were just me hyper fixating on people I thought were cool and fun. I always drifted away from relationships because those feelings were never there to begin with. Now I know that I am not comfortable being in a relationship where the other person loves me. To me there is an imblanace because I am not able to love them back.

Now that I have the language and have read about other people’s experiances I know I’m a couple other flavors of queer. I consider myself Grey Bisexual which means I do feel sexual attraction towards men and women but I have zero desire to act upon it. Personal issues and religious trauma have essentially shut that option out completely for me. I am Agender meaning I do not perceive myself as a gendered person. Male? Female? No I’m a person who does person things. I use she/he/they pronouns so if you really wanna make me happy throw out some he’s and they’s my way.

I’m not out to my family. My parents know I’m “queer” but not exactly what. My family are. . . very conservative and of a brand of Christianity that views the homosexual as sinners who need to repent. They love me all the same but sometimes it’s hard to know that they vote against my rights and my ability to exist. I’m not out to many people because I’m terrified of being a victim of a hate crime. I’m terrified of losing my job. I work adjacent to kids. The big political to-do these days is spreading the lie that all queer people are child groomers. Me existing is not political. I just want to be able to live and not have to live my life in fear.

Sorry to end on such a bummer but that is my lived experiance. Also, when someone says they don’t experiance romantic love just listen to them okay? Don’t tell them “they’ll find that special someone!” Don’t give them your epic love story unprompted. Please give them the space to express themselves? Thanks.

Fox

As one of, if not the newest member to this group of misfits, it’s nice to see things like this take place. It’s nice to all share stories in a safe environment and feel supported by those around you.

As well as being one of the newest to the club, I think I’m also one of the younger members. I was born and grew up in the 2000’s and by the time I was old enough to know what LGBTQ+ was, it was already more accepted than in previous generations. Acceptance is still continuing to improve leaps and bounds year on year in most countries, and unfortunately there’s still a decent chunk of the world where being a member of the LGBTQ+ community is very much illegal and that absolutely sucks, however considering how most people grew up I like to think I’m pretty lucky the generation I grew up in.

I’ll be entirely honest, for years I was as straight as straight can be. When I first got into dating, I knew I liked girls. For years, that’s all it was. Never questioned anything else. Dated girls and only ever dated girls. It was when I was about 17, weirdly playing online games where I made a friend who threw a spanner into that. I’d never even considered dating a male at that point, not out of any hatred or anything just because I’d been happily plodding along as I was. I still remember the day pretty well where he told me he had feelings for me and at first I was ready to shut him down, but then I realised that I didn’t inherently dislike the idea of dating a male.

I still shut him down for other reasons, but at that point I started to question a lot more. I realised at that point that friends whom I had been really close to and thought were just best friends were people whom I may or may not have had unknown romantic feelings for. Honestly, I still don’t even know and we’re so many years later. It was at this point (roughly), the B in LGBTQ+ became known to myself and I started to learn more about the bisexual community. It took me dating a male for the first time to truly turn around and go “yeah, I’m bisexual” and it’s something I’ve only become more and more comfortable with over the years.

As I said, by the time I admitted my sexuality, it was a time where it was already pretty accepted by people. Pride events were already a massive thing and celebrities were starting to publically reveal their sexualities. I’ve not really come across a lot of the issues I know many people do and I’m thankful for it. Everyone I’ve come across, thankfully, has been very supportive and I will continue to fight for all people under the LGBTQ+ banner to be accepted because everyone should be.

Hi all,

Thank you for sharing your stories. I turn 50 this year, and I still don’t know what I am. I mean, according to my LinkedIn profile, I am ‘Tribble’, but beyond that, don’t call me whatever you want, just not late to dinner. But, I don’t remember ever having ‘romantic feelings’ for anyone else. I don’t recall going on a date with anyone. I have received comments from ‘well meaning’ family and friends about my life, everything from “You know when I was your age, I had two children …” and “At your age she doesn’t have to be pretty as long as she’s Miss Right”. If that latter comment wasn’t from my Grandma and we were attending a funeral at that time for another elderly woman, I would have responded “Well maybe I’m after Miss Wrong, or even perhaps Mr Right or Mr Wrong” … but I was concerned we might have had to hold another funeral shortly after if I did, so I bit my tongue. My sister and her husband have had children, so my parents have grandchildren they can dote over

Beyond Tribble, I’m a male and a white anglo-saxon protestant. I’ve worked for the last eight years with an indigenous charity in Brisbane. It is tough going at times, as they are among the most marginalised members of the Australian society. I won’t ever know what they’ve gone through, and I’ve never lived in fear that I’d be taken from my family, but I can and do support them in every way I can. I’ve been acknowledged by them as a member of their community ‘I’m an honorary black fella’ in their eyes and ‘one of the only good things that ex CEO did for them’, and the respect flows both ways.

For me, that’s the main thing whether it is someone’s gender, sexuality, nationality, whatever. I do my best to respect all, sometimes I’m not very good at it, I am human and still learning and stumble at times, as we all are. I also celebrate alongside others and call things out when they are not right.

I’m Russell Watt, Tribble, Accountant and I’m a fan of Musical Theater.
I celebrate you all this Pride Month, and always.
And from Star Trek - IDIC, Live Long and Prosper, Peace and Long Life.