Beach Voices: Feeling loved and accepted at CSULB after coming out

I came out when I was 13 years old. I was very young, and my family didn’t really teach me about LGTBQ identities, so I was very lost.  

Luckily, I had some friends who were queer and they had the vocabulary to describe their own experiences. I came to the realization that I am pansexual or bisexual.

I sometimes go by the label of queer, but I also try not to reduce myself to those labels because I am having a human experience. But for me, my coming-out experience was OK.

Once I had the vocabulary to describe myself — at the time, I used the term bisexual — I one day randomly told my mom and she was like, “OK,” which was something I wasn’t really expecting. Within the African American community, queerness is not something that’s always celebrated or talked about.

It’s that kind of “hush hush”- type of dynamic, culturally, but when I told my mom, my sister and my father, they said, “OK, we still love you. We don’t see you any differently.”

For a lot of people, queerness is something that puts them in danger or it changes how people perceive them, which I think is wrong. Luckily, I was able to share my own truth and to be accepted.

When I did share it with my cousins, because I was so young, they just laughed at me. “How do you know?” they said. But I think when you know, you know.

I feel like the labels of bisexual and pansexual are terms that some people don’t take seriously, but “my chosen ones” — the ones who are my friends, the ones who I hold close to my heart — love and accept me.

I love being queer at Cal State Long Beach and I love my job at the LGBTQ+ Resource Center. It gives me the opportunity to celebrate both aspects of myself — as a Black queer woman — and I really appreciate the opportunity to connect with people of all communities within the umbrella of intersectionality. I get to honor my queerness instead of dismissing it.  

As a student assistant, I help with tabling and resources, make sure students feel at home, and bridge the gap for Black queer students, since our numbers are a bit low.  

To those who have not yet come out, I would say to really look within, sit with your silence and reflect, and the self-acceptance will reveal the answer to you.

And those who are for you will love you, they will accept you, cherish you, honor you and protect you. Anyone who does not have the capacity to do that is not for you and doesn’t deserve your presence, because you are beautiful, valuable and worthy, regardless of your sexuality.  

Stephanie Lymon (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year psychology major at The Beach.

Beach Voices is an occasional feature that allows members of The Beach community — students, faculty, staff and alumni — to share their firsthand experiences. If you would like to be considered, send submissions labeled “Beach Voices” to StratComm@csulb.edu.