Pride Month Tag {Collab With Andrea from Endless Wonder}

Hey guys! Happy Pride Month!

This month I decided to collab with my fellow lesbian Andrea, who blogs at Endless Wonder, to bring you a modified version of this Pride tag. This post was a lot of fun to write, so I hope you'll stick around for the whole thing even though it's a bit long.

Here are the questions! My answers are in italics and Andrea's are regular text.

1. Name, identity, and definition of your label?

    I’m Lanie, and I’m a lesbian, which means I’m a girl who likes girls and feminine nonbinary people.

    Hii, I’m Andea, I’m a lesbian too! Lanie already defined it, so I won’t bother XD.

2. How did you come out, or how would you come out if you plan to?

    I've come out more than once to more than one group of people, but my big moment was my blog post announcing that I was bisexual. (Which I am not, but sometimes you do things in the wrong order.) I’d wanted to make it more subtle, but I couldn’t bring myself to come out and possibly leave people with questions.

    I came out to a group of my school friends when they asked me if I liked a certain guy, and I was like “uhhh…. I’m gay”. Look. I made it SO AWKWARD. IT WAS THE MOST AWKWARD MOMENT OF MY LIFE AND IT WAS ALL MY FAULT OKAY. My friends were super supportive and mostly like “oh cool, that’s cool” WHILE I WAS JUST BABBLING AND GETTING ALL NERVOUS FOR NO REASON. 0/10 do not recommend, I never officially came out to anyone after that because clearly I cannot be trusted to do it properly, I just mention I have a crush on a girl or that I wanna live in a cottage with a pretty wife when I'm older or whatever and let them catch up (or tell them to follow my instagram, where I spend 90% of my time screaming about how much I love girls) (also I really don't like the concept of having to come out? I hate that it has to be a big thing, it’s not a big thing when I tell people I like writing or reading or doing karate so why should it be a big thing that I like girls?)

3. Have you ever been to a gay pride? What did/would you wear?

    No, and I’m a little scared to go because I’m shy. I’d try to dress gay I guess, but I don’t know of any outfit specifically.

    Nope! I really don't like crowds or loud music lol, it makes me feel overwhelmed and I'm not sure I’d really enjoy it :(. I definitely do want to go someday though!! No idea what I’d wear, probably just my usual summer outfit which is a superdry shirt and shorts lol.

4. Are you a stereotypical [insert what you identify as]?

    No, I’m not a stereotypical lesbian. I’m pretty feminine, haven’t ever moved in with someone on our second date, and while button-up shirts are cute, I don’t really wear flannel. I think the only stereotypical thing about me is that I don’t know how to talk to cute girls.

    I guess in some ways? I like flannel button-up shirts, can’t sit right in chairs, and consider making eye contact with a pretty girl across the room to be flirting :P. I’m pretty androgynous in the way I dress too. But what is a stereotypical lesbian anyway? There’s so much diversity!

5. What LGBT+ stereotype you do embody?

    I don’t sit in chairs right. The best way to sit is with one foot on the floor and the other in my chair, but other notable positions include having both feet in the chair and leaning my knees against the armrest or sitting with both feet tucked under me.

    KEYSMASHES (I started doing them ironically and now they’re 50% of everything I type sdhjkshfks ← perfect example). Also I’m very gender non-comforming and I love wearing quirky and very brightly-coloured clothes (not sure if that’s a stereotype? We’ll say it is.) And I can’t sit in chairs right either XD

6. How does it feel to be yourself?

    It’s fantastic. Being comfortable with your identity is the best feeling ever. I’m a lot more confident in myself now than I was a few years ago. I feel like I can embrace all of my identity and other things I might add to it without the fear of change that I had when I was younger.

    It’s the BEST feeling! Ever since I started being more open about my attraction to girls, I feel like I've become so much closer to the people around me? I’m a lot more honest and genuine, and I feel like I'm actually sharing with the people I care about, rather than being on the outside looking in if that makes sense, which is how I felt for a lot of my teen years (there’s a lot more to this than just my sexuality, but that was definitely a part of it). I read a quote recently that was something like “I didn’t come out, everyone else just came in,” and that describes my experience perfectly.

7. Have you ever had an LGBT+ partner? 
    Yep! Both people I've dated have been LGBT+.

    Noooooo :( I've never dated anyone :(( WHERE’S MY GIRLFRIEND DANG IT AAAGHHH.

8. Do you have any LGBT+ friends?

    I have almost exclusively LGBT+ friends. Even a lot of my childhood friends are gay. I didn’t plan for it to happen this way, but I don’t mind.

     Sooo many of my friends (read: like three of them, I don't exactly have a booming social life) have come out as bi recentlyish. I'm fairly convinced straight people don't actually exist?? I also have loads of amazing LGBT+ friends online!

9. What's the best thing about being a part of the community?

    I feel understood by other people who have been though similar things. Questioning your sexuality is one of those things that I don’t think you can understand without having been through it yourself.

    OKAY BUT THE HUMOUR ON THE GAY SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS SO GOOD. The memes, the tweets, the Tik Toks… Also having a whole massive community of people who all stand for the same things as you do is great!

10. Do you think representation matters? Why?

    YES. Representation is so important. I can point to Dan Howell’s video, Basically I’m Gay, where he says that he didn’t know a single out gay person until he was 18, and that he had no one to look up to. Without representation you have to create your identity without any idea of what a real LGBT person could look like. And then without good representation, LGBT people will believe they’re outsiders, stuck in the world of that one gay side character, when really there are so many of us. To quote a Tumblr post on this topic that I’m too lazy to find, “we come in herds.”

    Yesss definitely!! Everyone deserves to see themselves represented in the media, regardless of sexualtity, gender identity, ethnicity, etc. We need to destroy the idea that straight, cisgender, able-bodied white people are the “norm” and everyone else is outside that, and media representation is so necessary for that. As a writer myself, representation is something very important to me and that I take very seriously :).

11. What's your favorite LGBT+ novel?

    I loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertali (original, I know). I read it while I was questioning, and I found myself thinking about the same things Simon was. I wasn’t afraid of homophobia from the people around me; I was afraid of how their perception of me might change. This book made me feel understood. That’s why representation is so important.

    OOF SO MANY. I really loved “Pulp” by Robin Talley, which is a dual-pov novel about two teenage lesbians, one in the 1950s and one in the present day, who are connected by the lesbian pulp novel the 1950s girl wrote, which the contemporary girl reads and becomes obsessed with (yeah it’s a bit confusing but OMG SO GOOD). “Final Draft” by Riley Redgate and “Crier’s War” by Nina Varela are also amazing books with great wlw representation. This one’s not really LGBT+ per se, but “Into the Drowning Deep” by Mira Grant is also so brilliant and I loved the casual inclusion of an f/f couple as the main characters! (Also… shameless self-promo, but I've recently self-published an LGBT coming-of-age novella!! You can find out more here or here if you're in the U.S.)

12. How do you feel when you see a character in a book or movie or TV show who is part of the community?

    It makes me happy! I really like seeing LGBT characters, especially as main characters when I wasn’t expecting them. Unfortunately, the excitement isn’t always warranted, because LGBT characters aren’t always well written.

    I love it!! As I said before, representation is so important so it makes me really happy when I see LGBT+ characters :)

13. Who's your favorite LGBT+ fictional character?

    Jack from Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire and the sequel (prequel?) Down Among the Sticks and Bones. She’s a mad scientist and I love her (Might be a little gay for her too…)

    Omg there’s so many! I love Bill Potts from Doctor Who, I've never related to a fictional harder lol (Captain Jack from DW is also great). Also… Villanelle from Killing Eve absolutely owns my heart. I mean, hot gay assasin? Yes please.

14. If the gay agenda was real, what would our plan be?

    Down with the straights. I’m kidding, I don’t hate straight people. I think it would include reducing homophobia and discrimination, more inclusive sex ed, and probably changing our status so people think of us as “normal” instead of “other.”

    ^^ I agree with Lanie! Equality and inclusion for all would definitely be high on the list.

15. Have you ever been made fun of because of your sexuality?

    I’m not sure if it was really because of my sexuality, since the group doing the teasing was also gay, but I was closeted, insecure, and uncomfortable. They upset me on several occasions and I spent the rest of the school year actively avoiding them.

    Not that I can think of. I make fun of myself a lot though. (Stuff like: “of course I have no common sense, I emptied out the part of my brain holding my common sense and filled it with love for women instead.”)

16. What do you think about gender stereotypes?

    I think that like any stereotype, they shouldn’t be used to make assumptions about people. Of course some people will fit into them, after all, they had to come from somewhere, but I can’t stand when people assume I’ll be a certain way because I’m female.

    DOWN WITH GENDER STEREOTYPES. Most of the time they do more harm than good, and everyone should be able to be themselves regardless of their gender! I love breaking gender stereotypes through the way I dress (bow ties are cool), and I really don’t see my gender as having an important effect on who I am and how I behave. The idea that the way you should act, dress, etc. should be dictated by your gender is so dumb to me.

17. Who's your favorite LGBT+ YouTuber?

    Dan Howell! That should surprise no one. It’s been so long since he uploaded. I miss him.

    I don’t really watch YouTubers oops, but I follow Jessie Paege on Instagram and Tik Tok and she’s awesome!

18. Who was your first crush?

    There was a girl in my dance class who I fell for. It took me a while to realized that most people didn’t get nervous and blushy around people they just wanted to befriend. Once I saw her smile while she was watching a dance that I was in, and she was so cute that I messed up the rest of the choreography.

    My first conscious crush (i.e. that I actually realised it was a crush) was Ziva David from NCIS when I was fourteen. *facepalm* Look, 90% of my crushes are fictional characters okay. I think my first first crush was this friend I had when I was 9/10, who was a couple of years older than me and had a cool accent and who I thought was sooo cool. I remember looking at her and thinking “she has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen” and also wanting to impress her all the time.... Yeah, it was definitely a crush, even if I didn’t realise it at the time XD.

19. Who's your favorite LGBT+ singer?

    At the moment it’s Laura Jane Grace from Against Me!

    Probably Girl in Red! I love a lot of her music.

20. What's your favorite color of the rainbow?

    Since pink isn’t officially on the rainbow, blue.

    Purple!! Purple is the BEST colour fite me >:(

That's all of the questions! Thanks for sticking around to the end. Thanks again to Andrea for doing this with me! Anyone is welcome to do this tag, but I recommend getting the questions from the source so you have the options to do the ones we skipped. 

Have a great rest of Pride Month!