Hi! This tweet has been purposely taken out of context because people never include the rest of the thread. I’m not sure if you did so purposely or not, but please let me include the rest of the thread for you and explain.
Before I share screenshots of the rest of my tweets, first I’ll explain.
tl;dr: I was raised Catholic, taught that homosexuality was a sin. When I got into college, I joined tumblr and learned more about different sexualities and the lgbt+ community and started shifting my views a bit, i.e. I still believed it was still a sin but started to support lgbt+ people having the right to get married. Soon after, I started watching anime. I got into Free! and the fandom made the cutest art and fics and headcanons of all the m/m ships in the show. That made me start realizing that “these ships are so sweet and loving and normal, why is this wrong or sinful?” It made me seeing things differently. I stopped thinking that being gay was a sin, and after a few years of trying to undo internalized homophobia, I realized that I’m bi.
I’m sorry if I didn’t realize my sexuality in a way that was good or pure enough for the rest of you. Yes it took an anime and m/m fanart to make me realize that being gay
was okay, I’m not ashamed to admit that. I live in Texas, I didn’t have many gay people around me in
my personal life (actually I did but didn’t know it at the time because most of them were school friends who were also in the closet for the same reasons as
me).
We all have different upbringings, and mine involved a very religious upbringing where I was constantly told about all these sinful thoughts and actions that could send me to hell. It took a lot to undo all of that. I’m still not out in real life because I’m terrified my parents will cut me off if they find out, and I’m waiting until I’m more financially independent.
I’d
appreciate it if you would reblog this @crestholder (I can’t tag you for some reason but I hope you see this in your notifications). Whether it was
your intention or not, you sharing this tweet out of context results in
me continually being harassed and it’s very upsetting. I just want people to know the full tweet thread and my thought process before they decide to judge me.
Now here are the rest of my tweets on this.
Finding out Ian McKellen is gay went a surprisingly long way to making me stop being homophobic. You can’t control what it is that gives you an epiphany.
i’m really glad OP and all the people reblogging this without the commentary were just born having the correct opinions and never had to go through any struggles with their beliefs and if they did it was all very serious and they came to their conclusions in Approved ways and nothing about it was awkward or quote unquote cringey
Getting so invested in RENT made me actually face and process my internalized homophobia from my also very religious upbringing.
Like no obviously it wasn’t the only factor, but it was a big one. How could I enjoy this musical about so many queer people and still believe their love was a sin? So I choose, and I choose acceptance, and that led directly to me realizing six months later that I was gay myself.
Fiction can impact is if our minds and hearts are fertile ground for the ideas that fiction is presenting.
You can laugh but seeing m/m art and fandoms when I was 12 made my realisation that I’m queer so much easier later on. Much less ashamed.
If you want to be cynical know yourself out, but stop pretending you’re on a different plane of existence where internalised and enforced homophobia doesn’t exist
You can’t say that normalizing queer folk in media helps increase acceptance and then make fun of people who came to normalize and accept LGBTQ people because of media they consumed
Fanfic and fandom in general was my first exposure to seeing the lgbtq+ community portrayed in a positive light. Before then the only exposure I had to the concept was either people in school using ‘gay’ as a slur or my religious education saying how sinful it was. Seventeen years later and I realized I was bi. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Slightly baffled by the theme in some of the early comments is that it is ONLY okay to change your mind to queer acceptance if you do it before a certain cutoff date. Learning and growing is only acceptable in children! Once you reach 25, you’re stuck with whatever you believe for the rest of your life, no takebacks!!
