Originally published on May 12, 2021

To anyone that cares, I realized I was a lesbian around age 14.

I entered high school that year and discovered my high school had a 'Gay-Straight Alliance' (GSA). Although it took me a while to build up the confidence to attend a meeting, eventually I went with a gay male friend. My high school was very large, so GSA meeting attendance fluctuated between 10-30 people (mostly female).

That first GSA meeting was the first time I had ever been asked my pronouns and, initially, I thought it was odd. It quickly made sense though when it turned out I was one of only three people who used "she/her". While all the boys were, at that point, "cis", most of the girls used “they/them” and called themselves "enby" or were transmen.

I didn't attend often, I was the only lesbian and everyone else had sexualities I had to google (demisexual, sapiosexual, akoisexual, panromantic greysexual).

The next year a boy asked me out. I told him I was a lesbian and he said “that's okay” and walked away. A few months later he approached me again, saying he was trans so I should rethink my answer. I said “no” again and cried that night, hoping the people I knew from the GSA wouldn't find out. Thankfully, they never did.

I started reading about radical feminism and following radical feminist blogs and everything made sense. That year, I refrained from volunteering at the GSA's annual "gender bread" event and, when I didn't volunteer, I was asked if I was a “TERF.” Cowardly as I was, as I still am, I reassured my accusers that I wasn't a TERF and denounced TERF views.

I split off, at that point, from the GSA crowd and only rarely attended meetings. I made friends from other classes and, although they weren't from the GSA, I knew they would drop me if I ever shared my views. So I stayed quiet.

The next year, my final year of high school, the GSA's numbers exploded. The incoming freshmen included a huge amount of transmen and "enby" females, all of whom would yell at anyone who misgendered them, even accidentally.

My gay male friend, who had first brought me to the GSA two years earlier, was kicked out of his house that year when his mother found out he was gay. He cried to me about how much it hurt to be “haram.” Within months he “realized” he was a “transwoman” and began HRT.

Though I know there were more contributing factors, the hormones really got to him. He became erratic, irrational, and paranoid. Quite a few people from the GSA, freshmen and seniors alike, started HRT that year. One girl, who was in my grade and had been in the GSA since the first year of high school, booked her “top surgery” for the summer after graduation.

I quit attending the GSA entirely, however, because so many of the freshmen were “trans,” every extracurricular involved stating pronouns and points of privilege. As before, I kept my views entirely to myself. I was quite close to the friends I had made outside of the GSA and I was happy. We graduated that June and, for a month or so, everyone from my grade posted happy smiling photos of themselves at graduation.

In August of that year, Instagram exploded with pictures of girls I knew with bloody bandages around their chests. Two girls from the GSA got “top surgery,” soon followed by three or four more. They all looked sad. They apologized, in the captions of their Instagram photos, for how fat they thought they looked and offered trigger warnings for blood.

I entered university that fall and hoped to forget about it all. No such luck though, as every class began with going around and stating your pronouns. Pride was cancelled in my progressive city as some groups accused the pride organizers of being racist and transphobic. They released a list of demands, including over $20,000 in cash, from the city's pride centre and, in response, all the volunteers quit. Secretly, I was glad it was cancelled. I didn't feel proud of being a lesbian. Pretty much every person I knew would have denounced me if they knew I was a homosexual female; a “TERF.” I was ashamed and disgusted.

Less than two years have passed since then. I will graduate from university next spring. Pride hasn't run due to COVID and again, I'm secretly glad. The majority of my non-GSA friends from high school have now become "enby" and identified out of womanhood. I think there are two or three of us left that aren't trans. I still don't share my views and, unless asked, I don't share that I'm a lesbian. I don't see the point, it has no meaning anymore.

Letters From the Front is a series from WoLF curating stories from women about how “gender identity” ideology has impacted them.

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