Tanya's Story

Blog by Tanya

As a young person in London I have struggled with my sexuality and gender. Finding myself and who I am started in secondary school and I was always lucky enough to be surrounded by an accepting group of friends, so I felt no worries about coming out to them and telling them that I like girls. 

My problem started a while later when I began to feel like I didn’t fit as being labelled a girl anymore. Once telling people, I felt like a spectacle like everything I was doing now had to fit into a category of boy and doing anything else was ‘wrong’. 

I used to fear Pride. I felt it meant the need to express myself to everyone and make sure I did that correctly in a way that assigned me to the right label. 

Since secondary school, I’ve realised who I really am. I see myself as just a person,  void of any label because I don’t feel I need that to be who I am. And that’s how I stay at peace with myself, I am just me. Sometimes I feel the questions coming from people like ‘ what are you? ‘ when Pride comes up and I don’t want to answer because I am just me. I feel the pressure to be open about myself otherwise I fear being viewed as ashamed of who I am, but I know I am not.

My experience as a young person who has struggled with their sexuality has led me to a point where I am happy with who I am and every Pride Month i am happy to reflect on how far I have come. But I am not someone who is happy to do this openly. I appreciate Pride Month as it allows expression for many people and allows reflection for myself.