I'll start this off with a little background. I realized I wasn't quite straight early in my sophomore year of high school. I was attending McAuley High School, an all-girls Catholic high school, and at that time, being bisexual was like the end of the world. How could anyone be friends with me? There was a chance I could fall for one of them! I ended that year having admitted my bisexuality to myself and maybe about three of my friends and then went off to work at Girl Scout camp.

Fast forward to the end of high school and I'm still not out but most of my friends know. I came out to my parents senior year not to much fanfare. I am blessed with a loving and accepting set of parents I wouldn't trade for the world. But as every LGBT person knows, that fear of rejection is ever present and real.

College came and my acceptance of myself only grew. I really didn't care if people I just met knew I was bi but I still didn't consider myself “out of the closet.” It was still a big thing to me to bring up that I wasn't straight, especially because I was (and still am) in a long term heterosexual relationship with the most wonderful man. For a while, it felt to me that I shouldn't come out because what did it matter. I passed as straight and even if I did come out, people would be like, “Okay why are you telling me? You're dating a guy?”

That all changed in 2016. There was an election that year, you may remember. I do. I remember being scared. I remember sitting on my couch watching election results come through and I remember crying so hard I could barely focus. But I also decided something. In an act of what I saw as defiance, I came out publicly on Facebook, eight years after admitting it to myself. I had decided I wasn't going to hide any part of who I was anymore.

That was also the year that I started supporting FC Cincinnati. I had joined the Pride that summer and while I liked everyone there, I still had that fear in the pit of my stomach. “Yeah they say they welcome everyone,” my brain said, “But come on, it's not like it matters.” But as I became closer with everyone involved, I realized that my brain was something of an idiot.