Tweets About The Struggles Of Growing Up Queer Go Viral
January 19, 2020A series of tweets about the mental health issues and struggles of growing up queer has gone viral.
Alexander Leon, an Australian LGBT+ activist, shared a tweet about the “impact of stigma” on LGBT+ youth which follows them into adulthood.
“Queer people don't grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation & prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us & which parts we've created to protect us,” he wrote on Twitter.
Shortly after his post, which at the time of its publication received 46,000 retweets and 167,000 likes, the text started circulating the web, as the ‘Advocate’ reports.
In the subsequent thread, Leon wrote that although dealing with his burden so early in life is “massive and existential and difficult,” it is actually "a gift in disguise. We come out the other end wiser & truer to ourselves. Some cis/het people never get there," he wrote.
“All of this is to say - be kind to yourself. Discovering who you really are is an enormous task it doesn't happen overnight, nor does it happen without some hiccups along the way. Be patient, be compassionate, be vulnerable and exist loudly. And most of all - be proud!” he concluded.
After receiving replies on his post from people who related to his experiences, Leon, in follow-up retweets wrote: “All I've ever wanted to do in any of my work is for queer people (& particularly QPOC) to feel seen, heard & understood. I can't open this app at the moment without ugly crying because y'all are showing me that in my own small way, I'm achieving what I set out to do. Thank you.”
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