Artist: Elise Schuenke
i like girls and i fucking hate myself for it 😎
Gosh, I am just so sorry to any and everyone who has had to endure the experience this character has clearly been through for years before this. It’s so deeply upsetting to think of the shame and trauma that many millions of people experience on a daily basis for something as rote and innocuous as a thought of attraction. I know that I am incredibly privileged to have never even considered this particular conduit for hurt, and my heart breaks for those who live with it each day. You deserve love, and you deserve it on your terms.
This comic and all of these comments are mega wholesome.
Disclaimer: Your experience is your own and I am not trying to tell anyone how to feel by sharing my own here.
Feelings of shame around my attraction to women went away the second I came out as a trans lesbian. I don’t have a lot of words to share which explain why I felt that shame - perhaps a fear of being creepy, or wanting to be with women but not wanting to be the “man” in the relationship - but that experience is a clue that I look back on post-coming-out as a sign that I wasn’t cishet. Had I been equipped with the language and therapeutic resources to analyze that more closely, I may have come out sooner.
Is this a trans thing? I can’t quite tell what the artist is trying to convey, but this resonates with me…
It is about being able to be openly gay/bi. In many cultures, being open and proud about being LGBT is something many LGBT people can only dream of.
To me, this reads like the end of a character arc, where the MC has had to repress their LGBT identity for years before walking the path towards finally embracing it. That last panel would be a sweet spot to give the reader a chance to think about how far the character has come.
Not strictly, it’s all inclusive gender positivity. It’s equally possible that the character is trans, gay, or cis. You don’t need attraction to recognize attractiveness
The reason I ask is because as someone AMAB, and has not transitioned or anything, I can relate to a weird sense of guilt for being attracted to girls but also being jealous. It’s hard to explain, and was just curious if this was a deep cut into my personal psychological experience or not =]
I read it as being a gay thing mainly, but it’s definitely inclusive of trans experiences as well
Yah this is more the sexuality side of it, but I think anyone who id’s as lgbtq+ can probably relate at least a little. I bet even asexual folks have felt relieved by not feeling guilty for not being attracted to people.
I took it as a “I’ve finally become comfortable with the thing about me that society beat me into internalizing as wrong, fuck yeah” moment.
I love recognizing these similarities in our experiences - solidarity amongst queers is good! Apes together strong 🦧🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈💜
