ABSTRACT
My coming out as queer wasn't an act of acceptance as much as it was a rejection of every message that confined me to a role of pleasing other people by denying myself. From early experiences in elementary school to the time that I came out my last year of middle school, I was tortured by the constant struggle of following the unspoken rules of how I was supposed to act and react as a heterosexual woman in American society. I wanted more than anything to relate to the world outside of me. Instead, I was forced to play witness to a world in which I clearly did not belong.
