“I don’t know when I first started to maybe realise I was different. I don’t even know when I knew I was different!”
A wonderful fusion of nostalgia trip and self reflection, Rowan Ellis’s coming out story video really captures how it feels to be a young person figuring themself out. In this video Rowan takes us through the last decade of her Facebook memories to try and remember her exact coming out storyline. As she says, “I don’t even really remember. But do you know what does remember? Do you know what always remembers? Your Facebook profile.” Truer words were never spoken.
She points out from the very beginning that the act of coming out is very much not linear – if you’re LGBTQ+ it’s likely that you came out to different people at different times, and find yourself coming out quite regularly in everyday life. Rowan’s story is not much different and this journey really helps to normalise the fact that coming out isn’t just one event.
Rowan covers loads of sections of her queer identity journey in this video, such as being 11 or 12 and not yet feeling that she was LGBTQ+ but still standing up for the queer community – which of course led people to think she was gay. I think we can all agree that standing up for gay people doesn’t make you anything other than a good person!
From the school dance to Pride to moving to university, Rowan splits the video into parts and covers so many of the times that LGBTQ+ young people have to confront their identity, showing that you can get through it. No matter when or how you come out, it’s finding the right way for you that matters.
This video is full of laughs and extremely relatable for any other politically minded LGBTQ+ folks out there!
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