#coming outversary

[bi-law]

happy ten-year coming-outversary to me! 🥳🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[thelovelesslesbian]

“This is a big day, and I’m just doing it. April 5 will be my day. 2013.” today marks ten years that I’ve been out (voluntarily). it’s weird to think back on specific moments of the past. you can’t fathom at the time that one day it will seem so far away, that everything you associate with that moment will become dated, archaic. “She was simply composing a huge text in caps about how it was wonderful and I could get married in this state and stuff.” “I erased the texts bc I questioned my parents about minutes and I thought they might ask to see my phone. But now I know I’ve got unlimited txts so I’m good for another bear my soul session tonight.” ten years later there is a chasm between then and now. people of the age you were will seem so young, and their understanding of the world so different from yours then or now.

I went back to my undergraduate college the other day and felt so acutely the ghosts of my past. the people and places and events long ago felt like they were all around me yet so out of reach. walked away crying for what no longer was and feeling old as fuck. “When I woke up this morning, I totally forgot everything for a few mins. And then I’m like what the fuck, that really happened.”

I didn’t have a roadmap then, and I still don’t. but I live for myself now, more than maybe I ever have before. “Yesterday morning I was still going back and forth. And then I just did it. I feel like I grew up. I don’t know, but in that moment I did more to be an adult, an individual then I’ve ever done before. I did something for me.” I’ve gotten to do so many fun and cool things with amazing people. make a difference in the little ways I can. “If I thought I was light before, I’m going to have to be tied down with balloons to keep me from floating away now.”

[gra-sonas]

                                  By David Artavia - April 19 2019

Tyler Blackburn is ready to be free. It’s a bright morning in Los Angeles, and the anticipation is palpable as he speaks candidly on life, acting, and self-discovery. The young actor knows that today is an important milestone for him, yet he can’t help but feel vulnerable during these emotional few minutes.

It isn’t hard to fall in love with Blackburn, whose breakthrough role as Caleb Rivers in ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars solidified him as one of Hollywood’s brightest talents — earning the actor three Teen Choice Awards (two for Best Male TV Star and one for Best Chemistry, which he shared with PLL costar Ashley Benson) and a considerable number of young fans.

Blackburn’s fandom runs deep and heavy among teen audiences. His starring role in the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico as gay war veteran and amputee Sgt. Alex Manes continues to push boundaries while highlighting issues seldom seen on-screen — like PTSD, immigration, and queer love. Finding the character was cathartic, and in many ways Alex’s inner struggle mirrors the actor’s own.

While growing up in L.A., Blackburn says he resisted coming to terms with his identity. A self-confessed “late bloomer,” he was picked on for being effeminate — times he describes as dark periods in his life, when “self-hatred and shame” overpowered him on a daily basis.  

“I got bullied a lot by other boys, and I just felt like my soul was slowly being taken from me,” he reflects. “I ended up eating lunch in my biology classroom in 10th grade, and I had no one to talk to. You form a shell around yourself for protection. And you start to make decisions based off of things outside of what you want and who you are. I stopped doing so many of the things that I loved doing because it felt safer. That right there is the outcome of oppression. When you literally have to mute who you are in order to feel safe. That’s soul-crushing.”

But the young star is done caring about what people think. Now he’s building a new kind of role fueled with the intention to be “as happy as possible, as free as possible” and is choosing to own his space after years of avoiding the truth.

“I'm queer,” he proclaims. “I've identified as bisexual since a teenager.” His voice cracks as years of secrets and dodging media questions about his sexuality falls by the wayside. “I just want to feel powerful in my own skin, and my own mind, and in my own heart.”

Embracing the scope of who he was took time and effort. While he had a couple of long-term relationships with women in his early 20s, Blackburn wasn’t entirely fulfilled by them, and he says he always had an “underlying curiosity” about men. But as is the case for many bisexuals, he battled social pressure to remain binary (either gay or straight). Deep down, he knew he was neither.

“I heard so many things from within the queer community about bisexuality being a cop-out or bullshit or the easy way out or something, and that always stuck with me because I felt the pressure from all sides to have [my sexuality] figured out,” he shares. “And I think for the longest time, I suppressed more of my attraction to men. It wasn’t until my late 20s, towards the end of Pretty Little Liars, that I really allowed myself to go there and not just wonder about it or lust over it, but experience that vulnerability and experience the emotional aspect of what it is to be bisexual.”

Blackburn’s role in Roswell, New Mexico came at a perfect time in his life. “I knew this guy in and out,” he says of discovering Sgt. Alex Manes. “I understood feeling oppressed. I understood having issues with my father [wanting to feel] accepted by him. I understood wanting something but being afraid to have it. I understood self-doubt.”

Someone else who understood was the show’s creator, Carina Adly MacKenzie, who Blackburn came out to while shooting the pilot. Not only did she accept him with open arms, but she made a point to nurture Blackburn’s storyline with immense compassion and fortitude.

For Blackburn, the path toward self-discovery is visible both on-screen and off. Even more prominent is the awareness that he no longer needs to be placed in a box.

“Just because you decide ‘I am this thing’ doesn’t mean you immediately feel like you fit into that thing,” he explains. “That’s another part of the journey that I still don’t always know how to navigate, but I’m feeling more courageous and fortified to explore.”

Fans of Roswell, New Mexico have been supportive of Blackburn and costar Michael Vlamis’s on-screen relationship. Michael Guerin (Vlamis) is bisexual on the show while Alex Manes is gay, but one specific scene stands out: Alex and Michael wake up in bed together and Michael puts his hand on Alex’s leg and caresses it downward, eventually touching where his limb ends — a moving act that many amputees can relate to but rarely see on-screen. The fact that Alex is gay also speaks to the roaring debate on LGBTQ people serving in the military.

“It’s little things like that, that made me realize, ‘Wow, this is a big responsibility,’” he reflects, adding that he’s wasting no time on making other people comfortable.

“I’m so tired of caring so much. I just want to live my truth and feel OK with experiencing love and experiencing self-love,” he says. “Yes, there is an element of, I want to feel like it’s OK to hold my boyfriend’s hand as I’m walking down the street, and not worry. Is someone going to look and be like, ‘Whoa, is that guy from that show? I didn’t know that [he was queer.]’ I want to own my space now.”

In every way, Blackburn is exactly where he should be — the here and now.

“Now we’re at a place where fluidity is spoken about in such a beautiful way that it doesn’t make me feel as pressured to have it figured out,” he says. “My goal above everything is to feel as happy as possible. As free as possible. I don’t just mean happy, like, ‘I’m laughing all day, every day.’ That’s actually insane. That’s impossible. What I mean is, I want to feel free.”

~ The Advocate

[thelovelesslesbian]

no matter how much time has passed, I will always look back on this day in 2014, now eight years ago, with a sense of pride in myself. it would be simple all these years later to dismiss it as nothing, as easy, but it was anything but. I am so so grateful for how prolific I wrote back then, because I can read it all, read my coming out letter and it takes me back. I’ve had years where I’m just so happy today feeling like I’m living the dream and others where I feel like I’m in this pit of despair that I’ll never get out of. this may be one of the years like the latter, but it’s ok. I know I’ve done teenage me proud, after so long of living in fear. this is also a day where I am grateful for my family and all the love and support they have shown me over the years. I always also feel a small bit of loss, because I remember that this was technically the second time my family found out, and I wonder who I might have been otherwise if it had been treated differently back in the stone ages of 1998. I guess what I get most out of it is hope. I was prepared for the worst and it wasn't...it was the start of me really feeling alive. I wanted to start 2014 off right and to this day it remains the best year of my life. I doubt this year will top it, I’d just like it to be normal after the global mess of the last two. but I really hope I have a lot of fun and joy and life in 2022.