The first time I told my parents I was gay.

I was like 9. Sorry, no Lifetime movie moments here. I can't even remember how it went down.

The first time I accidentally told the entire middle school I was gay.

I told one person, and they told one person, and they told another person. By the time lunch was over, everybody knew. The next day, the middle school held a meeting about my orientation and everybody treated me like I had only six weeks to live. Even the most popular girl was nice to me.

The first time I told a straight girl I had a crush on her during a class field trip.

Well, let's just say I don't plan on doing that again anytime soon.

The first time I heard that Mike Pence thinks that I should have my gay electrocuted out of me.

I fought back with a little humor in my first political essay, where I referred to him and the "president" as Turd in Pants.

The first time I went to PrideFest.

It was last summer, and I got to go backstage and meet my drag idol, RainBowGore Cake. PrideFest overall was awesome, until, on the way out, my family and I ran into a bunch of gay-hating religious freaks holding super-offensive signs like "Jesus died to save you from hell!" I was pretty shocked. I didn't know there were people out there who thought this way.

The first time I went to a super homo pool party.

There was this one really pretty younger married lesbian couple. When I see happily married gay couples, it makes me feel really nice, whether it be our neighbors, friends of my parents, or even classmates' parents I've never met in person.

The first time I ever got set up with the only other gay girl my age that anyone knew.

She actually turned out to be really nice, and we became good friends. Heck, we even got to go on a Chinese food first (friend) date together. I'm not just going to instantly fall in love with the first other lesbian I meet—I'm just like any other 13-year old girl.