That said, have you tried existing in the world as a teenage lesbian lately? Movies, music, magazines, and pretty much every other form of media tend to assume you’re a girl who likes boys. I grew up primarily in New York City with liberal parents, which is to say there was no real reason for me not to come out until my 20s (especially compared to Siwa, who has built a brand off of the kind of glittery, bow-festooned femininity that is typically reserved for straight women).
![when your friends find out your gay memes when your friends find out your gay memes](https://pics.me.me/when-you-find-out-your-friend-likes-rick-and-morty-28381731.png)
But it also feels like a milestone I feel less like a gayby and more like a person surrounded by other people who just happens to think a lot about Boygenius. I know that’s largely a function of my identity as a white, cis, straight-passing person who rarely has to worry about blatant acts of homophobia or structural discrimination. I only came out a few years ago, but it’s kind of remarkable how quickly queerness shifted from the new, exciting thing consuming all of my thoughts to just, well.the norm. (Or, at least, it did before the pandemic-now we’re all holed up in our bedrooms, texting each other gay memes.) And when you combine that with the fact that most of my best friends are former roommates from my hippieish liberal-arts college, you end up with a cross section of the population that looks a lot like a crowded party scene on The L Word: Generation Q.
![when your friends find out your gay memes when your friends find out your gay memes](https://www.quoteikon.com/images/you-find-out-who-your-real-friends-are-when-youre-involved-in-a-scandal.jpg)
![when your friends find out your gay memes when your friends find out your gay memes](https://pics.onsizzle.com/when-you-find-out-who-your-best-friend-likes-dylanreacts-15273500.png)
Okay, no, they’re not-decidedly not, in fact-but New York does have more openly LGBTQ+ residents than any other metro area. In the small corner of Brooklyn that I reside in, it feels like everyone is queer.