Let me tell you a story (thread). When I came out to my mom at 17, I wasn’t too sure I was gay. Neither was she. Popular media and public representation mirrored only one specific caricature, and both of us (in our own minds) thought I couldn’t be gay Coupled with the fact that while growing up I 1) barely ever saw any representation of queer individuals in media and 2) if I did, they were all the butt of all jokes, the tireless “omg that’s a man in a dress” tropes, led me to believe that I couldn’t be queer. No sir not me