Pride post #4 My coming out story

I feel like my coming out story isn't finished, and sometimes I wish I could have understood and listened to my own inner voice and let them out of the closet sooner, but I also know that my path and process had to go through all these twists and turns to get out of the closet. This is part four of my pride series and my last one at this point in time. I first wrote all these posts in Pride month-June and I'm sharing them here. Enjoy and let me know what you connect to and any questions.


Driving down the straight road to the lake for rowing practice in Orlando My regular taxi driver told me I was gay. He said that id never marry a man,  “you’re too strong for them, and you dont like them that way” he said. I awkwardly asked him why he thought so, while in the same breath saying no way, we were like five minutes away and my mind was sort of already at practice, so I didn’t really listen to the second response, but the comment stuck with me. When getting on the boat I mentioned it to my coach and she said dont worry you dont have to figure everything out right away, I said what do I have to figure out, she just smiled. I tried to file it away but I was finally in a safe space mentally and physically and I could start to dig into this. I never officially came out in Florida and honestly, I wasn’t ready to, but that comment in the car from my driver, started unlocking emotional doors deep inside I had committed to not remembering or believing about myself. That started a process of discovery of what that community even was mostly online, I think I might have spoken to a few people on the community college campus I studied at as well. Not all moments on my journey were objectively huge and had immediate viewable results but this story is probably one of the favorites along my journey and that’s because of the people around me, so thank you, Coach Katie, for those words and holding that space even when I had no idea what that space was, and to my driver whose name I can’t remember of course for being honest and being a messenger on my journey.

 My coming out story- I see other peoples posts about their seemingly straightforward coming out stories,and I search to put into a few succinct sentences my process of a lifetime. When I finally pause and stop searching for an elevator pitch for my coming out story and realize that this month of posts, is actually part of the process of putting my internal story into words . This month has been such a process of self introspection,seeing and understanding all the moments,clues and pieces to my puzzle. Its interesting to see that once I finally came to the conclusion that I’m lesbian. Thanks to a wonderful friend who told me “oh you haven’t come out yet?” And of course I was like come out of what? As what? That conversation led to a lot of self introspection and really did give me that aha moment of “oh wow that's what was missing that piece of knowing,and that way of being told in this clear fashion gave me the internal ability to click and understand myself in this new deep way. I didn’t figure all the pieces out then but it was like putting together the corner pieces and a border to the puzzle of a huge part of my identity. The process is still going on so I still don't have an elevator pitch of my coming out story but this month and filling out the puzzle this month with these different stories has been self validating while building up my internal identity.

Gender Identity- I haven't figured this out yet but I do know when I and others use the pronouns they I feel deeply seen and not like I want to grate my skin off. Only after I came out as lesbian did my good friend who helped me see what was already there about me being gay,said one Shabbat afternoon are you comfortable with your gender because you don't fully feel in yourself to me. By this point I knew a bit about myself but this was another key to my soul someone just helped me fit in the lock,unlocking more of my authentic self. This has been much harder process with accepting and sharing this part of myself. I got much more pushback from people who are supposed to be close to me then when I came out,and people who I had misjudged and expected to understand. I have kind of given up a bit on people getting it,which has led to me disappointing myself and kind of giving up on owning it and processing it more. It's so easy to just allow people to keep saying girl/ she etc and I feel like my sexuality takes up so much space and like people are doing me a favor of accepting it that I shouldn't push for people to "get" my gender and pronouns. Yet all this leads to me is having a harder time with myself,like I should just keep dressing like a girl,and respond to she,her etc. But enough of that if you love me enough that you are a part of my life then here I am Samantha Menuha and my pronouns are they/them and I'm proud and love my non-binary self.

Pride series part #3- Representation

        I didn't understand how much representation mattered, and I used to think it was overrated. I believe this had more to do with the fact I didn't know and accept who I was both with my disability and sexuality. I'm not saying that representation doesn't exist-especially in the LGBTQ+ but I never saw it, was exposed to it. Honestly, for years I didn't even know that these identities were a reality. When I finally met someone in my life who is lesbian it opened the world for me, it took me some time to get to the world, but I learned of its existence. Here is the third installment of my pride series, two posts on representation and how it impacted my life.

        I loved watching sports and playing sports way before I understood I was gay. Sports gave me a place to use the abilities I had to move my body as best as possible within my disability, while also giving me an emotional safe haven that just got larger through the years. The first time I went to an adaptive sports camp-and the only time unfortunately I remember it being the first step in loving my body and what it could do.  The older I got and more exposed to watching and following women's leagues and the reality of LGBTQ athletes, it gave me a space in which I already felt comfortable (watching and playing sports) to explore the athletes and their identities and in doing so taking locked away feelings that I felt I was completely alone and just weren't an actual thing and actually seeing how normal it was even if in the circles of society I lived in didn't allow for it. Sports didn't make me gay, they just gave me a space to figure it out and to feel not alone. When I came back from living in Florida for a year for rowing, I was finally starting to acknowledge and process my identity. Before I actually understood how many LGBTQ athletes were in the female leagues and felt that sense of community in a much larger sense I spoke to the only out lesbian athlete I knew, Moran. Her being out actually sparked a really messed up interaction between my mother, an old therapist and me but that's another story, she was willing to sit with me and just give me a space to process and question the journey and the normalcy of it all. While it may seem like a small interaction  I think we met for coffee just twice to discuss the topic, the ability she had to hold space for me, and answer questions but also just to reassure me that I was far from alone on my journey and that things do get easier. The WNBA became a safe haven for me, I remember it was Elena Delle Donne who was the first athlete I found, because of her sister with cerebral palsy, and then seeing pictures of her wedding, it became something that was real. Somehow just knowing how many queer women in the WNBA and in soccer, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapino, and others, I didn't feel crazy anymore. Writing this out I actually remember an interaction I had in 5th grade when I wanted to play sports with the boys from my class on the grass and an older boy yelled out “why do you want to play sports with us, you gay or something?” I didn't understand at the moment what he meant and the recess monitor didn't let me go into the yard anyway. Could I love sports and be super involved and not be gay, yea sure, did sports make me gay, no I was born this way, sports just gave me a space to feel safe and not alone.

       NANOWRIMO posted these pictures of books on pride flags, and it reminded me what I wish I had access to as a child and even as a young adult, books that made me feel not alone. Books that put into words and stories of a world which growing up I didn't even know existed. There are books for young adults and I had a computer with internet as a teen but I didn't have any internal vocabulary for which to search and realize I wasn't alone. Later on, there was an internal process that happened once I found lgbtq+ literature of different types, ones that helped me process and understand feelings. Different books became manuals and personal Bible's to my coming out story and life. The latest one that has turned into a personal bible with pages of handwritten notes on the book is Untamed by Glennon Doyle, her process of coming out later in life made me feel so seen and that I wasn't behind in life, along with just so many life lessons and words to live by. Words have the power to make others feel seen and I hope my writing can be that for someone else.

Pride Series part #2- Self love

Self-love has been such a long and arduous journey for me, and I have yet to get to a place I think of full self-love, but I am also not sure a place like that exists. I do know that on my journey of coming out and accepting my inner pride has many different facets and these different moments and facets of my journey build me into the puzzle that I am. Here is part two of my pride series,self-love.

Haircuts: the first time I cut my hair short I was actually super nervous, I was in Pittsburgh and moving to Florida the next day and I was speaking to a friend Mushky and I had kinda wanted to go short “to make showers faster and easier" but didn't understand to what extent it was something deeper. I remember some of the first responses I got from family friends they were all similar wording "it makes you look gay". Of course, this was my start of the journey in Florida and really had no idea what that even meant and didn't really get the anger and disappointment conveyed in the statement. I did notice that along with the physical weight that was removed from my head there was a mental and emotional change I felt when looking in the mirror. I started feeling calmer looking in the mirror and I actually started to like looking in the mirror. I've always had different body issues from my disability, chronic pain, and other issues, and cutting my hair short really helped me feel like me. The evolution of the cuts from the first one in Pittsburgh and the few in Florida, to the one with my grandmother. I came back to Israel and grew my hair out again thinking I needed to, to look a certain way for a very close friend's wedding, while I felt more like myself with my short hair but I still felt like I owed family and friends a certain version of me. After the wedding and cutting it all off again,I also finally came out and went on a more extreme shave, shape, and color journey searching for my hair to explain to the internal me who I was. Don't get me wrong I loved every haircut for the different lessons I learned during the time period in my life that I had that haircut. It sounds cliche even to my own ears to say this latest haircut I got this past Sunday is my favorite, but that of course is true but more so to do with where I'm at mentally with internal self-love and acceptance. And yes, I love the fact that my hair so clearly states to society a part of who I am, I use a wheelchair and that tells society what other community I'm part of and I love that my hair, another part of me conveys me to the world.


Body image and acceptance. TW: binge-eating disorder. I had a magical moment with myself in the mirror when for the first time ever I looked up and I automatically smiled at myself and felt at home in my body. I'm pretty sure that has never happened before. There was a calm in the smile, I didn't rush to complain to myself about the fat around my face or other rolls and imperfections. What does this have to do with pride month? I have struggled with a binge eating disorder for many years, and I got inpatient treatment now three years ago, while I worked on changing my habits, I still continuously felt like I needed to fill this black hole of self-loathing and I was still fighting myself on my sexuality. Now I have been working on recovery from my eating disorder and it's going hand in hand with learning to love all the aspects of myself. While I already accepted my disability at about 21 I've seen the more I embrace and love my body and sexuality and all aspects of my body, I'm not constantly trying to hurt my body to get it "inline" with social demands and rather my own self-love. I noticed this change when I decided to weigh myself at my sports center, it had been over two months and I try to just keep up with my weight, non obsessively of course. For once when I stood on the scale I didn't feel like I was checking my worth and if I could love myself, I already did and I didn't have the panicked thoughts of should've eaten less the past week. Tallying the number, I've managed to lose 25 pounds over the past 7 months. While the first thought that came back eating disorder style was "is that enough? How much are you supposed to lose?" But the powerful prideful inner warrior shot back with "that's great have you seen what your life has been these past several months, you're doing this in a healthy way, and you aren't losing weight to convince yourself to love who you are." That pride and power that my inner warrior has found has been a lot to do with removing lots of internal shame regarding my sexuality and how my body looks and wishing parts of it were not there. Removing those layers of shame, some of which are still there for sure have given me so much internal peace without needing to focus on a number on the scale for self-love. I love my body, my disability, my sexuality, and ultimately myself all the parts of me. Here's to learning to deeply love all of yourself the changes are magical.

Clothing- Clothing has been the silent but deadly hurdle I keep putting in front of myself claiming I have good excuses for why I don’t let myself dress in a way that feels authentic to myself. My inspiration board on Pinterest is filled with outfits I wish I’d let myself wear, and then my fearful mind unrolls the laundry list of excuses as to why I don’t need to be myself completely.  Pain, physical pain my brain's biggest hurdle it sets up first on the race to being myself is chronic pain even before the disability. The formal androgynous looks you want to wear, the jackets,button-downs, and pants they will enhance your chronic pain. I have internalized this so deeply I don’t even consciously think about it most of the time, but when I have a day I am internally struggling with my sexuality and gender, instead of wearing the few plaid shirts and jeans I feel express myself I wear shift dresses and disappear in the fabric. Another hurdle my brain sets up is about waste. Why waste the clothes you have, why get rid of them, when you need new clothes when you lose weight you can get new clothes. Why waste the money and space buying new and keeping or getting rid of the old. The sister hurdle to this is definitely how my mother reacted when she asked me if I wanted any clothes from a consignment shop and I asked for a men's suit jacket and some dress shirts. The silence suffocated ever feeling comfortable in clothes I internally am screaming to wear. This only enhanced the silence I had told myself that after graduating high school and wearing uniform shirts which were buttoned down and unflattering that I would never wear button-downs again. I didn’t even realize how much this was bothering me until this month of writing posts and there was this huge internal block I couldn't figure out.I’m yelling I am my authentic self to the world but every time I do laundry or open my closet to get dressed every morning, except for a few button-down shirts and jeans the swaths of fabric I suffocate my identity in, choking me.  I haven’t worked out this fear and even thinking about getting rid of all the clothes I hate wearing freaks me out, here's to doing things that scare you, so maybe this summer an actual closet purge will happen, and I’ll let myself shine proudly. I'm not sure why accepting and embracing this part of expressing my gender and identity is so hard. But, here's to doing things that scare you, so maybe this summer an actual closet purge will happen, and I’ll let myself shine in my skin and clothe it proudly.

Pride series: Part #1 Religion

I wasn't planning on writing these posts. My plan for pride month was to finally put my full authentic self out into the world by going to the pride parades and posting pictures. Then the pandemic hit and everything was rightfully canceled, so instead, I decided to share my authentic self with others the best way I know, through words. I wanted the first of the pride series on my blog to be about my struggles with religion and my lgbtq+ identity as religion was one of the biggest forms of my struggle with understanding and accepting my true self. I left each post on its own while putting it in an order to hopefully create a narrative. This is very much my first draft and what feels like my first layers of expressing my internal turmoil that I have come to understand more. These posts were originally Instagram posts, during June which is Pride month, where I tried to process and share my journey. I collected them in a series to share on my blog in four parts. I would love to hear feedback and dialogue on these. There is both darkness and light as life is always comprised of both. I hope this can help someone feel ok in their own skin, and create dialogue for people outside of the lgbtq+ community. 

Religion and I struggled before I figured out I was gay. I lost most of my belief back in fourth grade and it just kept dwindling over the years. In 10th grade I was living in a girl's dorm in a religious girl's high school it was a very religious environment. I couldn't label and understand forget to embrace the emotions. So I turned to texts and friends and spent my time learning whatever with whomever. When close friends asked me what was wrong and I couldn't put my fingers on it the response understandably to cut out the few guy friends I had. It didn't solve anything, how could it solve an issue I couldn't even figure out. I gave up trying to "pray-rather learn the gay away" without even fully understanding I was trying to do that. I did this again in seminary trying to somehow learn something that would explain away my feelings. I kept searching for something to explain away my feelings. I kept searching for something in religion, that I was taught was all-knowing, and the truth for something to explain what I didn't have words to explain to myself. Once I was given the external vocabulary and the internal unlocking a lot of my favorite internal anger against religion and God dissipated. I haven't fully figured out my relationship with God and religion but is my honest and true self has made it possible to come back to sit at the table with God in my own way. This is a long term struggle that I have not fully figured out in any way but I am in conversation with God, it looks different every day but bringing my authentic self to the table has been empowering and given a chance for an authentic relationship with God and the universe.

Weddings - weddings are a big part of Judaism especially for women and girls it is one of the biggest milestones you are conditioned to want and to have as your goal. I remember when I was 8 I dressed up as a bride for Purim. A family member sewed me a dress and I had fake flowers and a veil. Luckily in the community, it's super normal so no-one asked me about a groom but I remember seeing other girls my age also dressing up as brides and thinking I want that. Of course, I thought that I was just thinking about their dress or veil not realizing the deeper thoughts till thinking about it now. After graduating from high school in my religious school with a grade of 150 girls, weddings naturally were the next milestone. I had gone to a decent amount of weddings during high school of family friends and older friends and there always was this internal feeling of uncomfortable and struggling to just be happy at the weddings, I always felt I didn't belong and I wasn't very outwardly religious and didn't believe in their version of God so I thought it was just from religious conflicts. I remember always looking down the aisle waiting for my friend to come down, and I could imagine myself walking down the aisle, but there was never a clear picture of the “man of my dreams” waiting at the end of the aisle, it was always blurry and blank. Then with the help of a few statements from my good friend, enough of my internal feelings, emotions, and thoughts came together and I came out of the closet to myself. I remember going to the first wedding after I came out, and having a very powerful moment waiting for the couple to walk down the aisle, and looking at the canopy and being able to envision my own wedding and being under that canopy with the woman of my dreams. The joy and emotions I was able to express with my friends absolutely came from that internal level of peace and now I love going to weddings, I can feel part and connected even if I want something different than what is shown, I have found that internal compass, and it feels amazing. Finding my authentic self made sharing in others joy so much more authentic.

Internal safe space part #1- (TW: suicidal thoughts) NOT SAFE- Building an internal safe space has been one of the hardest things about coming out and looking back over the very long process it took has been quite intense and remembering how much I already knew but didn't even have a space inside myself to hear the voices in my head has been painful and healing at the same time. 10th grade was one of the best and worst years of my life. The best I was finally out of Ramat Bet Shemesh living in a dorm of international religious girls, on a school campus I actually wanted to go to. I had made friends both in my class and the dorms but, it was also one of the hardest years of my life. I remember it being one of the first times I was in a safe enough space to feel those internal confusing thoughts yet I didn't understand what the crushes and attraction meant. I remember trying to talk to a close friend but not even having the right words all I had was so much confusion and pain, a good Jewish girl like her thought it was boy trouble since I was friends with a barn hand from where I used to ride and we were in touch. So I used the tool I had been using all year, religion, and clinging closer to some version of God that would get rid of my internal strife if I stopped talking to boys. Unfortunately, that didn't solve any problems it just made me feel more isolated and confused, to the point where one night I was leaning out the window and looking down at the ground, analyzing that I wouldn’t die from the jump but maybe it would still get rid of the internal confusion and self-hatred from that confusion. I would look out into the night through those big windows often but that was one of my most intense times I felt the only way to fix whatever was broken inside, was to break my outside. Luckily (yes now I can look back and say luckily) a friend came into the room and asked if I wanted to learn some Torah thought and since that was the only tool I had I used it and kept hoping it would fix what I couldn’t inside. I didn't find my internal safe space to even find the words to portray my feelings of homosexuality or even really know it existed for years, but this is just part one of not having an internal safe space to even learn and think about the letters LGBTQ+.

Internal safe spaces NOT SAFE part 2. In the summer between 10th and 11th grade I found the now-defunct women's wheelchair basketball team, it was an important addition to my physical therapy but also brought to light how I was not in an emotionally safe space to talk about being lesbian. My mother has always been quite into matchmaking so on the way back from picking me up from the train station when I came back from practice in tel Aviv, one afternoon she asked about the captain of the team Moran, and if she was single. I was so naive and didn't think I needed to filter my response (also I've only in the past four years learned to filter better) so I just responded "um, she's not single her wife even comes to practice. You might have even met her " Luckily I had enough of a filter to not tell her, that her wife was one of the organizers. The slice of silence that returned is still burned in my mind I can tell you exactly where the thirty-second interaction happened. The interaction between us ended then and I naively once again thought that would be the end of the conversation. Instead at my next therapy session my religious therapist (which I then dropped two months later) asked me how I knew what gay was and if I was fine with people who were gay, and in the same breath if I was gay. Feeling cornered without missing a beat I responded "I'm fine with gay people but don't worry I'm not gay" I remember her asking how I knew what gay was and to be honest I don't know if I actually knew I just saw them together and knew they were together, but I really don't think I really had enough information to understand. I just mostly remember how cornered and how quickly that therapist's office turned from being a safe space to a surrogate parent interrogation space. I still feel that pain of being cornered and having no safe space, and recounting these events makes me super impressed with myself to still be alive and actually understand, accept, love and share my authentic self with the world as there were many years of suicidal thoughts and wanting to be out of this unsafe confusing world, especially when the people supposed to make it safe, made it unsafe.