“at five years old you know what the word means. it’s dirty, it’s bad, you’re too young to know. other kids use it as a curse word when adults can’t hear them. when you’re nine, two women move in across the street. one of them has a shaved head. you’re sitting at the dinner table when your neighbour’s father uses the word “dyke” with a lowered voice. you’re eleven and a new girl has joined your theatre group. you want to be around her all the time. a year later she leaves and you feel disappointed and sad without really knowing why. at fifteen you’re at a church camp and a girl asks the priest why gay people can’t get married. he says: “we have to draw the line somewhere. some people would like to marry animals.” six months later you’re looking at a friend of yours with butterflies in your stomach, and all of a sudden it just hits you. you have a crush on her. you have a crush on a girl. at sixteen you try to say the word. you say to yourself: “i’m a lesbian.” you feel dirty and cry in the bathroom two hours later. at seventeen you hold hands with a boy. he says to you: “you don’t want to be with girls like that.” he touches your cheek but it feels wrong. when you’re eighteen you fall in love with a girl who has pale blue eyes and the most beautiful laugh. she calls you an angel but a year later she introduces you to her boyfriend at a house party. you want to cry but you can’t. at nineteen you try to say the word again. it still gets stuck in your throat but you do it anyway. you tell your friends and they say they are proud of you. and you cry, not because you feel dirty, but because you feel okay.”