Learning to Exist:My Journey of Being Queer in a World that doesn't Understand Me

By JOY AKINYI 

Second Year BA Journalism and Mass Communication Student,  Chuka University 

For a long time, I believed that something about me needed to be hidden. Not because I wanted to hide, but because the world around me seemed to suggest that I should.

Growing up, I watched how people talked about queerness. Sometimes it was in whispers. Other times it was in jokes that made everyone laugh except the person the joke was about. Even before I fully understood my own identity, I understood one thing very clearly: being different could make life harder.

So, I learned to be careful. I learned to watch my words, my reactions, even the way I looked at people. It felt like I was constantly editing myself, making sure nothing slipped out that might reveal the truth I was still trying to understand myself.

The strange thing about growing up queer is that the confusion often comes before the language. You feel something is different long before you know what to call it. For me, it was a quiet awareness that my feelings did not follow the path everyone expected them to follow.

At first, I thought it would go away. I thought maybe I was imagining things, or maybe it was just a phase that would disappear if I ignored it long enough. But identity is stubborn. The more you try to silence it, the louder it becomes inside your mind.

And silence can be exhausting.

There were moments when conversations around me would suddenly feel heavy. Friends talking about relationships. Family members asking questions about the future. Each question felt like a spotlight shining too closely, forcing me to either lie or avoid the truth.

So, I carried the silence.

It sat quietly in the background of my life, shaping how I interacted with people and how much of myself I allowed them to see. On the outside, everything seemed normal. But inside, there was always a quiet battle between the person I was and the person I felt I was expected to be.

The hardest part was not the confusion. It was the fear.

Fear that the people I cared about might see me differently. Fear that honesty could lead to rejection. Fear that simply being myself could change the way the world treated me.

When you grow up surrounded by messages that suggest your identity is wrong or unacceptable, those messages slowly start to live inside your head. You begin to question your own worth, wondering if life would somehow be easier if you were someone else.

But over time, something began to change.

I started hearing stories from other people who had walked similar paths. People who had faced the same confusion, the same fear, and the same silence. Their stories made me realize something important: I was not alone.

That realization did not erase the challenges, but it made them easier to carry.

Acceptance does not arrive in one dramatic moment. It happens gradually, in small steps. It comes from learning that your identity is not a mistake. It comes from understanding that the problem is not who you are, but the expectations that try to limit who you are allowed to be.

Today, I am still learning what it means to exist openly and honestly. The journey is not perfect, and the world is still learning how to understand people whose stories do not fit traditional expectations.

But I have learned something important along the way. Existing as your true self should never require permission.

For anyone who has ever felt different, confused, or afraid to reveal their identity, I want them to know this: the world may not always understand your story, but that does not make your story any less real.

And sometimes, the simple act of existing—truthfully and unapologetically—is its own quiet form of courage.