Really good storytelling, thanks. Lost adolescence is a sad and common theme among many LGBTQ people. You illustrate the theme powerfully.
You know, we queer elders often tell youth, "It gets better." And that's true. It's important. It's helpful.
But the next stage in the struggle for genuine LGBTQ acceptance is the struggle to build a world in which "it gets better" becomes irrelevant — because queer adolescence becomes ordinary, troubled only by the usual problems of adolescence, which are problems enough.
We certainly aren't there yet, not universallly among even our youngest generations, but we're getting there. Or I should say, our youngest generations are getting us there.
Thanks for telling this story!
By the way, if you plan to write on this theme or other LGBTQ themes in the future, Prism & Pen (which I help edit) would be a very good platform for your thoughts. We'd be happy to help you find more readers.
