Lucia Loffredo, freshman

“So I probably found out that I was pansexual… maybe two years ago in the summer, and I waited a long time to tell people because I didn’t know for sure yet. So when school time came around, I didn’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure people already suspected it because I would never talk about boys. Like all my friends talked about boys, but I would never talk about boys. I was still attracted to boys, but I just wasn’t as attracted as I was to girls. I [came] out to them a week after Coming Out Day. I was like, ‘Oh man, I missed my opportunity to come out to them on that day.’ But I still wanted to come out to them because I felt like they were accepting because I went to Oak Grove School, so it’s a really close community — you know everyone. The way I did it, looking back on it now is kind of weird, but we were at lunch, and I stood up with a milk carton in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other, and I’m like, ‘Attention! Attention!’ I was hitting the milk carton with the spoon like, ‘I have an announcement!’ I wanted to be a little extra about it. So before I could even say what I was going to say a friend of mine was like, ‘You’re gay!’ ‘Yes!’ So that’s when I came out to my group of friends [in middle school] and then almost the same thing happened on my bus ride home… The scary thing (about coming out) was my parents. I knew my mom would understand because my grandma is gay so she grew up with a gay mom. But my dad, he would accept me — like, he accepted me — but he just didn’t want to believe it. Like he wanted me to not go through anything in high school. Same with my mom — she didn’t want me to be bullied or anything. I haven’t so far. But [my dad] just thinks it’s not going to last long. It’s probably like a phase, but I’ve been like this for like two years now. So when I told them, I brought them to their room and I told my mom first and I was like, ‘Mom, I’m pansexual, you might not know what that means but I am.’ And she said, ‘Okay, well I love you no matter what and I accept you.’ Then she said, ‘You know you have to tell dad’ and I was like, ‘I know, I was planning on it.’ So my dad came upstairs and I told him, and he says, ‘You’re probably going to change your mind in the future.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, probably.’ But I love my dad… So that’s when I came out to everyone I knew and then I was just so open about it and I would say to my friends, ‘Go ahead, tell anyone you want, I don’t care’ because I really did not care. So like almost all of my grade knew in eighth grade, and I would just randomly tell my new friend group here in high school like, ‘Oh yeah, I like girls.’ Some people were shocked. But no one was negative about it. They were all really, really sweet about it. So I feel like our community here — I mean, yeah, there are a lot of homophobic people but I haven’t met anyone yet that’s homophobic. So that’s exciting…”