What Yahoo! Answers Meant to a Generation of LGBTQ+ Kids

Before LGBTQ+ people formed online communities via Tumblr and Twitter hashtags, like #growingupgay, we spent much time searching for answers to our queer questions via forums and message boards. While the fact that people peruse Yahoo! Answers to see if anyone answered questions they were too embarrassed to ask has become a running joke on the internet, the people who asked those questions can be hailed as martyrs for LGBTQ+ people.

Yahoo! Answers will officially shut down on May 4, and while we still have sites like Quora to ask all of life’s burning questions anonymously (or openly via Twitter, if we’re feeling bold), Yahoo! Answers served as a safe space for young millennials.

There was very little LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream media 10 years ago, aside from television programs like Glee. And even with the little representation we had, many of the LGBTQ+ characters on TV were reduced to stereotypes or side characters, or only given coming-out storylines. Also, many of the characters representing the LGBTQ+ community were white, cisgender, homosexual men.

Of course, my point isn’t to discredit these characters and the boundaries they broke. There are many gay men who saw themselves in characters like Kurt Hummel. But at the time, representation for lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people was minimal, so many of us sought answers online.

I’ve been aware of my bisexuality since I was 17, but I first started questioning my sexuality around 14 or 15. At the time, I was active in the Catholic church, having gone through the sacraments of baptism, reconciliation, eucharist and confirmation. I was taught that possessing even an iota of queerness is a sin warranting eternal damnation.

I always wondered how being queer could be an act of evil, despite the fact that the LGBTQ+ people in my life were the kindest, most humble people I knew. The summer before freshman year of high school, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” stayed at №1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for…