Happy #ComingOutDay!
I grew up in the 1980s in Florida, seven miles from the nearest town. The area was very very conservative, and I went to a fundamentalist high school. So there was no good representation for me to learn from. The only gay representation I ever saw was that gay men got AIDS -- and deserved it.
I've always been bisexual. But until I went to college, I was too terrified to have a boyfriend.
In college, I fell in with a group of four or five bisexuals, both genders, and I both loved and hated myself for it. My high school schooling made me terrified of sex while my body desperately wanted it.
Furry fandom gave me a little more structure and a lot of stories and pictures of loving relationships, regardless of the genders involved. Fiction gave me a better framework than fundamentalism.
I'm very very grateful to New College as it had been for creating a safe place for me to learn about myself and to grow.