What Do You Wish You Had Known About Going Through High School As An LGBT Teen?

Supposedly, “it gets better” — but what are you supposed to do until then?

Being a teenager is tough and confusing stuff. But being a teenager who is also figuring out their sexuality — or has it all figured out, but isn't in the most ~ affirming ~ environment? That's next level tough and confusing.

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As if high school wasn't tough enough.

You're dealing with school, friends, what you want to be when you grow up, hormones, and, of course, getting crushes on all the wrong people.

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Whether you started to come out to people in high school, or waited until after graduation, or still haven't — everyone's story is a little different.

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Maybe you experienced falling in love (or horrible heartbreak) for the very first time?

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If the first relationship is the sweetest, the first break up is the absolute hardest.

Hopefully you never had to experience bullying from your peers, but if you did, how did you get through it?

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Did you go to a friend, a parent, or a counselor? Help can come from so many places.

Did you end up joining school clubs or activities that made you feel more at home?

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Nothing like finding "your people" to make those adolescent years a little easier. Maybe you joined the gay-straight alliance at your school, maybe you started the GSA at your school — or, maybe, you avoided it all together.

Maybe you weren't able to start openly transitioning — or maybe you were, and that brought a whole host of other problems.

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Or, maybe you schooled the entire, well, school on the importance of pronouns.

Did you quickly realize that sex ed wasn't going to cover all the things you wanted to know about?

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Or maybe you struggled to fit in while staying true to your badass gender non-conforming self?

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It was hard being that fabulous.

OK, maybe it wasn't all so bad:

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So, what advice about school, love, and coming out would you give to your former (probably acne-prone) teen self?

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Everyone has a unique experience in high school and everyone deals with the the ups and downs of growing up differently — we want to hear a little bit of your story!

Post your advice in the comments below for a chance to appear in an upcoming BuzzFeed LGBT post!

And remember, your words could end up helping someone going through this thing called "being a teenager" right now. We could all have used some help with that.