Shingi Rice’s Coming Out Story

I have an African background, Zimbabwean to be exact. Being queer isn’t common at all back home so thinking about discussing this with family always felt odd and I always felt I would be disowned.

I never really was aware of my feelings around girls until I was much older, this was when I moved back to the UK from Spain after growing up to pursue photography. It wasn’t till I started to date that I automatically chose “only girls” on every dating app I could download, completely ignoring men.

I hadn’t experienced with girls before, yet it felt so natural to do so. I then understood why, when I was younger I would behave in a certain way around some girls and not others. I clearly had some sort of attraction but I was completely unaware.

I travelled to Zimbabwe on my own one summer for five weeks and I remember my cousin telling me a story of when she was in school and how a girl opened up to her and decided to come out; my cousins’ reaction to this was terrible as she said it was “inhumane” and “disgusting”. I remember laughing nervously thinking “fuck, so what do I do when I decide to open up about being pansexual/queer”…

A few years went by and this was around the time gay marriage became legal in Ireland, I remember being at my uncles’ house with my mom and aunt and my uncle had so much negativity in regard to gay marriage being legal. His exact words were “If I was to find out that anyone I knew was gay, I wouldn’t want to speak to them again”. My mom defended the hell out of the gay community and me by saying if I was to come out to my parents that she wouldn’t care, I am still her daughter.

Regardless of all this I still felt chicken. A few summers ago, I posted something on my social media about being queer and proud to see so many families and parents with their kids at London pride. My mom saw this and messaged me saying how she loved me no matter what and when would she meet my girlfriend hahaha, I am in a heteronormative relationship and my mom thought being pansexual was equal to being poly.

Something I have noticed in recent years is more people feeling comfortable in coming out (or letting others in!) and I also see a lot of judgement too when individuals “come out” later in age and people tend to think it’s due to trend or whatever.

“there are parts of us that have been embedded in us since the beginning of time”

Most times, we are unaware of ourselves; I see it more so as, we are learning about ourselves every day, there are parts of us that have been embedded in us since the beginning of time which our conscious self was unaware of and we simply walk into these parts of ourselves at different stages of life, and I also see that within sexuality.

I am happy my parents know and that if I were to bring a girl home they wouldn’t freak out!

I’d like to think we are reaching a new understanding of accepting people’s individuality. By this, I mean older generations are becoming more aware and understating, yet we aren’t even halfway to where we need to be. I always thought being black and gay could never go hand in hand but it’s pretty clear ignorance and freedom don’t go hand in hand.

Coming out stories