Growing Up Beside Queerness: A Story of Allyship and Family By Lydia Querian

There are stories we carry quietly for years. Stories we place in the folds of memory not because they aren’t worth telling—but because they are sacred, fragile, and deeply human. This is one of those stories.
For a long time, I wasn’t sure if it was mine to tell. As the eldest child—Ate—I often take on the role of protector. The one who carries, defends, shelters. I’ve always believed that part of loving my siblings meant shielding them, even from narratives. But lately I wonder—perhaps storytelling is a kind of embrace. Perhaps truth-telling is one of the deepest forms of love.
This is a story of queerness, family, and the complicated ways we find—and offer—acceptance and creating a safe space for those you love who also chooses love.

Childhood in Uniform

I grew up in a strict all-girls Catholic school, where queerness was invisible—it was almost unthinkable. The only term we had for deviation from the norm was “tomboy,” a word tossed carelessly to describe girls who refused to fit the mold. I went through my "tomboy" days too. I dated girls. I explored, I questioned, I felt, I existed—quietly. Yes, it may have been a rebellion; but it could also be simply me trying to understand myself. A thread of fluidity I now recognize as essential to my being. But back then, I tucked it away neatly, convinced it was just a phase that I had outgrown.

What I didn’t know was how much this early experience would prepare me to witness—and love—my siblings through their own becoming.

My Brother's Closet

Being the only “boy” in our family came with weight—centuries of generational patriarchy stacked silently on his shoulders. My baby brother was expected to be strong, stoic, the bearer of the family name. But he was also tender, expressive, and deeply feeling. I watched him quietly suffer from the sharp edges of expectation. Each side comment from family, each disapproving glance, carved into him. As his Ate, my instinct was to hold him. But what comfort could I give when the world was asking him not to be himself?

Ironically, I grew up with men doing the homemaking work—as they were often called. My dad cradled me to sleep when I cried in the middle of the night. I had uncles—my mom’s brothers—who cooked, washed my lampin (cloth diapers), ironed clothes, did the laundry, and cleaned the house. Seeing this, it all seemed normal and ungendered in so many ways. So there I was, a little girl playing dress-up with my baby brother—putting him in my dresses and having him do a runway walk on my parents’ bed. It was innocent and joyful, free of judgment. Looking back now, I wonder if those moments were his earliest glimpses of self-expression, of safety in femininity.

When he was finally ready to come out, he wrote a letter. I suggested him to. He poured his heart into it, then posted it publicly on Facebook. I remember reading it and sobbing. It was like watching him finally exhale after holding his breath for years. That moment was liberating—not just for him, but for me. I felt like I was being let into his inner world. I felt like I could finally show up for him, fully.

Still, there was more pain ahead. Coming out is never a clean cut—it’s a wound that opens, bleeds, and heals over time. He struggled with being seen differently, with being treated like a stranger in his own family. And I—I still question whether I did enough. Did I tell him I was proud of him? Did I create a space soft enough for him to land in? Did I make him feel seen, truly seen?

My Sister’s Becoming

Then there’s my sister—our stories echo in uncanny ways. She too grew up in Catholic girlhood, with friendships and flirtations that blurred into something more. For a while, it seemed like she would follow the "normal" path—dating boys, making our parents sigh with relief. But adulthood has its way of stripping away the things we do to survive. And she would, in her own time, come into her truth.

My sister and I were like besties growing up. I was like the best thing to her—at least that’s how it felt—because she pretty much did everything I did. She wanted the things I wanted. She’d go “shopping” in my closet, borrowing clothes so we could wear the same outfits like twins. There was something so affirming in that mirroring, in our closeness.

But my migration somehow changed a lot of that. The lack of proximity took a toll. Our relationship became a little stale at one point—distant, unfamiliar. And then, just when I thought I had lost the thread of our sisterhood, she came out of the closet—in the most awkward, unexpected way. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t there to hug her or process it together. She had to do it on her own. I still carry guilt for not being there the way I wanted to be—for not holding her hand, literally, through the storm.

A Family Transformed

But we got through it. Somehow, we all did.
My parents—raised in a generation steeped in tradition and shame—surprised me the most. Their path to acceptance wasn’t instant or perfect, but it was real. I watched them wrestle with their own biases, dismantle what they thought they knew, and rebuild their love on stronger foundations. I witnessed transformation—both with my siblings and in the very structure of our family.

It was humbling. And deeply moving.
We always say love is unconditional—but we rarely talk about how it often isn’t, not right away. That awareness, that honesty, is crucial. Especially for queer family members who are constantly checking if the space around them is safe. If they can speak. If they can breathe.

I Am Because They Are

My connection to the LGBTQ+ community in the diaspora has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. And I owe that to my siblings. They taught me—through their pain, their joy, their courage—how to hold space. How to love better. How to become a true ally, not just in name but in action.
Even as the Ate, I realize I’ve learned far more from them than they ever could from me.

Being beside queerness is support and recognition. It’s about witnessing someone’s wholeness and saying, I see you. I love you. I am here.

The Grace of Being Seen

So here I am, telling a story I thought I never would. Because maybe, just maybe, this is the very way I can keep my siblings safe—not by silence, but by truth. Not by protecting them from the world, but by building a world that protects them.

Queerness, to me, is beyond identity. It is courage. And FAMILY is about how we show up for each other, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S HARD.

To my siblings: you are seen. You are sacred. You are loved in every way I know how to love.

And to the reader: may we all learn to be better—braver—at loving people exactly as they are.

May we all grow beside queerness. And may we all grow from it.