ABM: The Teenage Perspective (pt1)

By Tricia Richards

8^th grade was a big year for me.  I was 13 years old, I knew who I was, and I was ready to take the world by storm.  Or so I thought… However, it was I who was going to be taken by storm by that came much to my surprise.

When I was 13 years old, I realized that I was attracted to women.  I came to this conclusion in a rather interesting way.  After becoming obsessed with theater, particularly Wicked, I managed to discover the world of Fan-Fiction and Femslash through one of the theater-related boards I posted on.  This was fascinating to me.  I told myself that I was intrigued by the storyline and the fact it involved 2 of my favorite Wicked leading ladies, and the phenomenal writing, but deep down I’m pretty sure it was the sapphic themes that really got me.  I became obsessed with the Wicked fandom.  It was the equivalent of other girls’ obsessions with whatever boy-band was “in” in 2007.  Eventually I began to wonder, “What if I was attracted to girls?”.  I had brought the topic of this fan-fiction up with some of my friends and they didn’t seem to understand my fascination with it or have any interest in it whatsoever.  I began to question myself.

Around October of 2007, I had an epiphany.  I was totally, totally into girls.  Into them in a way I had NEVER been into boys before.  The little “crushes” I had on different guys in my class—totally false.  I had the biggest crush in the world, and it was on a girl.  Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for me to come to terms with this.  I had uncovered a whole part of myself that I had been totally clueless about and began to wonder, “What am I to do with this newfound information?” Being of the age of technology, the most logical place for me to go was the internet.  I had a safe haven in the forums I posted regularly on, so this became my outlet.  Despite being resigned to the fact I was attracted to women and totally cool with it, I still had a ton going on in my head that I didn’t know what to do with.  So I would spend hours analyzing and writing down my thoughts and posting them on this forum filled with wonderful people who would give me advice and make me feel totally normal and accepted.  Through them I would discover that there was a whole gay culture that I had no idea even existed.  What little I did know consisted of stereotypes, and I myself did NOT fit the lesbian stereotypes I knew of.  I was feminine, liked makeup, was terrible at sports…everything I had been led to believe a lesbian was not.  This was confusing to me.  I was completely clueless and pretty much scared out of my mind.  Since knowledge is power, I decided I needed to know as much as I could about what it means to be gay.  I had no idea where to look to find this particular knowledge, so I asked my internet connections.  This eventually led me to The L Word.

By the time I got ahold of the pilot episode of TLW, I was about ready to explode.  I had so many questions and very few means of finding answers.  After I watched the first, and only the first, episode of TLW, I was like, “Um…what?”  It was all rather overwhelming.  I was 13 at the time.  It wasn’t exactly the most age appropriate viewing material.  Neither was the fan-fiction I was always reading.  I had two more options—South of Nowhere, which had recently been canceled, and the Young Adult fiction books I wouldn’t dare check out from the library.  After I devoured all three very short seasons of South of Nowhere, I was at a loss.

There are millions of teenagers in this exact same situation; burning with questions with very few resources to look to for answers or a means of relating to something or someone.  Some wouldn’t dare check out or buy a book on the topic out from the library for fear of being bullied.  Some don’t have the money to buy DVD copies of a TV show or movie about homosexuality.  There aren’t a whole lot of options.  That’s where Anyone but Me comes in.

What Anyone but Me does is amazing.  Not only does it present a realistic portrayal of teenagers, but it does so inclusively.  It’s not just about lesbians, single parent families, long distance relationships, or whatever other one-sided storyline you can come up with.  It encompasses all of those and more.  It’s impossible to define Anyone but Me in so many words, just like life.  You can’t define life as any one word, thing, or genre, and the same goes for Anyone but Me. It’s a complex, genuine story about life, portrayed by a superbly talented cast.  Realistic situations with realistically portrayed characters are something teens everywhere can see themselves in and relate to.   Anyone but Me provides role models for both LGBTQ and straight teens, both in the characters and in the actors themselves.

Anyone but Me is streamed for free online, making it extremely accessible.  You can get it on the show’s official website, YouTube, or download the episodes in podcast format for free on itunes, along with a plethora of other places on the internet, such as AfterEllen.com.  Thanks to its accessibility, Anyone but Me has become a hit all over the world.

As a queer teenager I can definitively state that Anyone but Me has had a HUGE impact on me personally, as I know it has for thousands of other teenagers from all walks of life around the world.  The amount of good this show does is immeasurable.

Check back to AnyoneButMeFans.com in the coming weeks for more on Anyone but Me: The Teenage Perspective.