Poh Ling Yeow

Mom especially would always judge me by my performance, my adhesion to the rules of the church.

And she wasn't seeing me.

Yeah.

And I was like, I want you to see me.

And for you to see me, I have to shed the church because you'll see that I'm the same person.

I'm actually the same decent person.

I was just frustrated my whole life.

And then even when we weren't church members, she used to think that I was like this giant rebel just because I wanted to like hang out with friends.

Like I wasn't doing anything wrong.

was remotely wrong I was such a little square peg um and yeah I was such a little bookish you know nerd but like in her eyes I was like just this rebel I was so interesting because she actually pushed me into kind of being one and as soon as I left it was like everything that was

the antithesis of what she wanted for me was I was like a magnet for it.

First friend was trans.

I ended up having this bikey boyfriend who was like, I found out later was like a male escort from LA.

Like it was like such a rude awakening, um,

Unfortunately, the problem with like keeping kids in this like closeted environment is that I had no idea how to manage those situations.

And I hated like the guilt of just like loving this friend who was like looking after me, the Arnie, the trans person, like everything.

I was just so torn and I was, I just shouldn't feel like this.

It's such a simple equation.

Like, you know, they're a good person.

And then on the other hand, like I couldn't tell like this guy was a terrible person because I had never had the experience of even being near a guy.