Love Is Love 🌈

From childhood poems to college awakenings, this is my journey of love, identity, and pride in being part of the LGBTQ+ community.

LOVE

Kristal Duval

3/15/20252 min read

red flowers under rainbow and cloudy sky during daytime
red flowers under rainbow and cloudy sky during daytime

LGBTQ+ is beautiful. It’s about embracing the richness of human diversity, where love, creativity, identity, and expression are celebrated without boundaries. Everyone deserves to be seen, heard, and loved for exactly who they are.

My first love was a girl. I was 12. She had long golden hair and blue eyes. Her name was Marianna — a name that already carried two within it. Sometimes I called her Marie, sometimes Anna. We imagined we were in Paris together, walking the streets of a city we’d only seen in our dreams. Our love was innocent, platonic, yet full of longing. I wrote her poems and love letters. We walked, hugged, kissed. I often wondered — was she aware it wasn’t just friendship?

Later, at 15, I fell in love with a boy. He was older, finishing school. He looked exactly like Jack from Titanic — blonde, blue-eyed, romantic. We exchanged love letters and poems, promising we’d meet again soon.

When I went to college, I met people from the LGBTQ+ community and realized I was one of them. I am bisexual.

And let me tell you this: I have never met people more kind, noble, creative, and authentic. The moment I stepped into the community, I felt — I was loved for simply being who I am. I was respected as both an artist and a human being.

I found my tribe. 🌈

Bisexual — what does that really mean? It doesn’t mean hypersexuality. It doesn’t mean I want everyone I meet. It simply means I can love, build a family, and share a life with both a man or a woman. It means I don’t put limits on love.

Love is love. And I will always choose love.

If your community, religion, or family tells you to hate people based on who they love, the problem isn’t with those who choose love — the problem is with you, your community, and your religion. Ask yourself: why are they teaching you to hate in the first place?

So yes, the LGBTQ+ community is beautiful. We are diverse, creative, brave, and real. We are not broken. We are not a sin. We are human.

And we will always choose love. 🌈
I am an Artist. I love.

I believe that Love, Art, and Freedom will save the world.