A mum-of-three has bravely spoken out about her sexuality, detailing the time in her life when she realised she was a lesbian. Jennifer Gilmour says she thought she might be gay after she noticed she started obsessing over Killing Eve's Jodie Comer.
The 34-year-old said watching movies and TV shows with strong female leads - such as This Is England and Killing Eve - made her question her sexuality. Jennifer says her husband supported her journey.
Author Jennifer told Hull Live : "Over lockdown my husband had noticed that I was complimentary of the female actresses in the series we were binge watching. We watched This Is England and I found myself thinking about Vicky McClure for the rest of the day. Then on Killing Eve, it was Jodie Comer. I thought it was admiration but after a while I realised it was more."
"My husband suggested that I explore my sexuality and I knew I needed to take the opportunity to figure it out," Jennifer said, revealing that on hindsight there were already many signs that she wasn't straight. However, she says she always "ignored them". She spoke out to encourage more women to be honest about questioning and exploring their sexuality.
"I have always had a sense of being gay," said Jennifer. "It’s just that in my mind I didn’t feel it was even an option to explore it." Since coming out she says she has had great support, including her dad and friends who have been thrilled that she can finally be her true self.
Some of the mum-of-three's friends even claimed that they've always suspected that she was gay: "My friends have been very supportive and many of them were already a part of the LGBT community," said Jennifer. "A good number of my friends had suspected for a while that I was either bisexual or a lesbian so it didn’t come as a shock to them."
Jennifer is also highly complimentary of her dad who has been a great support during her coming out: "The most important family member to me is my dad and he has been so supportive of me, he sticks by me no matter what and just wants me to be happy."
Although the past few months have had "extreme highs and challenging lows", the Hull mum also bravely spoke about life after being open about her sexuality: "It took a while to realise that the way I was living with my husband and children wasn’t going to work because it didn’t feel right to me."
"The hardest part was separating from my husband and breaking up the family unit, thankfully we are successfully co-parenting and will remain friends."
The mum-of-three revealed details about her journey of finding who she truly is on her Facebook, sharing an inspirational post on Valentine's Day, proudly boasting that she is "falling in love with the new me". Jennifer also wrote about how she fought her true self for many years but now it prevails and shines through, and has now discovered that she is a proud bisexual woman who has a preference of dating women.
"Last year I went through a whole identity crisis", she wrote to her friends and followers, "I realised that I was still using the survival tactics from my abusive relationship. It’s taken me 8 years to realise that I have still been the person he made me to be."
"I’ve looked back before that relationship and have always been saddened that I can’t be her. I didn’t realise that it was not about going back but it was about going forward. Not reclaiming myself but becoming myself," the author continued.
Jennifer has since become a popular public speaker and author, previously opening up about being in a coercive controlling relationship for several years. Using her personal experiences as a catalyst, she has become an advocate for domestic violence in order to help others who are in similar situations and help them find a way out.
Even creating her very own Twitter page, #AbuseTalk, where Jennifer created a community so that she could help others with a space to discuss safely. She passionately explained, "I will always share my journey of life after abuse in the hope it helps others who are experiencing domestic abuse so that they know they are not alone."
Jennifer has been a voice and a hand to those in abusive relationships, even writing books on the matter called Isolation Junction and Clipped Wings, which have both received outstanding awards as well as being on the Amazon Best Sellers list. You can find Jennifer her on her website here.
