In the quiet hours of a 7 a.m. coffee date with my girlfriend Sarah, I found myself captivated by her presence yet struggling to reconcile my feelings. Growing up in the evangelical South, my understanding of love and desire had been narrowly defined. Even at 30, when I began dating as a queer person, I found myself defaulting to outdated norms. This realization sparked a journey of self-discovery, one that unexpectedly led me to Pinterest.
The platform, inherently aspirational, became my tool for reimagining what love and desire could look like outside the heteronormative framework I had known. Unlike Instagram, which often portrays a curated version of life, Pinterest allowed me to explore and pin images that represented the life I yearned for. This digital vision board became a safe space to test and nurture my burgeoning queer identity.
From Comphet to Queer Awakening
My upbringing in a fundamentalist religious environment had instilled in me the belief that desire was dangerous and that there was only one permissible path for a woman. At 19, when my college sweetheart mentioned marriage, I briefly resisted but ultimately chose the most legible option—the one I had been presented with my whole life. The year was 2014, and I found myself planning my wedding on Pinterest, pinning images of flower crowns and rustic venues, trying to convince myself that this was what I desired.
Seven years later, my then-spouse began exploring their gender identity. We were still deeply entrenched in the church and grappling with internalized transphobia. In this tumultuous period, Pinterest became a sanctuary where we could construct and test out possible lives. As I watched their pins appear, I realized I was witnessing them come into focus for themselves. This experience gave me the permission I needed to look directly at my own desires for the first time.
The Power of Visual Imagery
I created a private Pinterest board named SAPPHIC, where I began collecting hundreds of images of women kissing, queer love, and sapphic desire. This was a stark contrast to the wedding planning I had done on the same platform as an evangelical teen. I scoured the internet for photos, art, poems, and music about the love between women, searching for the same images I had longed to see as an 11-year-old on our family’s desktop computer.
Pinterest’s algorithm, especially after turning off all AI content, began serving me a constant stream of sapphic media. From Villanelle with a knife to Eve’s throat to the orange jumpsuits of Piper and Alex, the platform provided a rich tapestry of queer imagery. In the privacy of that board, I found a space to dream about the life I wanted, a life beyond the binaries I had always felt beholden to.
The Intimacy of Complete Surrender
One image that appeared multiple times on my board showed two women in bed, asleep, their bodies close together under a downy white comforter. This image spoke to me in ways I couldn’t articulate. It represented the intimacy of complete surrender, a world where that kind of love was utterly, miraculously normal. This vision of queerness felt like an impossible gift, one that had arrived late and unexpectedly.
For the entire first year of being out, I noticed how jealous I felt when I saw gay women in the wild. It was a strange kind of envy, an intense yearning I couldn’t quite place. The Pinterest photos I loved most were not of celebrities but of anonymous couples doing ordinary things—slicing tomatoes in the kitchen, laying on a picnic blanket, crossing the street with arms slung around shoulders and waists. These shows of casual affection made something inside me shimmer.
Building a Queer Life
Over the course of a year, my Pinterest board grew from dozens to hundreds of pins. Outside of my digital vision board, my life was changing too. I was making up for lost time: reading queer books, listening to queer music, watching every queer TV show or movie I could find. I learned from queer theorists and activists, joined my city’s LGBTQ+ writers group, and showed up to queer shows, readings, and dance parties all over town.
The more vibrant and alive and gay my life became, the quieter my doubt got. Eventually, it disappeared entirely. Cultivating a queer aesthetic, with the dreamy close-up photos of lips and tongues, is not the same thing as building a queer life. But it did help me believe one was possible. Pinterest became a portal into the life I longed for, a reminder that our imaginations can always be cultivated.
Today, my Pinterest board is less of a vision board and more akin to an altar. My daily life looks a lot like the Pinterest board I imagined back then. I am surrounded by a beloved queer community, in the South and beyond. My world is filled with queer art and art-making. Every night, I fall asleep under a downy white comforter, limbs tangled with the girl I love: intimacy that feels utterly, miraculously normal.
