Karina Manta - On Top of Glass: My Stories as a Queer Girl in Figure Skating

I am the kind of person who ruins endings.

Before I watch movies, I look up their summaries online. I allow my friends to reveal the best plot twists from their favorite TV shows. When I make attempts at cracking jokes, I go straight for the punch lines. I have been known to flip to the last page of a book before I even read the first. Worst of all, when I tell stories, I cant help but give some bits away too early. I am a menace in the face of suspense.

Maybe its because I have a desire to feel in control. Maybe its because Im anxious. My mind likes to busy itself with worst-case scenarios. I just always want to knowto confirmthat things will be okay in the end.

Can you blame me?

The first time I googled the words lesbian figure skater, I was a young teenager. I sat at my parents desktop computer. I opened a new tab in incognito mode, and I clicked the keyboard quietly, even though I was home alone. My initial search didnt conjure any names. Instead, I found a couple of forums that speculated over the sexualities of several athletesnothing concrete. I altered my search: bisexual female figure skaters. Still nothing. I revised again: gay female figure skaters. Google offered me a list of men.

I changed the search entirely: I looked up bisexual politicians, and I looked up bisexual Supreme Court justices, and I looked up the word bisexual alongside every career I ever thought I wanted.

At the time, I didnt know what I was looking for. I was sure that I was straight. Positive. I thought I was just scratching an itch of curiosity.

These days, I know better. I can see what I was trying to do: I was trying to look up another endingan ending to my own story. I was seeking answers to questions that I was too afraid to ask out loud: What could my life look like? Was my existence even possible? I grew up without knowing a single lesbian in real lifeor any queer women, for that matter. While I scoured the internet that day, I looked for hints at who I could become; but after tapping through pages and pages of search-engine results, I didnt manage to unearth even a single clue.

For some, the thrill of the unknown might have been exhilarating, but I was not the kind of person who found adventure in uncertainty. I was the kind of person who ruined endings.

I shut down my browser, and I told myself to forget about the investigation. I told myself to stifle the itch. For years, I felt untethered.

Here is the first spoiler of my story. I already warned youI cant help but give little bits away too early.

I could never bring myself to stop searching. The keyboard clicks ingrained themselves into my muscle memory. My hands typed and tapped again and again. I spent countless nights online, trying to make sense of my worldtrying to find proof that my story could have a happy endingor proof that I could exist at all.

For a long while, my situation seemed grim.

But slowly, as the years passed, a trail of names began to appear during my late-night investigations. With persistence and time, I was given a list. I came across the names of my heroes, and the names of my friends, and the names of a few brave strangers from all over the worldI found a community and a history that had been hidden. And eventually, as I scrolled along the list, I was able to find my own name. A little blue hyperlink. A buoy thrown to my younger self across the internets void.

If you are someone who needs to be assured, I can assure you: Things will be okay in the end.