I’m bisexual. And it has taken me 10 years to admit that.
My family sits beside me on couches and sees me as their daughter, sister, niece, and cousin. My friends sit beside me in dorm rooms and know me for my humor, curiosity, and creativity.
As the fear of coming out grew, I held on to how desperately I wanted to keep things that way. I didn’t want to be looked at negatively for who I was attracted to. I didn’t want to be in the hot seat at family reunions, and on the front lines defending myself against adverse opinions. It’s as if suddenly my sexuality would take away the value of the girl I am and the woman I am becoming. As if the daughter, sister, niece, and cousin I am means nothing when assigned this new label. How selfish it would be for me to taint that. To be anything different than what everyone around me was already comfortable with. To be looked at differently at the dinner table is a thought that makes me lose my appetite and want to retreat to my room in a shame-filled sickness.
I had my first grapple with sexuality at the age of eleven. A time in my life when I couldn’t even fathom the significance of romantic relationships and played games on my iPod touch until my thumbs cramped. A time in my life when my sister had a shirtless poster of Justin Bieber hung in her room that I would gag at her for having. The only thing about guys that interested me at this time was their ability to date girls, who were prettier and had less cooties. I thought, in my head, that being a boy was better because you could date girls. It was then a silent thrill for me to learn that you don’t have to be a boy to date a girl. But regardless of that, I had no interest in dating anybody, when I could watch cartoons and draw pictures and play in virtual worlds on the desktop computer in our basement.
I found solace online, where it seemed the world was more open-minded than the general population of the town I came from. Here, I befriended people with similar interests and was introduced to more about the sexuality I was suspicious of within myself. I tried out the label and felt confident and comfortable. Most importantly, I felt like myself, despite the fact I was hiding behind an online persona. Maybe the comfortability came from the fact that no one would ever know who I was off the screen. Perhaps it came from the ability to be who I wanted to be online. Regardless, I never hesitated to represent myself as bisexual online to those who asked, or to those who initiated conversations surrounding the topic. But once I moved on from virtual worlds and spent more time offline, all traces of that were abandoned. The word was unspeakable, unable to fall from my lips, despite how fluidly it once fell whenever my fingers touched a keyboard.
When high school hit and relationships suddenly became the real deal, not week-long escapades that included holding hands at recess and eating lunch together, I was forced to confront this part of myself again. Though I was shy and quiet, and knew I wouldn’t find the one in my small-town school, I felt compelled to be a part of the dating world. I started to seriously worry about who I could like and who liked me.
My middle school and elementary crushes were never that serious to me, but now I was older and falling behind my peers who had already had boyfriends. I tried to focus on boys, but part of me felt empty. I was never really interested in any of the people around me, having cared very little for dating until my senior year of high school, but one fact was certain: nobody around me dated girls, and I knew it was safer to be known as the smart, quiet, artistic girl than the girl who liked girls. My biggest fear was that my classmates, teammates, or friends would view my sexuality as a catalyst for crushes. As if my gaze was predatorial, and my kindness would be mistaken for something it wasn’t. So I once again shoved this away, letting this part of myself uncomfortably bounce around inside of me. At that time, it felt more important to lay low and not make any sudden movements, or else my safe spot in high school society would crumble beneath me.
By the time I got to college, I had a hunger to be more myself than ever before. 6 hours away from home, nobody knew who I once was, which made this the perfect time to set the tone of who I wanted to be. When I had settled into my freshman-year friend group, I knew I had an opportunity to walk the road of authenticity. I wanted to come out to them, but then, I couldn’t. It was in the small comments people made. The microexpressions and mannerisms that appeared when the topic was brought up. The jokes, the opinions, the judgments. The time my roommate freaked out when a guy she fancied was openly bisexual. How unnatural it was. How weird it was. How it was okay that she thought it was those things, and I had no choice but to sit silently and be complacent with those thoughts. Sexuality was shunned in a space I thought was safe. In an entirely new galaxy far from home, I once again felt like a lone star.
Regardless, I decided one evening, years later, it needed to be done. In my junior year of college, while my closest friends all gathered in our living room and laughed together over a game of Kahoot, I laid myself out on the table. In as many situations as possible, I try to make heavy things lighthearted. So, to avoid the awkwardness of dropping the bomb mid-conversation, I did it through the game. My friends and I had all made Kahoots about ourselves, and we competed against each other to see who knew each other best. When it was my turn, I snuck the sexuality question among all the others. And then I was out. I remember the silence that filled the room. I remember how hard it was to breathe in those few seconds. I remember diverting everyone’s attention to the TV screen as the next question of my Kahoot appeared to quickly wipe up the mess I thought I made.
For the longest time, I would speak of my sexuality in a small voice. I would only talk about it when I whispered, in rooms where there wouldn’t be an echo, and when the wind wasn’t strong enough to carry my words into the ears of the people around me. I would look over my shoulder anytime the topic arose, a sort of parasitic paranoia that ate at me on the inside. My sexuality. My secret. A part of myself I refused to acknowledge, no– a part of myself that should never be acknowledged. Because what do I gain from embodying this part of myself, when I knew there was so much to lose?
But I took that chance. I accepted the outpours of support from most of my friends, and struggled with the silence of others. Despite my uneasiness surrounding some responses, I let myself be more loud about it in more areas of my life. I wanted to stop holding my breath, averting my gaze, and being someone I wasn’t. People hate it when you make your sexuality known. It’s almost as if your overtness and pride over it feels like a threat. They see your confidence and a part of them feels envious that they don’t celebrate themselves in the same way. They subject you to stereotypes, labels, and questions. You’re too much. You’re too loud. Be quiet. Are you sure you’re bisexual? You haven’t even been with a girl. Go back to the silence of the closet. I
don’t care if you’re lonely in there. I don’t care about how you feel about yourself, because I am uncomfortable with your confidence.
The sad truth is that coming out did cost me relationships. I did have to sit through harsh questioning and uncomfortable looks. I did have to justify myself, promising female friends I didn’t have a crush on them and that my affection towards them never surpassed anything but the platonic boundary. My own sister, who now supports me indefinitely, admitted to hating me for years, having discovered my secret after she snooped through my things when she was younger. A boy who called me his everything one day spent the next day telling me I was weird and unnatural before closing the book on something I hoped would have a happier ending. Everything I was to some people slipped away the second I opened my soul in that way. All the sweet memories we shared would sour, and the fruit of some relationships would rot. There are so many things I hold dear in my life, and one of them is my relationships with other people. My friends mean the world to me, whether they are near or far. Not even distance can bar my heart from aching for the faces of people whom I’ve created countless memories with. That is why the truth felt like a hot knife, with the ability to cut through even the strongest of relationships. That is why I almost took this to the grave. That is why I almost let it die with me. This is why I stayed quiet about it for so long – because my fears came true the moment I decided to face them.
Some people liked me better silent. And unfortunately, sometimes, I wonder if they’re right. The fear of this part of me still persists, like a hand on my neck, threatening to choke me every time I want to speak about it. I experience impostor syndrome, wondering if I belong in the places I frequent, whether that be church or my childhood home. But I know for a fact I am the same daughter, sister, niece, and cousin I was before coming out. I am the same friend I was prior to coming out. I have always been that girl, regardless of what I openly identified as. While I am not to be defined by my sexuality, it is not something others have the privilege of ignoring about me for their own comfort.
I am bisexual. I have been for years. And I’m no longer afraid to admit it.