I first thought I was gay in middle school. I imagined myself kissing a friend or two, and back then, I’ll admit that I was a bit homophobic. My gut reaction was to deny, deny, deny! I completely blocked out the incident and didn’t mention it to anyone. Later in high school, I vividly remember asking my female friends who their “girl crush,” was. I’d like to make a disclaimer here: you can have girl-crushes and still be straight. However, the girls I asked were definitely not confident enough in their own heterosexuality to admit this. They rejected my question and acted like I was crazy for insinuating they’d ever crushed on anything but a boy. Once again, I pulled back and stopped thinking about girls like that.
My mother made comments throughout my life implying that if I ever wanted to come out, she’d be there for me. But she always assumed I was gay. I had a few stereotypically queer friends, and yeah, maybe I wrote about of stories centered around LGBT characters (and I still do). But I was never gay, and I’m still not. I’m bisexual. Something I can never seem to stop explaining is that it’s okay to like more than just one gender. Hell, there’s so many genders that it seems insane to me that people can just be attracted to one!
It was hard to come out when I saw myself as straight, too. All the stereotypes surrounding bisexuality made it seem hardly desirable as a label. I had no bisexual role models in television whom I could compare myself to. When I came out, it was after months of stressing and talking around the subject with friends. I still worry that I’m a liar. I worry that I’ll come out as gay one day, and everyone will nod and say, “She was confused after all.” I doubt that, though. I like girls and boys and whomever lies between and outside of those barriers. Bisexuality is how I see myself and my sexual desires.
I’ve been “out” as bisexual for almost 3 years now and I’m still closeted to a lot of people. What straight people don’t seem to understand is that you can’t just “come out” once and be done with it (unless you’re a flamboyant celebrity). I came out to an acquaintance a week ago. I’m constantly deciding whether or not to reveal myself, or to live as the secret “bi-spy” who must grimace through homophobic and biphobic conversations. It’s different being bi, because you code yourself as heterosexual when you call a boy hot, or you out yourself as gay for doing the same for a girl. My identity is accidentally erased by slip-ups in daily conversations. Be honest: did you know I was bisexual before you clicked on this article?
The thing is, I’m constantly accused of passing as heterosexual, or homosexual depending on the situation and this is an erasure of my identity. I don’t want to pass as heterosexual. Even if I date or marry a man, I’m still into girls too. I’m still bisexual. Biphobia is everywhere and it’s often more insidious than homophobia, which is at least made obvious to the public at large. Biphobia can happen even among friends I have. When I was with a group of friends, a girl once made a comment about how she’d be worried to date a bisexual because they have more opportunities to cheat. That’s just untrue. Just because the dating pool is larger doesn’t not mean bisexuals are more likely to stray, although they are less likely to be trusted in that area. This girl, like many others, assumed that people cannot or should not like multiple sexes, and liking multiple makes them more sexually promiscuous or even confused.
It’s confusing, I guess. Personally, I’m not confused, but I know the people around me are. Even one of my family members, who has previously made gender neutral comments about my future partners, has questioned me: “How do you know?” I just do. Just as you know who you like, I do too. I find Emma Stone just as sexually attractive as I do Tom Hiddleston. My belief that Amber Heard is gorgeous should not wipe the record of all the men I’ve ogled and complemented in the past. I wasn’t hiding my gay desires by projecting fantasies onto men. I liked men, and I still do. And I like women too.
Further, bisexual is just a moniker. Despite the prefix having a literal meaning of “two,” bisexual really means an attraction to two or more (and that’s the important part) genders. It’s easy to simplify by using the word “both,” but in reality, it extends to all genders. In that way, bisexuality is similar and often interchangeable with pansexuality. The important distinction, at least as I understand it, is that pansexual peoples are attracted more to the person, whereas bisexuals are often attracted by the gender.
I’m bisexual but I’m still myself over anything else. I am no different from who I was as a “straight” high schooler. Bisexuality is not hard to understand, but for some reason, no one seems to get it. Most assumptions about bisexuality are based on old and gross stereotypes. For instance, I’ve been asked to join at least four threesomes in the 2.5 years since I came out as bi. Bisexuality doesn’t mean I’m not monogamous, and it definitely doesn’t mean I’m more likely to cheat. It doesn’t mean I’m confused or that I “don’t belong” in a queer community as many LGT people often think. The B belongs in LGBT+ just as much as the L, G, and T. Bisexuality may not be obvious to everyone, and especially not to the people that eventually come to define themselves by it, but it’s not confusing. Bisexuality is a valid sexual identity.