It can feel like people on the internet ~have it all figured out~, and like the stuff that’s amorphous and opaque from your end of the screen is neatly categorized and easy breezy on the other. As is so often the case, however, that is merely an illusion created by the funhouse mirror of our digital universe! As an example, here’s some bi+ members of our team sharing their journey of how they arrived at their current place of bisexual identity, such as it is.
How Did We Get Here? 6 Bi People on Coming to Their Identity for Bi+ Week 2020
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*CW, brief/vague mention of sexual assault, internalized biphobia*
I identify as a cis woman and I am married to a woman; we’ve been together for eight years and she is the first and only person I have ever been in a relationship with who identifies as a woman. She also happens to identify as nonbinary and is amazing and full of epic and sexy genders <3 Prior to being with her, I only dated people who identified as cis men. In my early twenties when I was first coming out to myself, I briefly identified as bisexual, before deciding I would never date a cis man again (trauma) so I must be gay (worth noting is that I realize now the problematic nature of assuming gay or queer means only being attracted to my "same gender," which I know recognize is wildly reductive if not outright incorrect!) At the time, rejecting "bi" as a label also felt like a way to affirm my part of "the lesbian/queer women" community, at a time when I deeply longed for a feeling of belonging. Attraction to cis men came up occasionally over the years, but I always set it aside as an anomaly, and recommitted to my identity as a lesbian/queer woman who is only attracted to people other than cis men.
A couple of years ago, in the c o m p l e x aftermath of a situation wherein I was sexually assaulted by a cis male friend, I realized again that I am bisexual AND queer, but not a lesbian, which was something that was really hard for me to release because I really *wanted* myself to be a lesbian! I had a lot of internalized biphobia I had never processed, which was also bound up in sexual trauma (even other than the most recent assault), so I took myself to therapy, thank goodness. Since I did that work it has been incredibly freeing and exciting to name, embrace, and celebrate my identity. Seeing myself reflected here is so heartening and I am really grateful for the community here and for Bi+ Week.
That being said, I know the labels and experiences I have do not necessarily represent or reflect the labels and experiences of others! I think the beauty of gender and sexuality is that we get to be messy and complex and ourselves. We get to change and grow, discover and re-discover, and all of it is excellent. I think that all genders and sexualities are valid and real (including mine :-})
I relate to this so much. Thank you for sharing, @lifeofsummers.
I love sharing my coming-out-to-myself/realization moment because it typifies my ‘my life is a sitcom’ trope
i was thirteen and at a summer camp for nerds. there was a dance, because that’s what junior high nerds need. i met up with two friends, a guy and a girl, and when i saw each of them i had the exact same feeling of ‘oh no they’re really cute what is this.’ i realized that wasn’t hetero, decided i was too socially anxious about the dance to process that, and put off coming out to myself for another two years
my word has always been bisexual. even as i’ve added queer as an identifier and gone back and forth on ace-spectrum stuff and had the ‘well if i 90% like women and nonbinary people is that even really bisexual or am i just socially conditioned to be scared of lesbianism’ my identity as a bi person has been important. i can’t imagine that changing
anyway there’s some Sexuality Feelings word vomit!
I love this!
thank you all for this!
this part really resonated with me:
“I’m not sure how to articulate what keeps me committed to it – a contrarian streak, maybe, and a love of the parts of us that are not always in vogue, easily legible, or have obvious political or social utility. We talk a lot about queer as a disruptive or oppositional identity, which resonates with me (the term lesbian is certainly also these things, in ways that I love and admire!); I like being aware of the ways that bisexual is as well, if most obviously with respect to how many people would prefer to flatten it and make it something elementary and pedantic and are frustrated in their attempt to do so.”
I love this so much.
I’ve been identifying as bi since 1991 ish.
I started to come out to myself at age 20, in 1990. At the time, I knew of exactly 3 bi people – David Bowie, Virginia Wolff and my friend J. I met J in college and she literally changed my life because she was open about having been with men and women (and also she flirted with me and I kind of flirted back) – and that’s when I realized that being bi was something available to someone like me (and not limited to rock stars or depressed authors).
Then I spent a semester abroad and when I came back for my senior year I discovered that 3 of my close female friends had come out while I was out of the country – 2 as bi and 1 as a lesbian. And that made it easy and natural to come out. Having my little cohort of baby bi girls also made it easy to declare myself bi – it just made the most sense.
My pendulum has swung a few times in terms of feeling more straight identified or more queer identified.
I’ve talked here before about coming out for the 2nd time in my 40s, after I realized that I’d accidentally bi-erased myself after being married to my husband for 12+ years and that I felt like I was living a lie of omission.
I also struggled with feeling not bi enough. Robyn Ochs’ definition really helped me re-embrace being bi. As did the idea that one could be bisexual and hetero or homo romantic.
I posted after you, but wanted to let you know that I feel the same about bi-erasure. I have been with the same man (I am a woman) for 42 years. We constantly have to talk about how I am bi and what that means for me and our politics.
i like the term queer, but i think some folks may relate to it as a political statement as much as about sexuality. that may not feel like a good fit. and i’m pretty cool with the old terms personally, so i don’t experientially understand where the difficulty is for others. i feel nothing but empathy for those who do find it difficult.
perhaps we could all just be alphabetual, accepting all the letters without distinction. then the question would just be ‘are you into it, or no?’
I. Love. Bi week. Thank you.
“Bisexuals have *always been here* disrupting binaries and being hot all over the damn place!” -Adrian
I just wanted to underline this:)
“I was attracted to Devon Sawa and Christina Ricci in Now and Then.” -Kaelyn
OMG. Same.
Me too! My mind just exploded! I wish I could go tell my younger self because I was definitely the meme with all the math equations floating around my head. Her, him and them! <3!!! Wait what?! OMG! Run away! (and stay confused for at least another decade)
“stay confused for at least another decade.” Yep exactly
THIS and The Mummy. I was obsessed with Rachel Weisz and Brendan Frazier. Saw that movie in the theater 5 times. 🤣
oh my. That IS a good bi double feature
For me it was Little Giants, with the tomboy football player Becky O’Shea (looked up the actress, who is Shawna Waldron) and Devon Sawa.
Here, too!
” It’s interesting that “bisexual” specifically so often comes up when the topic is about someone who “doesn’t do labels” or “doesn’t like being put in a box” because it seems to me so obviously resistant to those types of oversimplified categorizations; I love having the only hard-and-fast commitment being one to possibility and change” – I don’t ID as bi but I LOVE this as a way of looking at it.
I identify so hard with Casey’s “But I didn’t have the words for it, and the possibility did not exist in my imagination for a long time. In high school I oscillated internally between thinking, “Well I can’t be gay because I’ve had crushes on boys,” and ‘Well I can’t be straight because I’ve had crushes on girls.”” For awhile I thought I was asexual because I didn’t find one group more attractive than the other (and frankly sometimes still do because I’m still not sure that I experience sexual attraction like other people do even though I’m fond of the activity). Weirdly, it was signing up for facebook in 2006 that made me realize I could in fact click both boxes (and later I learned that there were way more than two boxes).
High five! I’m glad what I wrote resonated with you. And I’m glad that Facebook has finally done some good in the world!!
Casey I think you are so hot. I would love to meet you.
“Two, but not binary.” Yes to this, so much.
I don’t know the exact day I realized I was bi, but I’ve managed to narrow it down to the last week of November 2011. I was newly 21 and had a crush on a college classmate. I came out to a coworker and then to my best friends that same week.
For many years I felt I had lost too much time and come out too late, like I missed the chance to go through my teens knowing myself fully. But now I look back and think I was just a baby and I came out when I could, when I was ready to process it.
I thought crushing on boys meant I had to look no further because even though I knew the term bisexual I had only seen straight women and lesbians portrayed in media. So liking boys probably meant that was it? I sometimes made out with girl friends and once my bff and I took a shower together and we stared at our naked bodies and giggled. We were 13 and we knew we weren’t supposed to do that but just laughed it off and repressed it for years.
I was in a relationship with a cis guy from ages 14 to 19, so I was just comfortable being a sexually active teen and getting good grades. Yes, I read fan fiction, and yes, I had queer friends and yes, I CARED A LOT about getting marriage equality but I thought that just meant I was an ALLY.
Turns out, I’m 100% bi all of the time. Coming out was a huge step towards loving myself and taking a better care of my mental health. It also helped me a lot in accepting my body. I’m a fat bi tomboy femme and I’m proud of it.
Happy Bi Visibility day, everyone!
I identified as trans and ace from ages 16 to 27, but then started developing a sex drive and then it’s “I guess I’m bi now? That’s another thing I have to learn to deal with, so annoying.” Though it was over a decade until it felt like either of those labels *really* mattered, since I was in no position to start transitioning and I only ever dated bi men (not on purpose, either it was a coincidence or something weird was going on) so as far as most people were concerned, I was a gay man in denial, which was a pain.
In recent years I lived and breathed the kind of environments where it’s easy to forget that cisheteronormativity even exists, at least until the global plague made me a bit of a shut-in.
Oh I love this so much.
I feel very fortunate to have realized that I am bi during the late 1970’s. I worked on a gay rights campaign and fell for both a woman and a man, took the first gay studies class at my University (where I was told by a man in the back of the class that bisexuality does not exist) all within one year and felt great about my choice. The woman unfortunately had not yet come to grips with being a lesbian. I have been with the man I met at the gay rights campaign who thought I was gay and who I thought was gay, and we have been in love for 42 years. The comments about bi-erasure in long term relationships had the most resonance for me since it looks like a heterosexual marriage and we know it is not. If I were with a woman for this long it would look like a lesbian relationship. Either way, I know I am bi.
“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge in myself the potential to be attracted, romantically and/or sexually, to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or to the same degree. For me, the bi in bisexual refers to attractions similar and different to my own.”
— me
To all of the beautiful bi+ people out there: You are beautiful. You are enough. We see and love and respect you.
Happy #bivisibilitymonth to all.
Love from your #bimama (if you want me to be this for you)
♥ ♥
Robyn, thank you so much for that quote, it really resonates.
Holy shit.
Thank you for this quote/definition, it’s been such a gift