For as long as I can remember, my sexuality has been fluid. I had my first crush on a boy in kindergarten. And my first kiss with a girl in the second grade. Throughout middle school, and high school, I found myself infatuated with boys and girls, and really unsure of what labels to use to accurately describe me.
For a long time, it felt like the language didn’t fit. I didn’t fit.
Most of my teen years I spent dating guys. Not for any other reason than they were there, and that’s what I felt I was supposed to do. I had kissed girls–often at parties, sometimes in my room–but nothing more. I had wanted more, but I didn’t know how to ask. What would that mean? Was I gay? Was I bisexual? I didn’t know.
At twenty, I found myself in a relationship–my first real relationship–with a girl. Before this, guys I had been seeing had sometimes wanted more of a commitment from me, but I couldn’t give that. I didn’t want that. I took my willingness to be in a monogamous relationship with her as a sign: I must be gay. I must be a lesbian. (Later, I’d come to realize monogamy wasn’t something I really wanted with anyone, regardless of gender.)
And that’s how I identified for the next seven years–a lesbian–with most of that time being spent in longterm relationships with other women. Coming out–compared to others, including my ex-girlfriend–had been relatively easy. And it came with perks: now I was part of a community. Part of a club. Part of a culture that celebrated women, queerness, different bodies, different experiences. I had gone from feeling like I was never feminine enough or pretty enough, to feeling (for the most part) accepted and embraced for who I was.
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Being part of the LGBT+ community taught me how to love. It taught how to love myself (and recover from years of disordered eating) and it taught me how to love others. I had never experienced love and attraction to such a degree, to such an intensity. Being queer was an identity I took so much pride in. I loved being gay.
So you can imagine my confusion, my panic, when after being exclusively with women for years, I had my first crush on a man. It brought up a lot of feelings. A lot of fear. I tried to bury it, in the same way I had buried feelings for girls in my teens, but it always resurfaced. After seven years of freedom, I was back in the fucking closet.
Most bisexual women I meet are women who previously identified as straight, looking to explore queer relationships. I, however, come from the opposite side of the spectrum: I identified as gay, and now I’m looking to explore a more conventional relationship. While that might seem like it’s easier to come out to friends and families–maybe it is: after all, I’m essentially telling them I was less gay than I thought–it doesn’t come without its struggles, its insecurities, it’s newness.
What It Feels Like To Be Bisexual (After Coming Out As Gay)
Sometimes I Feel Like My Queer Identity Has Been Erased.
This has been a weird one. I already present very femme to begin with, so people have always assumed that I’m straight. Now that feels even more so. When before, it felt like I was fighting to prove to people how gay I was, at least I could hold up my lesbian partner’s hand and say “See?! Here’s the proof”. Now, it’s all that harder to justify my sexuality when I walk hand-in-hand with someone of a different gender.
I kissed a girl recently, and she looked at me and said “now I can tell my friend that you really are into girls”, as though my saying it wasn’t enough.
“My friends will think it’s so hot you’ve slept with girls”, a guy I went on a date with said once.
“So you’ll probably want to marry a guy and have kids, right?”
“So you’ll probably go back to women in the end, right?”
“But you’re not really gay.”
My identity sometimes feels like a toy for others to play with, an article of clothing for them to try on to see if it fits. When they’re bored, they can discard it. Sometimes it feels like men and women alike don’t take my feelings seriously–“she’s bi, she’ll hook up with anyone”. To them, my lack of commitment to a gender is a lack of commitment to them. Sometimes I find myself emotionally invested in someone, who only sees me as a fun anecdote. Sometimes the term “bi-curious” feels more like it defines the people who date me than the other way around.
Of course, that’s not always the case. There are people I’ve dated who could not care less about who I’m attracted to, so long as I’m attracted to them. There are straight men who ask me about my coming out experience and queer women who ask me how it feels seeing my sexuality change. People have been wonderful, and curious, and surprising.
The LGBT+ Community Is More Accepting of Bisexuals Than In The Past.
I remember years back, a gay friend of mine started dating a man. Our small lesbian community lost it, myself included. What a traitor. It was like watching Amber Heard marry Johnny Depp. In a community that was so thirsty for representation and bodies, a community that was constantly having to repeat “we can’t change the way we are, please accept us”, having a lesbian “switch sides” felt like a slap in the face. A step back. She was proving us wrong. So she lost friends. That’s bi-erasure for you.
Bisexuals have often been left out: too gay for the heteros, too straight for the queers. Thankfully, there’s been a lot of effort to change the conversation, to eliminate the stigma. We see more bisexual and queer folk on TV–more characters that are sexually fluid and nonchalant about who they sleep with. People are using labels like “queer” that eliminate hard limitations. People are open–rules are changing.
I was nervous to come out as bisexual. I was nervous to tell my gay friends I wanted to date men. And I’m really fortunate that I had no reason to be: they loved me all the same.
My Understanding of Love, Sex and Friendship Has Changed Completely.
Realizing that I can be equally attracted to different genders has also made me realize something else: there are a lot of people that I’m not attracted to. And that most of the people I am attracted to, I like because I’ve gotten to know them on a personal level. Intimacy, for me, has turned out to be a big part of attraction.
Because of that, I find tinder dates and one night stands to feel empty. The lines between my friendships and relationships are often blurred: I love the people in my life, and sometimes I’m not always sure in what capacity.
This has sometimes been confusing, but it’s often been rewarding. It’s made my friendships deeper, my relationships more enduring. I want to write more on this in another post, but I will say that I love love. I like to love people. And we can love people in so many different ways.
The Takeaway:
Sexuality is fluid. It’s changing. And that’s okay. It’s completely fine to spend half your life feeling one way, and then having those feelings change. The cool thing is that now more and more people are doing this. More people are exploring their sexuality and allowing themselves to be open. I wanted to write this in case you’ve been struggling. Maybe you feel a little confused (maybe a little excited). I hope that no matter how you feel, you choose to be yourself, whatever that looks like. Love yourself, embrace yourself.
The world is better for it, I promise.
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