Growing Up Bisexual

As a cis-gender, bisexual woman, my experience of my sexuality has always been complicated.  I alternatively thought I was straight and gay growing up.  I remember the fear of feeling gay and the relief of feeling straight.  It took me a long time before I realized I was, in a way, both and neither.

The structure of our society dictates that one must choose a side, though.  During middle school, I knew girls who identified as bisexual, but behind their backs the other kids would call them sluts.  I didn't think I was a slut, so I must have been straight.  I thought this all the while having a crush on my best friend, a girl.  I didn't know it at the time, but it was the first real crush I'd ever had beyond randomly choosing someone to "like" because everyone else had crushes, why didn't I?  But growing up Catholic meant that I couldn't be gay, I must be straight, so I was. 

I continued to ignore these feelings throughout most of high school.  I had crushes on boys outwardly and girls inwardly.  I eventually ended up breaking up with this best friend because when you stop being friends with someone you have a crush on, it's not just growing apart.  It's a break up.  I dated a guy my last two years of high school, thinking, "thank God I'm straight." 

I didn't admit to myself that I had these feelings until college, but I was still so afraid of them I cried thinking about it regularly.  I called myself bisexual to my friends, but I never really believed it.  I thought I was secretly gay and was just using bisexuality as a transition into homosexuality, because as I learned in middle school, bisexuality doesn't exist.  Calling girls who identify as bisexual sluts in middle school, Catholicism, having a boyfriend in high school erased bisexuality for me.  I had to choose between gay and straight, and I chose both during different points in my life.  During college, I was sure I was gay, I just didn't want anyone to know it yet.

I eventually came out to my family as a gay woman.  This came years after college, years after living as a gay woman.  The extent of which I lived as a gay woman was to call myself gay to friends and on dating websites and MeetUp.com.  I made gay friends.  I was single and gay and when same-sex marriage became legal, it was time for my family to know.  One of my brothers called me when he got my letter and we had a long conversation; the best conversation I had had with him that I can remember.  But that was it.  One of my sisters mentioned it once when I started dating my current boyfriend ("But I thought you were gay?") but otherwise, it hasn't been mentioned.  Honestly, I believe my mother threw away the letter without telling my dad and was relieved when I met my boyfriend.

Meeting him was hard.  At this point I knew sexuality is fluid, but I still identified as gay.  The letter I sent to each of my family members was out there.  Now, I had to be gay because I had a great conversation with my brother!  There's no way they would understand!  They would think, I was sure, that I was lying to get a rise out of them and I wouldn't doubt some of them still think that.  But I met him and we fell in love quickly and that was that.  I had to have the hard conversation that I'm actually bisexual, I guess.  But I grew up not believing bisexuality existed, why would my family believe that I am?  Women who say they are bisexual are confused or are sluts.

However, after having identified as gay for so long, I knew I wasn't straight.  There was no going back at this point just because I was with a man.  When I started dating him, a little over a year and a half ago, that's when I finally accepted my sexuality as a bisexual woman.  I am not straight, though most people think I am.  I am not gay, though privately I still feel that way.  I am both and I am neither.

As a cis-gender, bisexual woman, my experience of my sexuality has always been complicated.  I haven't ever felt there was a place for me in the conversation.  Sure, the "B" in LGBTQ+ stands for bisexual, but we are silenced, forgotten, and discriminated against in those circles.  Sure, I date men, but I'm also attracted to women and straight women don't think about other women in that way.

My experience has been complicated because my sexuality is both silenced and sexualized.  I and people like me are told both that we don't exist and that people like us just want to have sex with anyone, or worse, only have sex with women because we want the attention of men.

In a group I'm a part of on Facebook, the question was posed, "If there was one thing you could share with your greater community about your experience growing up as or living as a bisexual woman in today's society, what would it be?"  My answer is that I want people to know that sexuality is fluid.  Generally liberal people know this, but discrimination still exists.  If I knew, if I was taught, that my sexuality is ok, that it might change throughout my life, and that I can be attracted to anyone and it be fine, perhaps I wouldn't have been so confused.

As a non-straight person, I call myself gay.  As a non-gay person, I call myself bisexual.  But what I really want people to know is that I am just a person.  I'm not confused and I'm not here for you.  I'm here for me.