Coming Out

I read a thread online recently about bisexuality: folks were discussing use of the label compared to something like pansexual. Many folks within the LGBTQ+ umbrella argue that pansexual is a more inclusive label than bisexual, as bi- upholds a binary view of gender.

My relationship with my bisexuality has been fraught. I can pinpoint in specificity where I feel it started: in the sixth grade (for me, 2005 or 2006), reading the sex ed chapter in my science textbook, I was presented with the three sexualities — heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality. I had, by that point, already started puberty and experienced low-level attraction. I’d been confused that that attraction never seemed to have a distinct target: I liked boys and I liked girls. I remember an immediate sense of comfort and belonging in the term. That’s allowed?, I thought. Reading it in a textbook made it seem so simple. Then surely that’s the way to be.

Through the rest of middle and high school, I continued to experience attraction in this way, but the word suddenly felt more complicated. I lived in an extremely conservative town; there were only a handful of openly queer kids, and I was inundated with queerphobic messaging — that bisexuality was just a phase, that everyone is a little bicurious during puberty. I digested it and refused the label, even as friends privately insisted to me that being in love with Natalie Portman wasn’t something straight women experienced.

This confusion and my (mostly unrelated) depression throughout high school made me uninterested in dating. When I finally graduated and moved on to college, the question became more pressing. I found myself seeking out spaces, both physically and digital, for queer people. My fleeting college friendships of the time were all with queer people. I found safety and comfort there, but I didn’t know why — I continued to insist I was straight and merely engaging in feminist allyship.

The final breaking point was, I’m a bit ashamed to say, watching an episode of Adventure Time. In “What Was Missing,” Marceline and Princess Bubblegum’s past relationship becomes queer at least subtextually (but almost explicitly). I found myself crying, and I wasn’t sure why; ruminating over it hours later, I realized what I was feeling was affirmation and euphoria. I returned back to the emotion I felt upon seeing the word bisexual in that textbook all those years ago, the simple acknowledgement and acceptance. It was the last time my sexuality made sense to me, and here again I felt that same emotion.

I finally accepted myself as bisexual from then on — I was 19 years old. I “came out” to a few online friends. but I felt some hang-ups identifying as such when I hadn’t been with any women (or anyone at that point — at least in any real way). It didn’t feel necessary to proclaim to the world just yet, but there was a solace in finally seeing myself as I am.

A few months later, I’d meet my current partner, a cisgender man, and the label started to become more complicated. I wasn’t sure I had any right to consider myself bisexual if I’d never been with any women, and really, it wasn’t something I had to think about all that often, being in a straight-presenting relationship. I continued to experience attraction to women (within the bounds of a monogamous relationship), but it didn’t feel all that important to me to define.

When I started my teaching job, I put a pride flag up in my room. I knew seeing it would matter to some kids, and I wanted my classroom to be an inclusive space. That snowballed into me starting the school’s GSA because I was apparently the only teacher in the building who had shown any open support for the LGBTQ+ community and willingness to sign a name to it. I’m not open about my bisexuality to my students or coworkers, however, because it simply doesn’t feel relevant¹; and again, there was a guilt in being in a straight-passing relationship: I didn’t need to tell anyone how I identified because I could hide under the guise of heterosexuality.

I’ve never had to be out or open because I haven’t been in a relationship that requires it. I told a friend that I considered myself bisexual recently and shared some of the asterisks on that identity that I’ve described here, adding that I really don’t know what coming out looks like anymore in 2023². But then, being around friends that I know know and being open about that part of my identity gives me that same comfort I felt in that textbook all those years ago.

So returning back to the word itself and whether it is or isn’t inclusive: for me, there’s a long history with the word bisexual that I can’t erase. There’s an attachment that I can’t discount. I experience different attraction to different genders, which doesn’t seem to gel with pansexuality to me. And perhaps the label shares somethings in common with the word biweekly; confusing, unclear, and in need of further explanation.

Consider this my explanation: it’s about what it means to me, the spirit of the word if not the technical meaning.