![]() I came out anew-only to be shocked when I later fell for a man all over again. I dated only women for a few years, identified as a lesbian, started a blog for queer femmes, and eventually got into a long-term, live-in relationship with a woman. ![]() So, in my early 20s, I threw myself in a new direction and got deeply involved in my local queer community. I was even engaged to one before I graduated from college! Eventually, this led me in the opposite direction of what you might assume: My sexual boredom and sometimes even disgust with the men I dated led me to believe I was, and always had been, super gay after all. But the love interests who tended to stick, who wanted me most, were cis men. I still identified as bisexual, because I had crushes, went on dates with, and hooked up with people of various genders. You eventually have to choose.” But instead of questioning our messed-up understanding of sexuality, doubt started creeping into my heart instead: Would I eventually have to choose?įor many years after that, I dated cis men almost exclusively, mostly as a result of convenience. Even my boyfriend at the time told me, point-blank, “No one is bisexual forever. Suddenly, my peers questioned my queerness. When I later started dating a man, though, I felt a significant shift. Sure, people mistook me for a lesbian and hurled associated slurs at me, but I felt solid in my bisexuality. I also helped start the Gay/Straight Alliance at my high school. ![]() ![]() I had crushes galore, and gender felt irrelevant to my attractions. I was very comfortable identifying as bisexual then. It was with her that I had my first sexual experience. I started dating my first love, a woman, when I was 15. Over the course of my life, because I internalized so much stigma around bisexuality, I’ve struggled with claiming this identity that at first felt custom-made for me. Unfortunately, my road to strong, assured bisexual identity was riddled with potholes, as it is for many of us. Not only was there a name for what I felt, but I wasn’t alone after all. Learning the word bisexual on the bus that day a couple of years later was an unforgettably powerful moment of validation. I was both-and I thought I was the only one. As I saw it at the time, there were girls who were attracted to boys, and there were girls who were attracted to girls, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t simply pick one. I wasn’t straight like I was supposed to be, but damn it, I wasn’t this countercultural “gay” thing either. But I went home and asked my dad what that meant, and it still didn’t fit. In the fifth grade, when a friend of mine sneered that I was gay as an insult, I thought maybe I had landed on a name for what I felt. Many queer kids have a similar experience: We’re presented with only one option of what relationships look like-cis man plus cis woman equals true love forever!-and we can sometimes sense early on that something about our internal experience feels different. But as a kid without a deep understanding of gender, I was nonetheless struck by my best friend’s definition. The simplification of being attracted to men and women (especially wherein these genders are assumed to be cis) is not only incorrect but also harmful. (If you're wondering, “ What is pansexuality?" here's what you need to know). Like her sister identities, such as pansexuality and omnisexuality, bisexuality implies an attraction to multiple (or all) genders. Bisexuality is more complicated than that, of course.
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