9 Responses to “Seeking Invisible Bisexuals”

1. # Lizon 03 Mar 2001 at 10:22 am

   I’ve been out as bisexual for about 6 years now, since I was 16.

   I started my college career at an extremely liberal private college in Ohio, so I was given excellent space and support to explore my sexuality. I shaved my head and pierced my tongue. Even there, however, there was reluctance on the part of lesbians to take bisexuals seriously. Bi-phobia was pretty rampant in a closeted sort of way (it’s not PC to shun “alternative” sexualities there.) I began to feel pretty ashamed when I crushed on a guy or engaged in any physical contact.

   But I didn’t feel really comfortable with girls, either. I just really liked them.

   You know how you felt when you first developed a real crush, that akward 13-14 year old stage? That was me with girls. It was the first time I had ACCESS to women who liked women (besides the beautiful Anna Ward in Senior English class in high school, but she was friends with my boyfriend.)

   So before I could even really figure out what to DO with my new girlfriend in college, I started feeling pretty alienated. I was ashamed that I found boys attractive, too. And I got sick of hearing the whole “bisexuality is a phase and a trendy way to attract men, and no self-respecting lesbian would let one in her bed” spiel. Maybe I was over-sensitive. But, as much as I want to belong to the queer community, there’s no way I’m going to go asking for criticism and judgement.

   When I transfered to a big midwest state college, I felt pretty cocky. After college, NO ONE could phase me, and certainly not some rural cowboys and sorority girls.

   Um, no. I had to search pretty hard to find the queer alliance in the first place, and when I got there, there were few women and nobody came out as being bisexual. I was scared they’d find me out.

   As luck would have it, I fell in love with a boy. (I just realized that I wrote tons about nothing that had anything to do with your question. I guess I just needed to talk about it…this is where your question comes in.) At first I was scared to walk around my campus with my honey for fear that one of my queer peers would spot me and wag their tongue. True, by then I think they suspected anyway, but the last thing I wanted was that gossip breeding ground to start judging me. Eventually, my boyfriend moved upstairs from the vice-president and her girlfriend. By then, I didn’t care. I’d stopped going to meetings because I didn’t want people looking at me funny. Now, I’ll come out to anyone in the world as a girl who likes both girls and boys…unless it’s a girl who just likes girls.

   Maybe it’s my inflated sense of paranoia. Maybe they’d like me just as much if they knew that I was sleeping with a boy. Somehow I doubt it.

   I still work for and support queer causes, but I find it pretty difficult to hang out in the queer community, particularly among lesbians. It’s a shame, too. I “pass” for straight but I openly identify as queer. It makes me sad, too, because so many of the very neatest women I know, the women I most want to be friends with, are lesbians.

   *sigh*

   any suggestions on how to make it better?

   —–

   Let me know if that helps at all. I didn’t mean to make it an essay, but I haven’t talked about my grief over this sense of alienation (grief! I’m about to cry!) or even recognized it as such until now. I guess the anonimity helps.

2. # LBon 03 Mar 2001 at 10:23 am

   I’m interested in talking to you about possibly being included.

3. # MGon 03 Mar 2001 at 12:20 pm

   i am currently invovled with a woman (who at times can pass for a little boy…she’s short :) ) and i have had a lot of feedback from the lesbian and gay community about the “eventuality” of my being a lesbian. and i get frustrated about it, and many times feel isolated from the LG community. thanks a lot

4. # JCMon 03 Mar 2001 at 6:25 pm

   i’m a 20 year female (bisexual) who has been in a monogamous, committed opposite sex relationship for the last 15 months now. i’m from st. paul originally and when i was 15, i ‘came out’ as lesbian and began doing a fair amount of public speaking within my school and at other confrences around the area. prior to ‘coming out’ i dated men, but once i began dating women, i tried to avoid the questions everybody was presenting to me about ‘phases’ and ‘trends’ of both homosexuality and bisexuality by simply saying, “hey, i like dating women, i’m probably gonna date women for the rest of my life, so get used to it.” what’s become more obvious to me now at 20 is just how fluid sexuality and love can be….my current heterosexual relationship has brought me to question all sorts of issues, theories, and cultural practices. i’ve had to not only address my own biphobia but also address issues of heterosexual privilege as well as my current feelings of being outcasted by my own queer community.

   i openly identify as bisexual. but in my case, because i was so openly identified as lesbian, much of my work has been towards having my love for a man recognized and respected within the queer community.

   i have a hard time, as well, after over a year with this man and feeling ousted by the queer community, understanding my own ‘queerness’. . .though i have experienced ‘queer’ things i.e. coming out, dating same sex women, speaking out on queer issues - am i more or less an ally at this point?

   especially if i continue to date this man?

   there are a lot of things to talk about. but i thought i would let you know that i’m out here if you want to access someone who spends a lot of time thinking and discussing bisexuality.

   i, too, was at the MBLGTACC and introduced myself as i’m sure many others did. anywyas, keep up the good work.

5. # Naomion 04 Mar 2001 at 3:26 pm

   I came out as gay when I was 14. I think I always knew I was bi but I really didn’t want to be, I had some really negative ideas about bisexuals due to past relationship experiences and to negative attitudes of gay people I knew. People would say that bisexuals were only out to have sex with everything that moved and “bi now, gay later” meaning everyone who came out as bi just wasn’t ready to deal with being gay yet. Well I was fine beleiving stuff like that for a few years, then I met and fell in love with the man who is now my boyfriend of 1 year and 8 months, and it made me rethink everything.

   At first I told myself that I was just a lesbian who had fallen in love with a man, who could never fall in love with any other man except him and so could still call myself gay. But slowly, looking at past experiences, i realized that there had been other men I had had crushes on and been attracted to, although on the whole I was more attracted to women. So I finally started to accept my bisexual identity, but not without reservation. What makes it very hard for me is that i deeply beleive in monogamy. It is a huge struggle, being so in love with my boyfriend, thinking maybe some day I might end up with him, but at the same time realizing that that means I will never be with a woman again, cause when I get married (to a man or a woman) I want it to last, til death do us part.It helped a lot to come to college and come out as bisexual to my new friends, and have them accept me as that right off the bat, as opposed to my old friends who were kind of like “what’s up with naomi?” 1st she’s bi, then gay, then gay but in love with a man, then bi again. I think it was hard for them to understand. Anyway, when I came out i was very adament about being queer, and if anyone would say something like “that’s so gay” I would call them on it and hold up myself as an example. Now that i can no longer say I’m gay though, its a lot harder for me to stand up to people, I feel like my argument has been weakened somehow. There is also that it’s not a choice argument that I can no longer use, since in being bisexual it is my choice weather to be with a man or a woman. i don’t know, i feel like i have been rendered invisible and I hate it. I’m proud to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand, but at the same time i hate that that makes people assume i am straight, cause i don’t want to pass.

   On the other hand, if i were with a woman, i think i wouldn’t mind too much throwing away my bisexual identity. I just have no desire to be straight, i want to be queer and i want people to know that. I came out to my parents when I was 14, then a few years later I started dating my boyfriend and I just didn’t say anythig to them, until xmas break, i had to come out again to them because i didn’t want them assumign that i had gone through a phase (which is what they thought my coming out was in the 1st place) it really wasn’t much of a conversation, i asked my mom if she thought that just because i was with my boyfriend l that it meant i wasn’t queer anymore, and she just looked uncomfortable and said, well no, then I explained to her that i liked girls better than boys but that i loved my boyfriend, then the phone rang and it was over. I don’t know if she said anythign to my dad or if she forgot about it or what, but im glad i at least said something. so, thats my bisexual experience story. I just really enjoy having the chance to talk about it, it makes me understand things better when i talk them out or write them down. anyway, i don’t know what you’re going to do with this if anything, but here.

6. # Ton 15 Mar 2001 at 3:18 pm

   Well, I am a married bi-sexual woman. I would love to participate as I have a lot to say on the matter. I DO NOT prefer to be labeled straight. True, I am labeled that way to the few people I am not out to. However, by and large, I prefer to be bi. It is part of who I am.

   Let me know what I can do to help. Oh and by the way, My husband is bi, too.

   Blessings~
   T

7. # L.A.on 27 Mar 2001 at 10:12 am

   I’m a sexuality educator who is in a monogamous heterosexual marriage. I’m bisexual, and my husband knows and is as supportive of my feelings as he can be. I would love to be out in my community, but I am not. Years ago, I came out as a lesbian among my friends and family. As time went by, I married a man, had a child, divorced, was celibate, and married another man. My personal inclination has always been to monogamous relationships, and I have a fully satisfying sex life. It is certainly easy for me to pass as straight since I am in such a clearly happy, loving marriage. For myself, I would prefer to be out as bisexual. However, bisexuality is overwhelmingly misunderstood by both the straight and gay communities, and I believe it would be unkind and unfair to subject my husband to the leers, stares and snickers of the misinformed among us. He is straight, and he struggles not to feel insecure about my sexual orientation. I appreciate his openmindedness and will not jeopardize his happiness for my own sense of political correctness. By the way, my first husband and my grown son both self-identify as bisexual, too.

8. # Tinaon 05 Sep 2001 at 12:20 am

   Is important to you to come out as bisexual in queer settings?

   It’s extremely important for me to identify as bi in a queer setting. However, when I’m situations like that it’s comfortable to do that. I think for us as bi people it’s harder to have that same feeling of comfort in a “mixed” setting, you know? Say that you are single and there’s a hottie in the corner, be it grrl or boy, and you want to know the story on them. Being in a mixed setting and coming out as bi can be really fucking scary. Because you don’t know how the other will respond. And not to mention how you interact with the people around you. You want to appear interested, but you don’t know if later down the line things go south with the person you hook up from the party and you meet up with another hottie from the party and then what do you do then. The last time they saw you was at a party and you where with such and such. How does that look now?

   A second part to add to this question is: “What about mixed settings?” I think you’ll get some really interesting answers.

   Are you OK with “passing” as gay or straight (as a result of being in a monogamous, same-sex or opposite-sex relationship)?

   My, God NO! It’s hard and it’s depressing. Having to “pass” is what keeps us out of committed relationships.

   Do you prefer passing?

   No. And I try to avoid it like the plague! Also it’s a safety decision. If you meet this awesome person and they are someone you want to send a good
   deal of your time with, you ask questions like: How do you feel about gay/straight issues? What about bi? And depending on how they answer you
   either tell them or you don’t or you leave them. I mean isn’t being with the one you love about accepting the whole person. Somewhere in the lesbian
   community that translation is lost or ignored when it comes to bi-women.

   Question to add: How do you tell a person that you’re interested in that your bi? How do you handle the situation if it looks like they are ignorant/
   or biased? How do you deal with it w/in your own family?

   Would you agree that there is an overall lack of dialogue about bisexuality, even within the “GLBT” community?

   I wouldn’t call it “lack of dialogue”. I’d call it discrimination. I grew up in the GL community. And the women around me HAD to identify as either GAY
   or straight. And those that tried to be themselves were ostracized. I mean, that happened in the late 80’s early 90’s in Boston. And I think that even
   today as a bi-woman, myself, I feel uncomfortable telling my mentors that I’m bi. i once came out to an older friend and i was called a “fence-sitter”. And it hurt. So I’m very selective about who i talk to about my sexuality. and I think that there are many of out there who can’t trust our best friend with this info.

   How to you respond to being told you are a “fence-sitter” or that “you’ll change your mind”?

   I’m offended by it. I mean here we are in the 21st century and granted my generation didn’t have to deal with police raids or stonewall, but there is still discrimination w/i the “community” It’s as if being “bi” is a joke. There is more acceptance to be transgendered than it is to be bi. This is because of the “fence-sitter”/ “you’ll change your mind” mentality. I don’t know how men deal with this, but for women, it’s the straight man’s fantasy having sex w/ to women and each other that is hurting us the most. And so we’re attacked from both fronts. We’re considered untrustworthy in a lesbian relationship and we’re expected to play out porn fantasies in a straight relationship.

9. # Pollyon 21 Sep 2006 at 10:28 am

   I’m a college student, and have identified as bi more or less since my junior year of high school. At the time I think it was more because I wanted to seem openminded - a friend said, “I’m bi partly because I think love can come in any form” and that sounded ok to me, and then it was not too much later that I realised that it wasn’t just something I was giving lip service to. I know that there are a lot of people on campus here who assume that I’m gay, and a lot who assume I’m straight; of the two, I prefer to be assumed straight because I’m still not completely comfortable with it. I occasionally bring up bi issues in our GSA, but no one really wants to talk about it.

   A lot of people still say that they went through a “bi phase” before coming out as gay; I’ve been sure I was straight and sure I was a lesbian and it’s never constant. I go back and forth a lot. Having a crush on a particular person influences that a lot. It bothers me a lot that a lot of people wouldn’t date me just because I’m bi - they’re all afraid of getting left for the opposite sex. And then there are the lesbians on campus here who wouldn’t date me on principle because I’m “not really gay.” I do just as much for the gay community as they do and I wish these people, who ought to be tolerant because they’ve been so harassed themselves, would actually do what they talk about. I think a lot of them think the world would be perfect if everyone were gay. My take is just that it takes all kinds, and it doesn’t matter what you do with another person as long as no one gets hurt. But bisexuality is scary; straight people are starting to accept that homosexuality isn’t just about hormones, and bisexuality just runs all over that little line.

   People like being able to put things in boxes, and you can’t do that very easily with people who are bi. I think there needs to be a lot more dialogue but I don’t see it happening any time soon.

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