A Bisexual Perspective

When I was a kid, I couldn’t even begin to grasp how much things would change when I grew older or how much I would change. Back when I was growing up, I never heard any words in my household associated with the LGBTQIA+ community. I didn’t even know it, or such people, existed. Even so, I knew I was different. I simply didn’t know why. Looking back, it was always staring me in the face, I just didn’t have a name for it. I was bisexual.

If I’m honest, I think I began to realize it when I started watching Xena: The Warrior Princess. I had the biggest crush on Gabrielle. Every time she was on screen I’d sigh whimsically to myself and think “She’s so pretty!” Then Calisto appeared and my little girl heart would race so fast when staring at her that I thought everyone could hear it racing. I never stopped to wonder why I was so drawn to them. Great characters, maybe? Ugh, sorry, what was I saying again, I was distracted by Gabrielle’s amazing mid-drift… Why do I love Calisto so much you ask? Uh…well you see.. she’s drop-dead beautiful in that outfit. That black leather, that chest, that perfect stomach…yes, please. Oh you mean personality. My bad. In all honesty I think I’ve rooted for Xena and Gabrielle to be girlfriends longer than I’ve known that sexualities have names.

Now to stop reliving childhood fantasies and get back on topic - It wasn’t until my early teen years that I actually started to question this attraction I had toward other girls. Surprisingly it was another girl in my girl scout troop, who happened to be my best friend at the time, who noticed how I’d stare at her and other girls. She asked me a question one night during a sleep over at my house that made me realize my attraction. I’ll never forget it. She said “What would you do if I said I wanted to kiss you?” My gut reaction was “please say that’s an invitation!” but my real answer was “I’d let you.” Sadly, she didn’t kiss me nor did I kiss her. She just started talking about how she liked both boys and girls and really pushed me to open up about my own feelings…feelings I hadn’t even known I’d been repressing until then. Even if we hadn't talked about it...considering how let down and disappointed I was that we didn’t kiss was practically my bisexuality smacking me in the face scouting "notice me, sempai!" There are admittedly very few things from my childhood that I would change, but not kissing her definitely makes that list.

While that event made me acknowledge that part of myself, I wasn’t ready then to embrace it, not really, and wouldn’t be for a long time. She may have made me admit to my sexuality, but admittance isn’t the same as acceptance. I may not have known the names of sexualities, but I knew I was supposed to like boys. So, I pushed it back for a long time, pretended I was straight. It was surprisingly easy for the most part. I don’t think pretending ever bothered me much until high school. I fell so hard for my (next) best friend that looking back on it, I feel so stupid for being that in love with someone I knew wouldn’t love me back. I let myself get heartbroken by her time and again by allowing her to pretend we were dating just so she could avoid dating guys she didn’t like, then toss me aside when she found a guy she did like because hey, we were just friends. Teenage years really are the worst. Live and learn, right?

I got over it, though, once I met my future (ex) husband during my senior year. Before I knew it, I was married and pregnant. Given that, I thought I’d never reveal that I was bisexual. I was married with a kid on the way. No one would ever have to know – and I’d never get my heart broken like that again but this is a story about change, so obviously it didn’t stay that way forever. The older I got, the more fed up I became of trying to be someone that I just...wasn’t. I was never going to be the person everyone wanted me to be and it reached a point that I truly hated myself. By the time I had my second child, I can truly say that I wanted to die. It wasn’t the life I wanted. It wasn’t me. I saw an option before me. Be me or be miserable. I chose to be me. I became a liberal in terms of politics, I started speaking my mind for the first time in my extremely sheltered life, I stopped trying to please everyone all the time. Oh, and I came out as bisexual. Needless to say my very religious ex-husband did not like that at all. To his credit, he did try – at first, but it was impossible. I was no longer the woman he’d married nor was he the person I had fallen in love with anymore. We divorced.

After my divorce, I really started coming out to people that I thought I could trust. Most I could, one I couldn’t. That person was a cousin of mine, someone I was extremely close to and thought I could talk about anything with. I thought my secrets were safe with him. They weren’t. He told his dad about me. His dad hated gay people, as did most of my family. It was little wonder then that he began calling all of my other family members – telling them that they should disown me for my perversion. I can still remember it like it was yesterday.

I was sitting in the living, doing an assignment for my Bachelor’s Degree, when my grandma got ‘the call’ that I didn’t even know was spreading through the family like wildfire. I remember her cursing my uncle – her son - out, telling him that she didn’t care if I was the devil himself, she’d never disown me so he could take his lies and shove them where the sun didn’t shine. Even later, when I told my grandma it was true, she stood by me. I won’t sit here and pretend she was a saint about it. She wasn’t. She was a huge supporter of LGBT rights, but I guess it’s different when it’s the person you raised coming out and not a stranger, at least it was for her. We quickly developed a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy around the subject. Even so, she never once spoke a bad word about it, and made it clear that she loved me without question or hesitation. She protected me from the rest of the family and wouldn’t allow a bad word said about me on the subject.

Years later, I remember one day asking her why she did it. Her response was that she raised me to think for myself. She said that she couldn’t be upset for doing exactly what she always hoped I’d do – be my own woman, and she respected that, even if she didn’t like it. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but it was for me. You see, I was raised with a pretty traditional Asian grandfather. As such, I had – and still have to this day – a personality that was forged in what most would consider pure sexism. As much as I wish I could fault this, I don’t. My grandfather was raised in a different culture, a different time. To this very day, my grandfather still won’t let me take out the trash because “women shouldn’t do that.” My brains I owe to my grandma, but a part of me will always be from my grandfather’s world, and I’m quite happy with the person that’s made me.

That said, the journey to be the person I am today hasn’t always been easy. It had its share of hardships. For instance, I realized soon after I came out just how stigmatized bisexuality really was. It’s as if life thought “let’s take a girl raised by an Asian, make her like metal music, give her some tattoos, dress her up all goth, and to really rub her nose in just how much she doesn’t fit in with the people around her, let’s make her bisexual too!” It didn’t take long after coming out that I quickly learned that being bisexual meant I was too gay for straight people, too straight for gay people, and should be way too open to threesomes by people who wanted a third and just assumed I’d be into it because ‘bi!” I’m not by the way. I swear, to this day I still can’t understand why people think that bisexual means “sure, I’ll sleep with your girlfriend as you watch. You can even join in.”

Before long, I’m pretty sure I’d heard just about every stereotype one could think up. “You’re greedy” “Pick a team” “You’re confused” “Best of both worlds” “bisexuals will sleep with anyone” “bisexuals love threesomes” “half-gay”. The list goes on. Needless to say, it was wrong, as broad generalizations always are. This prompted yet another change. I couldn’t sit idly by and listen to that. I had to say something, and say something I did. For a long time I used my Facebook as the platform of choice, turning it into my voice and making post after post about bisexuality. I also became quick to tell people I was bisexual and dispel the stereotypes to anyone I met. I even made presentations about it while at University during my Bachelor’s program. I fought against bi-erasure and spoke often of that too. I hoped that with time things would change.

Lo and behold, things did change, just not in the way I expected. The community went from LGBT to LGBTQIA+. Instead of male and female, we had male, female, non-binary, genderfuild, etc…and I was happy about it. Ecstatic, even. The more inclusive the better, I say. I was happy with each change, because that change meant progress. Then it happened. Pansexual. The word soon turned into a warzone. “You’re bi, so you ONLY like men and women, you can’t like transgender or any other gender, right? Oh, you can? Well, that means you’re pansexual, not bisexual. Bi means two, pan means all. You’re pan. Change with the times and deal with it.”

Oh, honey, no. I’m old-school. You see, when I was growing up we only had three flavors: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual. You found which flavor matched your sexuality the closest and you stuck to it like the glue on your fingers in the fourth grade. For me, bisexual was never, ever, about liking just two genders. It was about liking more then the one gender I was supposed to like. I’ve seen myself as bisexual for over half my life now. I’m kind of attached. We’ve been through some stuff together. We’re buddies. Why change it when I don’t feel I should have to? Until our community comes out with some official rulebook stating the qualifications for membership, I’m pretty happy with the label I’ve been using, thanks.

So comes the war. Bisexuals fighting with pansexuals, pansexuals fighting with bisexuals…it’s a mess. All the while I’m wondering why people can’t just label themselves in whatever way that makes them happy (or not label themselves at all) without someone else feeling like it’s their business and moral duty to butt in with an unwanted opinion – on either side. No matter how much stigma bisexuality gets, that’s the label I chose for myself – and that’s okay. No one has to fight. We’re all part of the same community. It’s perfectly okay to label yourself however you want.

What’s great is that for the most part we do, but the whole bi vs pan nonsense really opened my eyes to how much infighting can really go on within our community. Granted, the whole bi-erasure and ‘bisexuals are too gay for straights, and too straight for gays” was a pretty big indictor too, I won’t lie. I’ve even heard stories within the community of gays hating on lesbians and lesbians hating on gays. All I had to say to that was “Really, people? Really?” If we can’t even consider ourselves equals among each other, what hope do we have on being seen as equals to straight people?

Don’t get me wrong, I love this community. We’re more inclusive and accepting than we’ve ever been and I have hope for our future. Why? Because I see that future in my children. My son is thirteen and refuses to label his sexuality. If asked to pick one, he’d probably say that his label right now is officially “I don’t know and I don’t care.” My daughter is fourteen. She came out to me as bisexual when she was twelve and starting dating her first girlfriend shortly after whom she dated for a year. I'm sorry, did I say she came out to me? That girl didn't come out...she practically bragged about it. They are so open about sexuality and gender, so accepting of other people. I envy that they haven’t faced the challenges I did and I'm thankful that they live in a time where it’s possible to be like they are. They won’t have the same struggles my generation and older have faced – at least not to the same extent. I’ve noticed that so many in their age group are quick to toss out tradition and be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking. Their time is coming and I have faith in them. It's my fondest wish for them that that they’ll continue making things better because we have to get better. We have to grow and evolve.

Looking at my children, I can’t help but wonder how different I might be if I had been born in this time with an accepting family instead of the 80s with a family where that simply wasn't acceptable behavior. Would I still call myself bisexual? Probably not. Most likely I would have ran onto that Pansexual train quicker than the Village People could say YMCA, and at a much younger age. I’m not saying that there’s still not a lot of work to be done, because there is, but I’m optimistic. I’m also still bisexual. Not because it’s the only label out there to describe me anymore, because it’s not. I’m bisexual because that’s the label I claim for myself. It may be old-school. It may be outdated. I may just be stuck in my ways on some things, but at the end of the day, I don’t think it matters what I call myself. Pansexual, bisexual, humansexual…I’m proud of my sexuality and even prouder of this community. Sure my label causes controversy and one day maybe the label will die off and you know what? That’s okay. What others may see as a slap in the face to bisexuals everywhere, I see as growing pains.

I won’t give up my identity as a bisexual, but if the term should die off, I’m not going to mourn it either. I could be the last bisexual left standing and I’d still be utterly happy knowing that people are finding happiness and acceptance with themselves in whatever label they choose without the same traumas we had just for the three we were given at the time. So you see, I've changed a lot from when I was a kid. The LGBTQIA+ community has too, and we'll continue that change towards a bright future where hopefully labels won't matter and everyone is accepted for who they are.