‘If somebody doesn't like me because I'm bi or if they wish that I was different, then that's too bad for them’

Pronouns: she / her

Content warning: references to biphobia

Names have been changed and redacted to protect anonymity

In terms of your identity, that can be your gender identity, or your sexuality identity, how do you self-describe?

I self describe as a bi, queer woman, those are usually the terms that I use.

And what feels good about those terms?

I like the term bi just because I've looked at a lot of different labels, in terms of people who are attracted to multiple genders and that's just always the one that has stuck with me. And I love hearing about the specific history of the BI community, I love the flag, I love all of the wonderful and beautiful people that are within the community. And it's just the term that I feel fits me the closest, that I feel the most emotional connection with. And I like the term queer because I feel like it's a term that really can unify the community in terms of individual labels are really great in terms of self describing. But for me, when talking about the community as a whole, I think it can be helpful to have a term that can apply to everybody if they choose for it to apply to themselves.

And we're using 'bisexual' as the umbrella term to include many other terms that people prefer. So it could be pan, queer. In that umbrella, are there any terms that you are not particularly fond of for any reason?

I would say nothing that I can think of. I think people have their own deeply personal reasons for identifying with certain terms such as pan or queer or multi sexual or anything like that. And I don't really find any issue with other people using those terms. Bi is just the one that fits me the best, I think.

And when did you first become aware of your being bisexual?

Well, I think the first time I kind of had an inkling that I might be bisexual is at my high school, they had the Gay Straight Alliance go to all the freshmen classrooms for health class and talk about different queer identities, and they would give some definitions and things like that. And I remember at the time when they came up with the slide for bi, it was something that, I had heard that term kind of in passing, but I didn't entirely know what it meant, I kind of had like a baseline understanding of what it could mean. But then after hearing the people in that club talk about it, it got me thinking a lot more about kind of my history of romantic and emotional attraction and physical attraction to people. And even though I had only dated men in the past, at that point, it really kind of opened my eyes in terms of what my identity could be. And then at that point, freshman year, I kind of squashed that thought down. Because I was like "Oh, gosh, I don't know if I'm just like..." I was kind of worried that people would think I'd be looking for attention or something. But by the time I got to the end of my sophomore years, it was something that I had thought of a whole lot more. And that's when I started really actually coming out to some people, not everybody yet. But yeah, freshman year of high school was when I first really started thinking of it as an actual option for me how to identify. But I've always had romantic crushes on people of all genders, but it had been something where I was like "Oh, I don't know what this feeling is. So I'm going to squash it down and not really think about it" or "Oh, that's not actually like a serious crush. You just want to be friends with this person”.

And you've mentioned that coming out has been part of your experience? What does the term coming out mean for you?   

Well initially coming out meant that I did a big announcement. I went and I told all my friends individually, and then I told my parents and then I told the rest of my extended family. And I think that was what I was, I was a sophomore in high school when I officially came out to people. But you know, as a queer person, every time you meet a new person, you get to choose if you're going to come out or not come out. And for me, being out means that if I'm in a situation where it feels safe to do so, if somebody assumes that I'm straight, I correct them. So that's what being out means to me at this point.

And when you have come out to people, or when people are aware of your sexuality, have you had any responses from people about it?

Yeah, so luckily, my friends and my family have been, for the most part, very responsive to it, very accepting, even if they don't quite know what the term bisexual means. From my experience it's mostly been coming out to people saying that I'm bi and then maybe, a couple of weeks later, people have some clarifying questions, "Okay, well, what does that actually mean?" So, I've been very fortunate to have mostly positive initial reactions from people, even if they don't quite understand what I'm saying or where I'm coming from. But for me, actually, the main difficulty has been there have been people who have acted supportive in the beginning. But then down the line there's some things about identifying as bi rather than lesbian or straight. I had this really terrible experience in college where I had a big group of queer friends, and essentially, they would just make fun of me for being bi and say things like "It would be so much better if you were lesbian.” And I'm not friends with any of them anymore, but it was something where in the beginning I thought, "Oh, we are all just queer friends who are hanging out, and we're all totally accepting of each other," which is how I felt I was. But in the end, it turned out that their acceptance of me was kind of conditional on the fact of I didn't talk about attraction to men. So that was definitely unfortunate. But I feel like I've been able to kind of have a community of people where if somebody isn't fully accepting of me or other people within the queer community, if they're transphobic, Pan phobic, against lesbians, any orientation, I definitely distance myself from them and don't consider myself close to them.

How did that make you feel?

I mean, initially, it made me feel just terrible. It was definitely one of the worst friendship experiences of my life, of having a group of friends who I felt very close to. And, prior to going to college, the majority of my friends were straight, so their acceptance of me was mostly an acceptance of they totally accept and love me, but sometimes there's things that they don't understand. And so even though, I love them and they love me, sometimes they'll have questions or say something or just that we can't necessarily relate on that level of being a queer person. So when I got to college and I got that huge group of friends who were all queer, that was definitely a loss I feel. To know that I wasn't actually accepted, even though we could relate on certain levels that I felt me and my straight friends couldn't always necessarily relate to each other, even if there was an attempt to.

And do you feel being a bisexual woman affects the responses you've had?

Yeah, I think some people think that I'm not necessarily serious when I come out. When I first came out as bi, I came out in high school and then the college that I go to, I'm going to graduate this year, it's Mills College. And Mills College is a historically women's college. So there's this huge stereotype of people being gay until graduation. There's a huge queer community at Mills College. So I think definitely being a bisexual woman, there's this certain level of distrust in terms of’ "Oh, well." One from the queer community; sometimes there's this distrust being like, "Well, maybe you aren't actually, fully committed to being part of the community. You might just be queer until graduation. You might just be taking on the label for attention or to make men be really attracted to you or whatever." And then I feel like I've also experienced some suspicion from straight communities, where they'll be like "Oh, that's just a term that people use when they have silly crushes. Or it's something that they'll get over”. So definitely being a bisexual woman (and) getting the intersections of misogyny and also biphobia. It's been an interesting experience, to say the least.

And do you think the gender of your partner affects the responses you get from people sometimes?

Definitely. So all of the relationships I've been in I've actually only dated people who identify as somewhere under the queer umbrella. So even when I've dated men in the past, they've been bi or queer in some other different identifying terms. So whenever I've been with men, I definitely feel like when I talk about being bi, honestly, I feel like people just feel annoyed. When I'm doing that, they'll just kind of be like "Oh, you just want attention. You're having straight passing privilege by dating this person," Which I always think is really funny, because even though I'm bi I've never been in a relationship with someone who is straight and cis. So I always think that's kind of funny, when people say 'all bi people have straight passing privilege' when I'm like, 'not necessarily', and then my current partner is lesbian. And what I found in this relationship is that I definitely feel a lot more accepted by the queer community, in terms of being in this relationship. But I do find that a lot of people assume that I'm lesbian, because my partner is, which isn't a bad thing. I don't think it's bad to be assumed to be lesbian, because I don't think it's bad to be lesbian. But, it just happened to be incorrect for me, personally. And so that's definitely been kind of interesting how suddenly I find people referring to our relationship as a lesbian relationship or things like that. And those aren't necessarily terms that I personally feel comfortable with, because I don't identify with the term lesbian. But yeah, definitely, depending on the partner that I'm with, I feel like I'm perceived differently by different communities.

And are you aware of any stereotypes or terms or terms of phrases that are associated with the bi community?

Yeah, I mean, from what I've heard the bi community is associated with being untrustworthy, being wishy washy in terms of decision making, being indecisive, I actually definitely identify with being indecisive. But it's because I'm a Libra, not so far as having to do with my orientation or anything. But definitely all these stereotypes , especially in the research that I've done about the history of  HIV and AIDS, bi people being seen as disease vectors in terms of bringing AIDS and HIV to straight communities and things like that, and always toeing the line in between gay people and straight people. Even though most people who are bi don't identify as gay or straight, they identify as bi. I've definitely heard people reference bi people in a way where they're traitorous or being traitors to the gay community if they are in a different gender relationship, or traitors to the straight community if they are in a same gender relationship. So definitely a lot of harmful stereotypes and harmful ideas about bi people that I feel like are extremely prevalent. And also an accepted form of hate and stereotypes that I feel, especially in that experience that I had, where I had that group of queer friends who were extremely bi phobic to me, it really felt like they felt it was okay to be doing that. Whereas I know that if someone has been homophobic that they would be like "Oh, this person is a mean person, this person is not an accepting person." So yeah, that I think that kind of wraps up some of the stereotypes and things that I've heard about bi people

How about bi women in particular, do you think there are any stereotypes or anything associated just with bi women?

Yeah, I think with bi women there's the stereotype that bi women are extremely sexual  and more associated with sexuality. Or that stereotype that bi women are always looking for a threesome or things like that. And then also the stereotype that bi women aren't actually bi, they're actually straight or they're actually lesbian. And that mostly just depends on the individual person and how people perceive them.

And are you aware of the term bierasure? What does that mean to you?

For me, bierasure is the idea that bi people are erased from the history of the LGBT rights movement because bi is a newer term than gay and lesbian. And also because of certain movements, like (the) lesbian separatist movements, where (they) don't want to associate with men in any way, shape, or form. And since bi women can be attracted to men, I've just heard all types of things, a lot of people don't know that Brenda Howard, she's called the 'Mother of Pride' and she was a bi woman. All types of things like that, where, you'll read a book about LGBT history and there isn't a single person bi listed. Or you'll hear of marches called the gay/lesbian march and that's pretty erasing of bi and trans people, and people (of) other identities as well. It's also just an assumption that if you're talking to someone that they're going to be monosexual. So if I was with a man, people would assume that I'm straight, if I'm with a woman people assume I'm lesbian. And if I'm with someone who's non-binary, people assume whichever gender they assigned to that person. So yeah, bierasure incessantly, very constant within bi experiences, I feel like there's constantly this narrative of bi communities don't have history. And bi trailblazers within the queer rights movements, and things like that, weren't actually a part of it. When the reality is bi people have always been a part of fighting for queer liberation, but it's just that they aren't always named.

And if you knew there was going to be a representation of a bi person in the media, what would you want to see?

I think there needs to be a lot more representations of bi people of colour. And often, like within all representations of queer people, you know, representation is very, like whitewashed, very, like.. Typically, you'll see like privileged people, people with a lot of wealth and things like that. And in terms of good bi representation, I think, just seeing a bi person, live their life and have certain experiences that are impacted by the facts that they're bi but not necessarily have that be their entire identity. Or like something that is the only thing or the only character trait, but like you know about them. And actually, the TV show 'This is Us." I feel like they had a really good representation of a bi man. His name is William and he's like the biological father of one of the characters, and essentially, like, it's revealed at some point that he's bi and like, pretty much everybody, it just just, you know, accepts it. And like he has so many like, life experiences, with like, relationships with people of many genders and things like that, where it's like, it's just accepted and like it's not necessarily seen in a poor light. And like, I don't... any of the stereotypes about bi people that exist, like I haven't personally seen it with him, the character William is like an elderly black man. And I would say that's probably one of my favourite representations of a bi person in media, just because it's so rare to see this like, a representation of like a bi person living like a normal life, and especially seeing like, elderly queer people, like you rarely ever see that in the media and you rarely ever see bi people. You rarely ever see queer people of colour in the media, especially being elderly. So that was definitely one of my favourite representations.

Have you had any particularly memorable positive responses from anybody?

I would say some positive responses are when I first came out to my brother, he was really shocked. But then maybe not shocked in a bad way, just shocked because he didn't know, him and I are really close. And then, maybe six months later, he told me how glad he was that I came out to him because it made our sibling relationships so much closer now that I felt like I wasn't hiding anything. I had one friend I was really afraid to come out to because she's Catholic. And even though I had never heard her say anything particularly negative about queer people, she was definitely a friend that I was worried to come out to. But she was just incredibly supportive, was like "Oh, my gosh, that's so great. Why didn't you tell me earlier? I'm so glad that you told me." So I think definitely those responses of people saying that they're really glad that I told them. I think a lot of people, when someone comes out, it can turn into an experience where it's like "Oh, why are you telling me this? It's hurting our relationship, or it's going to make things so much harder for you." But in those two instances, people were just like, "Oh, my God, that's great!"

And where do you feel most confident expressing yourselves? Where do you feel most welcome and accepted in your sexuality?

I feel most welcome and accepted in my sexuality just spending time with the people in my life who I know truly accept me. Even if certain people don't necessarily share the same identities with me or anything, just talking to my friends who totally accept me for who I am and don't make me feel weird about it. My parents actually have been incredibly supportive, which I feel very lucky about. And so they're just very open and makes you feel very accepted, I'll hear them on the phone sometimes talking about me to other people. And they don't shy away from the fact that I'm bi or that I'm dating a woman, which I feel extremely lucky and privileged for. Because I know for so many people in the queer community that is not their experience with their parents or their friends or family. So I feel the most accepted as a bi person when I'm spending time with those people.

Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

When I had all those friends, former friends, be super bi phobic to me. I was extremely sad and negative on myself for a while but actually, after that experience, I feel like it motivated me to be even more open about who I am and even more proud of who I am. Just because I was like, "I don't want anybody to ever make me feel that way again. And if somebody doesn't like me because I'm bi or if they wish that I was different, then that's too bad for them. Because I love myself. I love my identity. I don't want to feel shame over it anymore.” And so actually what I did once I took on that mindset is I bought this bright red sweatshirt that says 'bisexual badass' (in)a super bold font. And some people, the former friends who are really terrible to me, we all went to school together, and I would just wear it on campus and feel incredibly secure in myself and just feel like I need to be the bi person who loves themselves so that other bi people can see me and think "I can be proud of myself too."