‘Being true to yourself is a way of getting rid of bierasure’
Pronouns: she / her
Content warning: swearing
Names have been redacted to protect anonymity
In terms of your sexuality, are there any terms that you feel you strongly align with or that you strongly disagree with in any way?
The thing is, I still feel like there is some argument around pansexuality being a thing. Because when I first came out, I came out as pansexual. Because that's what I thought it was supposed to be. So I find it really difficult because some people would slam you for saying, "Oh, if you're bisexual, you don't believe in additional genders? Oh, you're pansexual you don't believe that trans women are women?" I'm like, "No, I just like people. I'm just attracted to people for who they are, not because of their gender." So I don't necessarily feel like I don't align with any of them. It's more just, I am who I am. And that happens to be bisexual by category.
If I could speak about myself for a moment, I always consider that my interpretation of bisexuality is that you're attracted to more than one gender. And that's it. And so, pansexuality has never actually been a thing for me at all. How do you respond to that?
No I very much agree with that. Because initially, I count as pansexual. So I was like, "Oh, okay, that means that I'm just attracted to anybody and everybody." But again, being bilingual doesn't adhere to the idea that there are only two languages, it just means that you happen to speak those languages. It's not necessarily saying that bisexuality is only being attracted to two specific genders. It's just being attracted to, as you say, more than one gender.
Do you think that one is a better shorthand than another? Like if someone suddenly asks you, what is your go-to answer?
I'm not straight, is my go-to answer. Whenever anybody asked me, I'm like, "Look, I'm not gonna sit here and to try and explain to you the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality, what they mean to me, and if you're asking me, I'm just gonna say, Look, I'm not straight, I fancy whoever." And that is my shorthand. It's not because I don't necessarily like the labels. It's just because I find that gets across what I'm trying to say a lot easier than trying to sit there and have an in-depth conversation with people who have already had too many beers to be asking this conversation normally. [LAUGHTER] Like, does it matter? Is it any of your business, really?
That's great. Have you ever, bearing that in mind, have there been any kind of strong reactions to either or any of those phrases that you can think of?
What do you mean, like questioned it? I feel like, for the most part in my safe spaces, people just say, "Oh, cool, whatever." But then, of course, I notice that you do get people being like "Ah, do you want a threesome? Do you want this? Do you want that?" It's like "No, darling. No. That's not where this conversation is going. You've asked and I've answered you. And I arguably shouldn't have even answered you that, if this is the way that this conversation is gonna carry on." But no, I've always been really lucky in the friends I've managed to surround myself with. That sexuality has never really been that big of an issue for most people. There are some people that I'm living with now who have quite a few questions about it. And I'm more than happy to answer their questions. Because we all live together and [it] is in a sat down and very generic way like, "Oh, why do you feel this?" I'm like, "Well, let me talk to you about it." Because we have very different opinions on quite a few things. So it's a much more innocent kind of way in which they're asking. It's not to be abrasive or to be rude. It's just genuinely for their curiosity.
And what kind of questions come up?
'Why are you bi? When did you know? How do you know? What is the difference between this and that?' “Well, we can sit down, we can have all these conversations. That's absolutely fine. But in that case, I'm going to return them questions to you like. 'So, why are you straight?'” I don't try and do it to be abrasive, but it's more like trying to make it relatable to someone as well. Not trying to be like "Oh, why are you straight?" It's "Well, so what are your personal emotions about this? Why do you feel that way? Well, I kind of feel the same, but that's just the way that I always have." But for a lot of people, if they haven't experienced it, it's not necessarily something they can grasp their head around in the same way I don't think. It's like, "Well, I don't feel like that. How do you feel about that?" "Well, I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be depressed, but I can't imagine it's great." So just having that empathy to be like, hang on a second.
Coming back more personally to you, was coming out part of your experience?
I don't really think so. When I was younger, I was in friendship group, [where] it was kind of 'cool'. No one really cared, it was just the way that everybody was. No one really minded. I remember coming out at the lunch table being like, "Oh, I'm gay, by the way." And everyone was like "No shit, [REDACT]" But I felt like I needed to, because I felt like that was what part of the experience was supposed to be. Like, I thought like, 'oh, to do this, you have to come out.' Plus I don't feel the need to tell everybody my sexuality when I meet them. I'll share my pronouns if people ask me to, that's not a problem at all. But I don't know if I feel the need to say "Hi, I'm [REDACT]. I'm attracted to everybody." My mum never really viewed it as a thing. She's gotten so much better recently. She's been amazing. Because I remember first coming out to her when I was like, 14, it wasn't really much of a coming out. It was more of a "Oh, by the way..." And she was like, "Yeah, that doesn't exist. Cool. It's just a phase." And I'm like "Oh, that's a bit rude." But I didn't really expect anything different. It never really tarnished my relationship with my mum, because I sort of knew that would be the answer. But now she's got so much better with it. She always is like, "Oh, so the next partner that you bring home, or if you ever end up in a relationship." And I'm like, "Oh, thank you." That's really sweet. So for me, it's never really been part of my story. I feel like my bisexuality, it's changed and it's decreased and it's increased. I've sort of gone through phases where I'm like, "No, I'm not bi, I'm straight." And then I've gone, "No, [REDACT] you're a lesbian." And then I'm like, "No, I don't know what I am. Ah! Just be happy and be fine".
Coming out wasn't a defining part of it. It was just a part of it, I suppose.
Coming back to your mum's change of tack in terms of referring to partners and things like that - Do you think that you've experienced different reactions from people, depending on who your partner is, or what gender they identify as?
Completely. If I come home with somebody [male], it's just "Oh, that's your boyfriend, cool." If I come home with a woman, it's always "Oh, is this your friend?" And it's very much 'a friend' until it's "No, mother, this is." She is more hesitant - and I appreciate that. I know that for her is a big step, and it is a big process. But there is definitely a divide between the way that my relationships are accepted at home specifically. And I do find that with my friends sometimes as well, they'll always assume my partner is a friend until I specify like "No." Whereas I have friends who I go and see who are male, and the first thing that anybody jumps to is "Are they your boyfriend?" I'm like, "Well, they are my friend, but they are just ..." They're like "Are you sure it's nothing more?" "Well, a) he's gay, but even if he wasn't gay, that's not the point." So I feel like that's everyone's go to and everyone seems to kind of forget that I'm, I don't know.
You touched a little bit earlier on the idea of being part of a threesome or being the kind of 'third' in a situation. Do you think that that is spurred on by the fact that you are a woman who's attracted to more than one gender? Do you think that your gender comes into people's perceptions of your sexuality?
100%. [LAUGHTER] Because lesbianism is still so sexualized by men and by media and it's female bodies that are sexualized in a different way. That makes it seem more acceptable, if two women are kissing and they're not necessarily viewed as being in a relationship. That's much more "Ahh, two girls getting it on, just for the fun of it!" Because it's for the male gaze, and I'm like, "No, I'm not doing this for your gaze. I'm doing this because this person's really hot and I have zero interest in you." But I definitely believe that completely. It's more like the want of the untouchable, almost. Like, "Oh they're lesbian, I want that because I cannot have it." So, there's a lot of things that systemically go into the fetishization of queer women.
It's not every situation though. But I feel like the majority of times I've been asked to have a threesome that's been with two women and a man. And not necessarily the other way around. [LAUGHTER]
What do you think about the kind of difference between the way that how many kind of bisexual women there appear to be and how many, how few bisexual men there appear to be?
Again, with my friendship group, I'm quite lucky. I know quite a few men who are quite open with their sexuality, and will openly admit that they're bisexual. A lot of them have the tendency to be quite camp, if we're gonna go down that road. But then I met someone recently who I didn't know was bisexual because of my own views and prejudices. Big, burly, very abrasive, Scottish man, who was completely open minded, who just didn't care. Which I found really shocking for me, because I was like, "Oh, my goodness, this is not what my preconceived conceptions are. This is not what all of my bisexual friends are like! How dare you come in breaking these stereotypes!" I do feel in general, I feel like it's a lot more acceptable for women to come out as not straight, than it is for men to come out as not straight. They have the tendency to be able to pass for straight more even though that's not necessarily something any of them would like. And I feel like people will even assume that they're straight, rather than women being assumed that they're straight.
I feel like there's more of an option for women to be bisexual. You would never assume a man to be bisexual. You would either assume him to be gay or straight, depending on the way that you're viewing them and their stereotypes, I think.
With that in mind, what do you understand by or what is your response to the term bierasure?
Look, it's really easy for me to pass as straight. It's also incredibly easy for me to pass as gay, it just depends which outfit I put on. But that doesn't stop the fact that I am not straight, or 100% gay. I suppose bierasure can either come in the form of self-erasure, or it can come in bisexuality being erased by the media, as it were. Because I felt like we don't really see bisexual couples anyway, I mean, we don't see a lot of gay or lesbian ones either. But especially bisexuality, it just seems to be like this mythical little thing that doesn't really exist. And people will say, "Oh, you how gay are you? Like are you 60/40?" I'm like, "No, that's not how it works." But I know that I'm guilty of passing for straight, and I have sort of let people assume that I'm straight at times just to not bother going down that road of "Do you want a threesome?" It is erasing myself... in a sense, but at the same time, I don't necessarily feel as guilty doing it because I know that it's sometimes for my safety.
If I was one of your curious friends who doesn't know much about different sexualities [and] we were talking about bierasure, what would self erasure be? What would you define that as, under those terms?
Either passing for straight or passing for gay, I believe would be the best way of doing it. Sort of skirting around the subject that you actually find two people attractive. Because bisexuality is like such a fraught term, and some people don't really understand what it means. And it's so difficult to try and explain sometimes, that it's a lot easier. And it's a lot more linear for some people to just understand, either gay or straight. And I think whilst you're telling someone that you're either gay or straight, you can sort of lean into yourself as well. I know I mentioned earlier, there have been times when I've been 100% convinced by myself that I'm straight. That's because I was perpetuating to myself that I was. And so I lean back more into my bisexuality, and thought, "hang on a second, this is not who you are, you know that you're attracted to women as well, you know, this." And so that also led me down a path of thinking, hang on, are you attracted to men at all? Are you just completely lesbian? So then I went down that road for a while, like, sort of convincing myself that I was one or the other. Because being bi just, it just seemed too complicated. And it wasn't something I wanted to be, because it was too hard to explain. Nobody really understood what it meant. It's a lot easier for other people to understand, if you say I'm either this or that. Because for a lot of people they view bisexuality as 'in the middle'. I now view it as, "Look, this is just who I am, in a circle of sexuality and fluidity and gender and the way that things are expressed." So I think it's sort of just not listening to yourself and listen[ing] to the fact that you are attracted to more than one person, you might not be attracted to everybody, as some people like to think. Being true to yourself is a way of getting rid of bierasure. Bierasure is sort of like confirming to the biases of the world and trying to make life easier for you. But in the long run, it doesn't really make itself easier in the slightest. Because... you're not going to get around yourself like that, you're missing out on too many things, too many experiences. There's bigger and better things to worry about than your own sexuality. [LAUGHTER]
Do you think therefore, that bierasure, if it's all about just accepting ourselves, and it kind of doesn't really matter what other people are kind of worrying about in terms of who we actually are? Does bierasure matter, really?
Yes! Because bisexual people exist! Bisexuality is a thing! And being gay or being straight is very different to being bisexual and sort of just sitting there and being like, "Oh, this is binary," is really affecting to some people because there are some people growing up who don't understand. They're like, "Oh, I have these feelings for this person. Is it just because I am growing up and I want to be like them? Or do I fancy the fucking pants off them? Like, what am I going for here?" So I think that saying that, yeah, of course, it's important. You need to make sure that people understand that what they're feeling is normal. But then there's so many different forms of bisexuality and some different ways that people experience it. So we need to be able to normalise these things. For other people growing up, and other people must be potentially experiencing these things that don't know what the fuck they're doing, like, "Am I gay? Am I straight?" I'm like "You can be both!"
I think that's very well said.
Can you think of a time or a place where you have felt most confident about your sexuality?
The past few years for me have been fucking awesome. Honestly. I've gotten to a place where I've never told someone that I'm straight. I've never told someone that I'm gay, like in the past, like three, maybe four years, because I'm just now at a place where I'm really comfortable in myself, in my sexuality, what I believe in my experiences, and I know this is going to adapt. I know it's gonna change. But I know that currently I'm really safe within myself. I've got a really brilliant group of friends. I mean, sometimes they ask weird questions, but they mean well. And I'm happy to discuss that with them all the time. Like, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. So the past couple of years, I have been really comfortable within my sexuality. I think I finally got to a stage where I'm like, "No, this is who you are. This is absolutely fine. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. If they don't like it, they are not even in the slightest worth your time." I said I don't blurt it out to everybody, but I do occasionally when I'm drunk, drunk me loves talking about being bi. [LAUGHTER] Drunk me is like "I'm not straight, everybody, let me tell you!" They're like "Alright, [REDACT]" And I'm like "No! You need to know!”
If you don't want me asking, do you just think it's because you went through those periods of being like, "I must, must be straight. Or maybe I am just a lesbian." Do you think that's been why the last couple of years have been so brilliant is because you've gone through those stages?
I think that really helps. It's not gonna be the same for everybody. But I know that, for me, I can reflect on that and be like "Idiot!" But I can reflect on it and sort of sit there and go, "Okay, so why did you think that at that time?" I understand why past [REDACT] thought those things, I really do. But now I'm like, "No, it's okay. You've learned from those things, you've learned from those times. And you've moved on, you've understood why you're feeling that way at some point. And that's brilliant." I used to have a joke with my friend, I was like, "I'm having a gay day today." Just like, "you don't have to have a gay day. You can just have a being you day. That'd be good." I'm like, "No, that's ridiculous. I'm gay this week." "No, that's not how it works!" So I look back on that. And I'm like, "No, that was just silly, wasn't it?" So I've gone through those stages and I've gone through those phases. To sort of sit here and be like, "Now I'm comfortable who I am." And maybe that's just something that also comes with age and just becoming more comfortable in your own skin and what you like and what you don't like.