Happy Friday folks, hope you've all had a great week. Mine has consisted of my first day back at uni, dealing with the fuck-up that is Student Finance (that's a post all in itself), general stress and a lovely heaping of hormones and PMS on top. But given today's title you're probably aware that this isn't a post about my menstrual cycle - again that's one for another day. It's been a wonderful week for me on social media seeing all of the posts about Bisexuality Awareness Week and in the past few days something rather nice occurred to me:
It's been a whole Ten Bloody Years since I came out!!
Yes lovely people, I've decided it's about time I treat you to my coming out story. I think it's a pretty important thing to do. We hear so often on LGBTQ+ pages and websites about coming out stories from Lesbian and Gay folk, and at the same time the whole phenomena of coming out is being questioned, whether it is still necessary and whether it is still relevant to do so. Yet if you type 'Coming Out' into Google you get a whole list of articles ranging from advice, how-tos and gossip on public figures who have opened up about their sexuality. So yes, in the mainstream coming out is still very much a thing. FYI cake seems to be a very popular way of coming out, and I must admit I like my Queers how I like my cake: varied and often.
Anyway, on with my own story.
I can always remember that one moment when I first admitted it to myself. I'd been tearing myself apart internally for months on end about it. Until that point there was never any 'one moment' when I realised, I think it had always been a part of me. I remember being seven or eight and trying to kiss a friend of mine, and her panicking in case people thought we were 'lesbians'; the way she whispered the word and look terrified at the thought told me automatically that it was a bad thing. For the next few years I felt guilty and ashamed of myself for wanting to kiss girls, like there must be something wrong with me if I wanted to kiss girls. Maybe I was meant to be a boy instead? After all, I did like Pokemon and play fighting - and as far as I knew they were 'boy things'. Don't judge me, I was eight; the concept of being attracted to somebody of the same gender had never been explained to me, let alone what transgender is. It had all been very binary up until then. It was also around the age I became utterly obsessed with Avril Lavigne (again, don't judge me, I was eight!). And I don't mean in the way that other little girls wanted to be her, I mean in the same way other girls my age would obsess over boybands; I want to say Busted here? Yes, fair enough I liked them. But it wasn't their poster that I kissed every night before going to sleep. You have no idea how much of a cringe-worthy moment it was to type that last sentence. But at the same time I would fancy boys at school; it felt very much the same as my celebrity crush but I would never admit that to myself.
It wasn't until I was twelve and in secondary school that it all snuck up on me. I had new friends, there were lots of new people and I met an amazing girl (now NB so they/them pronouns will be used). I can remember the moment I met them actually, I was having my cello lesson and they were in for the lesson after mine; the music teacher introduced us and I can remember how friendly and bubbly she was, and how pretty I thought they were too. That last thought I tried to push down, remembering the embarrassment of my eight-year-old self and that feeling I had come to learn about how wrong it was for me to want to kiss girls. Anyway, I fancied a boy at the time, so that must've just been a minor blip, right? He later became my first secondary school boyfriend, and in that time I became good friends with that gorgeous, bubbly person who could make me smile and feel good about myself just by looking at me. I learned a few years later, long after we had broken up, that my boyfriend (who I was just good mates with by that point) thought I had something going on with them at the time I broke up with him. I hadn't realised that my affection towards them had been so obvious to everybody else around me.
We had what I would call at that time (and still now I'm pleased to say) a very close and affectionate friendship, full of handholding, little kisses and lots of long hugs. They made me feel so special, and still does; I'm extremely lucky to still have them as a friend. I can remember the moment over the summer during a particularly angsty chat over MSN messenger about my feelings and how wonderful they made me feel, and how confused I felt about myself, like I didn't feel normal. And then they asked me, in three simple words.
Are you Bi?
Seeing the words seemed to knock all of the breath out of my body, but in the most wonderful way. It was like an epiphany. Knowing other people felt this way too, knowing I couldn't possibly be the only person attracted to men and women if there way a proper name for it! It was an utterly wonderful feeling. From then on we kind of became an unspoken couple, we never discussed it but we were a 'thing', and it was so, so wonderful. However given that it was secondary school and a particularly religious one at that the gossip and bullying soon started, and of course as it was so unnatural and unbiblical the teachers let the whole thing slide. Even when it got to the point of what may have been my first mental breakdown and I had to switch schools, no longer able to cope with the stress of being such a target. Thanks faith schools...
As a teenager I dated men and women and had further quibbles about my sexuality, thinking that because I preferred women over men that it meant I must be a lesbian; getting drunk one night when I was fifteen and telling my Mam, then getting so panicked about it that I had an asthma attack and had to go to the hospital. Fun times. My Mam was so wonderful about it and never treated me any differently for it, and never even questioned my future relationships with men after that - knowing I suppose that it had been mostly teenage angst and questioning of my sexuality, fuelled by cheap rose wine. It's funny because at the same time when I was seeing a guy I never thought that it meant I was straight. When I met Paul everything seemed to fall into place. He never questioned or doubted that I was attracted to him and at the same time didn't try to invalidate that I was still attracted to women, or make the seemingly obligatory threesome jokes that other men I've met tend to when they realise they're in a relationship with a bisexual woman.
But it did lead to questions from others, believing that because I'm in a long-term relationship with a man it means I must be straight now. Because five years with him must totally invalidate a lifetime of feelings and attraction to women. Then again, that's the view society tends to take on penises: they can magically and irreversibly change women forever - another example being the concept of virginity.
So there you have it, a rather condensed version of my coming out story. And just to echo the last point that yes, ten years on and in a long-term relationship with a dude I'm still one of those greedy bisexauls that the media warned you about, and not just going through a phase, I thought I'd include a wonderful infographic from a fantastic friend of mine, Rachel. If you enjoy it so much and want to hear more from Rachel then give her a cheeky follow on Twitter at @RachelCDailey - and while you're there and in the mood maybe give me one too at @lizi_gray. It's mostly drunken political rants but it's amusing nonetheless. Happy Bi Day!!
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