I Am Bisexual – My Coming-Out Story

I am thinking about writing some more personal posts recently since I feel like in the last months you got to see reviews mostly 😛 So talking about tattoos was a good start since it’s a topic I am very passionate about, but now I want to get a bit more personal with talking about my sexuality. It’s something I have been very open about since realizing I am in fact bisexual, but I feel like now more than ever it’s important to actually speak about it. That’s mostly because I got into activism a little bit over the course of the last year and I came across the question of “is a coming-out really still necessary?” and “Do we need bisexuality as a term?” way too often. So I’d like to give my opinion on the subject at hand, but keep in mind that it is only that my opinion 😉

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I actually came out as bisexual after my first relationship. Before that I’d say I had other things to worry about and with the constant bullying at school, I just did not think about love or sex that much, since I did not think I would get a partner soon. But after I did get one, some wheels began to turn, especially after the break-up. Since romantic relationships were a topic on my mind now and my last partner happened to be pansexual, I thought about what love and sex meant to me and whom I would like to share them with in the future. And I came to the realization very quickly that I did not really distinguish between men and women(non-binary and trans people came later since that was the start of my LGBTQ+ journey and I did not even really know what these terms meant back then).

I did really come out right after I had this thought in my head since I wanted to talk about the possibility of what that means and if that’s really how I feel or if I was just confused(spoiler warning: I was not xD). So I talked with my mother, who is not really educated on the whole LGBTQ+ topic, but she still tried to understand what I was telling her, and even though she could not really wrap her head around it, she was supportive from the start. I know that I was very lucky with that since I did not really have to be in the closet hiding for any time really. My father does not know about my sexuality to this day, but that’s a whole other story and I actually have no idea what his reaction would be, genuinely don’t know if he would be mad, supportive, or not care about it at all xD So that’s where my story might differ from all of the queer people whose parents were too homophobic to create an environment where they would have felt safe to come out.

I am aware of my privileges being a white girl raised by an open-minded mother, but I really don’t like this idea of the LGBTQ+ community being build on the foundation of pain. I actually had a talk with a gay guy I knew at school, who was closeted for a long time because of his homophobic father. He told me that I would never know what it was like to wake up knowing that you are a disgrace to your family and that I could just live a happy life passing a straight if I wanted to. But what he did not realize back then was that I could not just ignore my queerness and pretend to be straight and also if passing as straight would come as an advantage, they would be passing as gay in a straight community too? It was not, actually, I always felt like I belonged to neither of them and that was a feeling he might never understand. But that’s okay, because it’s about the pain we share or not share, it’s about being different and embracing it.

Let’s jump some years into the future and look at where I am now. I am actually happily married to a man, which comes with new problems. The first question I was asked after being married was if I decided to be straight again now. No, I did not, I never decided to do anything, not even to be bisexual. Maybe I decided on the label but I am not actively deciding what people I feel attracted to. And these attractions did not stop just because I am married, which does not mean I want to have sex with everyone I meet, but I can still find women and non-binary people hot, despite being in a monogamous relationship with a cis-man. Fortunately, my husband does understand me better than most people and has zero problems with the whole concept of being married to a bisexual wife. We even like to joke about it sometimes or talk about women we both find attractive. But knowing that other people read me as being straight just because I am married to a man, always bothered me.

It might feel strange to people who never had to think about this, gay and straight people alike because either you are always assumpted to be straight from the get-go or you are at least perceived to be gay because of your same-sex partner. I always have to remind people about being bisexual still, but sometimes I don’t even get the chance to do that. Not everyone who sees me and my husband strolling around gets into a conversation with me and of course, me being bisexual is not the first thing that would come up anyway. And you might think: Why is that so important to you? My answer is because that’s part of who I am. When people see me and label me as straight, they take away a part of what makes me, me. I have thought about that A LOT lately and finally decided to get a tattoo, which will empower me to at least somewhat be able to show people, even those I might not talk to directly, that I am not part of the straight masses.

And I think that can be important not only to me but also to queer people in general. I don’t want to sound like getting a bi-themed tattoo will make me a great activist or something, but I do think that it will do its part because it makes other people aware. Aware of the fact that not everyone who looks straight, has to be straight. Or that there are more queer people than most straight people might believe. I want to get the tattoo for me in the first place, but I like the impact it can have on my surroundings in general. And who knows, maybe I might inspire some people or it can be a conversation starter 😉

So to answer one of the questions I asked in the beginning: Is coming out still necessary? For me, it is, because yes there has been a lot of good things happening to the community within the last decades, but there is still a long way to go when the goal is to be equal at some point, to be known, and to be seen. Of course, that’s only my opinion on the topic and I would never force anyone to come out or be as open about their sexuality, but for me, it’s empowering. As empowering as choosing bisexual as the word I want to label myself with, instead of pansexual for example. And I did think about including my reason why I did so in this post, but I think that might be a long enough conversation to have, to make its own post for. So keep looking for that one, if you are interested in it 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

PS: I wrote this post in the beginning of august but then I thought: In one month is a special day, why not save it up till then? So I wish you all a happy Bisexuality Visibility Day!