“Actually, I’m bi,” is a sentence I have become all too familiar with having to say in casual conversation.
Whether I’m tongue-popping discussing Drag Race, or sauntering around Oxford St while holding my partner’s hand (who happens to be male), I don’t blame some people for assuming my sexuality.
It’s their lens they’re looking through after all, not mine.
Short of getting past partners to attest to my bisexuality, I have to have those little moments to politely correct people and remind them that I’m attracted to people of any gender, not just men. However, if you respond with, “Lol, really?” I will probably be a little less polite.
Yes, really!
I had a passing thought about doing adult films just so I had the visual evidence, but no one needs to see this pandemic body! All jokes aside, I have come a long way to get to this point to be able to confidently and proudly talk about my bisexuality. Just like the process of realising I was bi, it took quite a while to be comfortable owning my identity after having lived the best part of my adult life as a gay man.
Coming out as gay at the age of 13 was at-times challenging - I was camp as anything but luckily had a smile that could light up the room. I was fortunate that I was accepted by my family, my friends, my school community and as I got older I was accepted by the gay community.
Steven with his partner. Source: Supplied
I was always very open minded growing up gay, and did my best to demonstrate the ideals of Pride and fly the flag. But when I started questioning my own sexuality, I felt completely foreign emotions – fear, shame, and a gut-wrenching sense of loneliness.
After a life lived fully, proudly, and unashamedly, it was my realisation that I wasn’t gay - I am actually bi and pansexual - that felt like it would un-do me. I had no role models around me, the bi experience is erased in both LGBTIQ and mainstream communities.
As I confided in people and explored sexually and emotionally, I really started to accept myself and accept that I was attracted to people of any gender. What a fantastic feeling to be free of the constraints that had been put on me, and that I had put on myself. It was a feeling of freedom and unmitigated love and a deeply personal experience.
Then, I had to look outwards and wonder, would others accept me? Am I capable of loving or ever being loved?
It was even before I uttered the words, “I’m bi,” that I got a taste of what biphobia can be. It came in the form of a clenched fist heading towards my head and then towards that of the woman I was enjoying my time with on the dancefloor at a queer party.
This fist came from an intoxicated and bothered gay man that thought straight people had snuck into his party. Me? Straight? That was a first considering how often I am mis-labelled as gay.
When you’ve found that bi+ community, you don’t feel the impulse to try to feel understood, we get to just exist.
I thought afterwards that maybe coming out would be too much. Maybe it would just be easier to keep it all behind closed doors, keep myself in the closet. After all – I was supposedly gay and happy right?
For a long time after this I continued to identify as gay and as a member of the gay community. My private sexuality was bi and pansexual, though I would never dare correct you for risk of being mocked, teased, or hit.
But over time I found my feet. I returned to that dancefloor (albeit looking over my shoulder as many bi people have), and I started flying a blue, purple, and pink flag – the bi flag. I was accepted by my good friends, mocked by others, and lovingly embraced by my family who simply said, “Of course you are!” like it was obvious to them the whole time. But there was still something missing.
In the middle of the pandemic I started attending virtual bi+ community events (bi+ is an inclusive term for experiences of bisexuality, pansexuality, multi-gender attraction, fluidity, and more). Through these I met the people that would change my life and introduce me to a chosen family I never thought I would find.
The bi+ community became the place where I felt accepted, whole, and bi enough.
When you’ve found that bi+ community, you don’t feel the impulse to try to feel understood, we get to just exist. We get to feel the sort of acceptance that we don’t feel anywhere else because, of course, we know how it feels to be this way.
And I tell you what, this is just the best feeling ever.
Accepting my bisexuality and living life authentically gave me the self-confidence to realise I am worthy of love – and I found it! I found it with my community, and with the partner I love.
At the end of the day it’s not even just that we are deserving of love, trust, respect, and joy - the same things all people deserve. It’s that we are actually capable of incredible things; of being beacons of happiness demonstrating what it’s like to be whole. We can show you what it’s like to embrace diversity, and most importantly, despite all the adversity we face, bi+ people show the world how to love unconditionally.
