Hey, remember when those two middle-aged men were
pretending to be lesbians? And people believed them? I want to
do that.
I love being part of this community. I love going to LGBT meetings
at my local university, dancing in gay bars, listening to Tegan
& Sara and watching Hannah Hart videos. Before you comment, I
know there's more to the gay world than just those things. You guys
have a secret handshake too, right? Just kidding.
But seriously, sometimes I feel like I'm not entitled to be here
because I never got my gold star. Bisexuality is still a touchy
subject - and not the good kind of touchy. We've been called
greedy, cheating, indecisive, attention-seeking, dirty,
untrustworthy, disease-spreading… in fact, with all that on my
plate it's a miracle I've got any time to write this at all.
According to the Bisexual
Index, Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index questionnaire in
2009 confirmed that lesbian and gay employees felt much more
comfortable being out at work than bisexual employees. It's no
wonder! When Megan Fox
won't even date you, things are looking pretty dire.
I didn't choose to be attracted to more than one gender, it just
sort of happened that way. Maybe even the reason I became an
activist was to prove that I'm one of those 'good' bisexuals, which
is a little sad. The truth is: I wish I was gay. It would be such a
relief. Enough of feeling like an impostor, enough of the shame at
wanting to 'sleep with the enemy'. Enough of the isolation! The
crippling guilt!
I know, I know, I get a certain amount of 'privilege' from society
due to my identification as bisexual and the fact that I look
relatively femme. But lezbehonest, passing as straight is not
something I have any desire to do.
The amount of biphobia coming from the LGBT community is pretty
sad, especially when you take into account the fact that we're on
the receiving end of homophobia as well. What's sadder still is the
fact that a lot of bisexual women internalise this biphobia, and
end up denying a huge part of themselves by pursuing only women, or
only men.
It's like Bjork once told DIVA: "I think choosing between men and
women is like choosing between cake and ice cream. You'd be daft
not to try both when there are so many different flavours."
Who knows if I'll ever decide, but all this talk is making me
hungry.
