It was about a year ago that I came out on Twitter and I’ve become a lot more comfortable with my sexuality/identity ever since.
Yet, I’ve also felt a great deal of frustration and anger over how I forced myself into the closet for roughly half my life just on indirect pressure from family and “society”..that I knew they wanted me to be married at some point..and, ~20 years ago, the idea of same-sex marriage ever becoming legal in the United States seemed like a complete fantasy. Thus, I forced myself into believing I was straight..which, I’ve discovered, caused me an enormous amount of grief, pain, and suffering over many years.
Just allowing me to be me has made my life immensely better (that, and the therapy/medication that I’ve gotten). I’m in the best physical and mental shape in years (working out consistently has done wonders) and I feel so much consistently happier; far more good days than bad. However, it is difficult to deal with the regret that comes from trying to force myself to be someone else for such a long time and when there was no one directly forcing me. I know that most of my family at the time wouldn’t have been all that thrilled if I had announced that I was dating men as well as women, but I don’t think I would have been threatened with hellfire or anything like that..though my stepfather would have been extremely angry and likely disowned me..at best. That alone, unfortunately, was enough to keep me closeted to myself just I was during most of my adolescence.
That said, here are my thoughts on Pride..in no particular order.
Attraction is a Confusing Thing
Even during the periods of my life that I thought I was straight, I don’t remember ever being attracted to the “conventional” standard of feminine desire. (Think Jessica Rabbit or similar “bombshell” types; I recently saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on Blepcon’s movie night for the first time in many years, and while just about every male in the film could barely resist her, she didn’t do anything for me..either now or when I was a kid/preteen. It’s most likely that I’m attracted to other types of women (such as my lovely wife) instead, though when comes to my attraction to other men, I think it’s a lot broader. This could be a result of denying said attraction for so long and perhaps over time it will refine itself; while my attractions aren’t changing as quickly as they did when I first discovered that I’m bi (I was riding the “bi-cycle” a lot), they definitely can shift in subtler ways. Overall, though, I feel a lot more comfortable with where I am with that.
I’ve also found that it’s quite detrimental to try to force one’s attractions in any direction..it’s bad enough to be accused of not being “straight or gay enough”, but to do it to yourself out of a feeling of “Am I straight? Am I gay? What’s going on here? How much should I be attracted to men..or women..or other gender identities?”..well, that’s close to the definition of bisexual confusion right there. There’s no minimum percentage of attraction to more than one gender needed to identify as bi; I’m happy that I feel comfortable in this identity and that it currently suits me quite well.
Bi “Versus” Pan
The ongoing debate about bisexuality and pansexuality still confuses me..not the subject of the debate, but why it’s still being debated. The answer that I agree with the most is that bisexuality is being attracted to two or more genders/gender identities and pansexuality is being attracted to them all/being indifferent to anyone’s gender identity or if they’re non-binary/agender/etc. I don’t like the argument that pan supersedes/replaces bisexuality or that people attracted to multiple genders in my age range tend to identify as bi only because that’s what we knew when we were young; that we would be pan instead if that had been “a thing” during that time. I disagree with this as I can provide plenty of counterexamples of young bi and middle-aged pan people just by glancing through the appropriate subreddits. My paranoid side suspects intentional attempts to drive a wedge between bi and pan people, though there’s no real evidence for that. (There’s definite evidence of hateful “LGB” groups trying to split transgender people off, though..)
There’s no need for any conflict over this; for me, bisexuality feels far more comfortable to me right now than pansexuality does..somehow, the latter seems dissonant to me. That’s just how I feel, as I mentioned above, though. That could change over time; if it does, I’ll deal with it then. I love my bi and my pan friends and would never try to force anyone to identify themselves as anything they didn’t want to be; this has been my stance on fandoms as well. I also feel like it’s improper to try to out someone to themselves i.e. try to force someone to come to terms with themselves before they’re ready. For instance, if someone had told me I was bi before I realized it, I would have had a very negative reaction, to say the least. I had to fight through a lot of shame and guilt before I could say to myself “I am happy that I was able to have relationships with men, I’m no longer ashamed that they happened, and I’m very grateful that my wife loves me just the same.” Being able to tell myself that has made a huge difference both in my life and in learning who I am.
There’s also this notion out there that being bi means that I automatically don’t like/am not attracted to transgender/agender/genderfluid/non-binary/etc. people..and that’s completely untrue; nor am I “reinforcing gender binarism.” In my case, I feel like I don’t completely understand these particular identities and I want to learn more about them; I have nothing at all against any other LGBTQ person solely based on their identity. (One very important thing to keep in mind, though, is that just because another person you know is also LGBTQ, that doesn’t automatically make them trustworthy/a good person. I learned this the hard way a long time ago.) I’m not sure who is pushing this..those trying to replace bisexuality with pan (for various reasons) or bad actors are trying to divide the community. Either way, it can make being bi even harder than it already is.
Out Here, Closeted Elsewhere
During my first go-round with identifying as LGBTQ in some way, I kept it very well hidden from just about everyone..aside from the queer folks I hung out with, of course. I think that some of the people I worked with suspected (what with my long hair and slightly effeminate mannerisms) but no one ever accused me directly of being gay. (I did have to experience several instances of subtle and not-so-subtle gay-bashing..all I could do was hold my tongue.) After I went back into the closet (to everyone and myself), I didn’t have to “undo” any of the coming out that I did..but after realizing that I’m bi, it took a while for me to come out to myself..then to my wife along with my sister and mother at various points. I’m a lot more comfortable being openly bi online right now while most of the people that I know in real life do not know..and it’s hard to do, even now.
I’ll get more chances to say it directly to people in the latter stages (hopefully) of the pandemic..but it still won’t be easy since everyone just assumes I was straight by default as I never presented myself in any other way. It’s like..how to bring it up in conversation without forcing it? There’s waiting for it to come up naturally or “I have something to tell you”..either way, it still feels awkward to me. Yet, it’s something that needs to be done if I want to be completely authentic; coming out begets coming out and that’s why it’s such a powerful thing. It is a lot simpler online; post a cute picture of my ponyself in bi pride colors. Yet, doing something similar with those that I know in person and not at all online feels…impersonal. I’ll figure it out, but it will take time..
Pride vs. Shame
Every year during Pride Month, one of the usual complaints from the usual suspects is that “You queers keep making such a big deal out of your sexuality! Stop shoving it down our throats!” (Why do they so frequently use that term…hmm….) My response to that is that, for almost all of human history, being queer is something that would get one very aggressively shamed (if not killed and/or tortured.) In modern times, that stigma typically takes the form of being told “You’re a sick, evil person because you don’t fit in my narrow view of what a man or woman should be. You shouldn’t be around children or tell them anything about queerness. You’re all diseased degenerates who should be living in the gutter..the refuse and offal of society. How dare you tear down the foundations of our glorious civilization! BE ASHAMED OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE.”
That’s all I heard as a teenager about gay and queer people in general.
This is still being said and broadcasted far and wide.
This is why I say I’m proud to be who I am and no one will ever again make me feel ashamed for that.
The Blanket Metaphor
I read about this method of training infants and toddlers several years ago and was utterly disgusted. At its essence, blanket “training” is about putting an infant or toddler on a blanket and then beating them if they wander off, only ceasing when they get back on the blanket. The torture intensifies when the parent puts some of the child’s favorite objects near the blanket, and then beats them when the child wanders off the blanket to play with them. While this Wikipedia article tries to stay neutral, this “training” is commonly used by evangelicals to instill fear and unquestioning submission to authority very early on in a child’s life.
A few days ago, I ran across this very sick and twisted tweet that deserves the ratio it got. At first, I honestly thought it was a joke, an Onion-like parody of evangelicals..but unfortunately, it’s all too real. In my experience as a parent, both my kids arched their backs as infants and never for an instant did I think they were being “rebellious” or “evil”. But what does one expect from a worldview that holds that “We’re all born evil because Eve screwed up in the Garden of Eden (which is why women can never be trusted or in charge of anything) and everyone has to be beaten and have their lives made miserable until they accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Then, they still have to do everything we say (because we speak for God!) but they also have to convert others to evangelicism. Otherwise, the beatings will resume.”
Over time, I’ve also realized that this is how evangelicals treat the rest of American society (and when they run into roadblocks to their attempts at imposing their theocracy in the US, they try to export their hatred and bigotry to places they feel are receptive to it), whether someone subscribes to their beliefs or not. While they can’t physically beat those who “defy” them just by being themselves (though they would do so if they could get away with it), they try to use their cultural and political influence to try to force us “deviants” back onto the blanket. This has gone on for decades, if one thinks about it, though it hasn’t been nearly as effective in recent years.
When Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage in the US, for instance, all of their efforts over the decades to ban it crumbled to the ground..so now they’re running the same playbook to try to beat transgender people back onto the blanket. They will eventually fail for the same reason that trying to punch down on lesbian and gay Americans eventually failed, especially as more and more LGBTQ people can safely come out, live authentically and have a much better chance to be successful, happy, and prosperous. As this trend has continued, the rest of society is seeing that the evangelicals were lying the whole time about how “evil” and “destructive” queer people are. And then, Joe and Jane Average start thinking “If they were wrong about the gays, what else are they wrong about..?”
My take on it is, that, if evangelicals want to play oppressor and oppressed inside their walls…whatever. If they want to literally and figuratively beat each other up for being “imperfect” and “sinful”, then they can sit and watch as their numbers continue to dwindle and they drive even more people away from Christianity and organized religion in general. Their pervasive influence over the decades had made America worse, in my opinion. As an example of this, I was paddled as a kid in elementary school and had to watch other kids get beaten by teachers as well. (The worst offenders got a paddle with holes in it so it could be swung faster..) There was no questioning it, either, unless you wanted to get beaten as well. Parents and teachers didn’t question it, either, as that’s what their parents and teachers did to them. Now, as I write this, I can look at my children playing and know that the schools they go to will not spank or beat them and they will be far better off for it.
Evangelicals..leave the rest of us alone. We’re burning that blanket. We’re living our lives on our terms.
And we’re never, EVER going back into the closet.