Not Weird. Not Wrong. Just Bisexual.
I remember my first crush. Even now, I can still feel the thumping of my heart behind my ribs, the sound of it thundering inside of my ears whenever she was near me. I can still picture her rosy cheeks and cocoa eyes. I was 9 years old when we first met. While I did not understand what that meant for me, at the time — the whole “I have a crush on a girl, even though I am also a girl. What’s up with that?” thing — I knew well enough that she made me feel “different,” somehow. That crush was the unfurling of a tumultuous road, one I’d be walking alone while wrestling with my own sense of identity.
Thrilling stuff, I know.
If having a crush on another girl at such a young age wasn’t confusing enough, then let’s kick it up a notch. Enter crush #2 — a boy — complete with dimples and a pet cockatoo that knew how to give a high five with its talons. It was weird. We used to play guitar together in my grandparents front yard when I was 11. He was my best friend and he meant the world to me.
When I moved away to a different town at 13, it was a bittersweet period of my life. It meant leaving behind school bullies, which was wonderful. It also meant moving past summers spent biking around the neighborhood, and buying watermelon Arizona at the gas station on Saturdays. This was less wonderful. Nevertheless, it was a chance to be whoever I wanted to be, in a new school where I was no longer tied to my previously assumed character. Great, right?
Not exactly.
Bisexual pride flag.
While I moved away from my old city to escape the negativity my previous school harbored, it did have its perks. It was familiar and, up to that point, all I had known. Being a person of color entering a predominantly white school — when you’d been born and raised in a city where you’d always been surrounded by people who looked like you — is a culture shock in itself. Now, sprinkle in a rumor about the new girl being in a secret relationship with one of her friends from choir, and you’ve got yourself a heaping plate of terror pasta. Middle schoolers, am I right? It was seriously the worst.
I felt branded by my own secret, as though I had written “hey, come kick me for wanting to hold a girl's hand!” on my forehead. When I felt like all the gossip was getting too heavy to bear, I turned to someone I trusted — one of my best friends. For the first time, I confronted what I’d been feeling since what had felt like forever ago. I said it out loud:
“I like both girls and boys.”
I was rejected. I was called “weird” and “wrong,” told that I needed to be “fixed” in some way. Those words stuck with me for the rest of my life.
Due to that experience— among others— I did not come out as bisexual to my family until my freshman year of college. Even after I did, I avoided dating and self-exploration until I turned 19. I spent several years hiding this part of myself, wondering if that childhood friend had been right. Even now, as a loud and proud bisexual— one who could give two flying fiddles about what anyone has to say — memories of past judgements still make me feel ashamed.
Unkind words can make a person ache.
Sure, it is easy to say that other people’s opinions don’t matter. Not everyone is going to “get” how a person can be attracted to two genders. You may leave a conversation about bisexuality with a head full of questions. As a bisexual woman, it is quite simple to me. Who I like is who I like and, as my personal saying goes, “parts matter less than hearts.” Maybe you cannot fathom that reality. But when you love someone, the best thing that you can offer them is your respect and support.
What you have to remember is that someone else’s sexuality isn’t yours to understand.
What little me needed was for someone to tell me that I was loved, no matter who I had a crush on. Be that person for someone else. Love is kind and endlessly tender. So, drape those that you hold close inside of acceptance. I promise you — that support alone makes all of the difference.
