Queer Girl Q& A : Picking a Side

Q: As a bisexual woman, I’m happy that queerness is so much more accepted now than it used to be. Still, I feel like I continue to come up against a fair share of tepidness, discomfort, and sometimes even outright rejection when I tell others I’m bi—even within the LGBTQ community, where you’d think they’d be more accepting.

Why do people think this way? How do I convince those who tell me I need to “choose a side” that I’m not confused?

A: I remember when hints of potential bisexuality surfaced for me at the young age of 7. As I watched The Odyssey, I asked myself (while Penelope and Odysseus kissed): What would it be like to kiss him? What would it be like to kiss her?

In kindergarten, I crushed on a boy named Tommy, ever since the day in art class when he’d politely asked me if I was finished using the bunny stencil yet. Later on, I wrote in my diary about his fudge-dark hair and really, really green eyes (which, according to the entries, “shined like two stars caught inside a pair of lime-flavored jelly beans”).

As a preteen, every month, I’d rip open newly arrived issues of Super Teen, Tiger Beat, and J-14 to see which dreamy pop stars they’d included posters of this time.

And as a teenager, I dated boys.

Bisexuality is normal and common. Alfred Kinsey’s (controversial) studies in the 1960s suggested that a substantial portion of us fall somewhere along the spectrum of sexuality, with few people 100 percent heterosexual or homosexual.

There is also evidence of our cavemen ancestors and the ancient Greeks having engaged in it. Many of our friends in the animal kingdom still practice it.

Even though I no longer identify as bi, in my younger years I did—and remember the sting of invalidation when my therapist at the time responded with skepticism to my mentioning a crush on a boy months after I’d told her I liked girls—seemingly dubious to the possibility of bisexuality.

Many bi people experience this, and what’s frustrating is that a lot of them are not confused. Some people are equally attracted to all genders—or, when choosing a partner, focus less on gender than on other aspects of a person.

Yet the encouragement to “just pick a side” persists. So does the belief that the bi person is either really just gay— perhaps too filled with internalized homophobia to fully renounce their straight privilege—or actually just straight, merely trying the gay life on the way one might sport a trendy badge, or to seem more woke.

As a kid, I used to watch the World Cup soccer games on TV with my dad. I think now about how I would always get so confused when, during the penalty kicks (awarded either after a player was fouled or to break a tie score after 90 minutes), sometimes the goalie would dive in the exact opposite direction of where the ball was headed. 

Seated next to him with a bowl of popcorn in my lap, I’d ask my dad why the goalie did this. Was he afraid of the ball? (Subconsciously) afraid of winning? Deliriously driven to make illogical decisions after such a long and tiring game? Maybe his energy was completely zapped, resulting in cognitive fatigue that made him irrational.

It turned out the answer, my dad explained, was because the ball travels so fast that the goalie doesn’t have time to rationally predict its trajectory. Instead, he must act on impulse.

This goalie still comes to mind when I hear bi people telling me they’ve been encouraged to pick a side. A lot of life is binary like this. People tell you you’re the goalie, and the ball’s coming at you fast. Which direction will it be?

So you hurry up and choose one. Many decide they’re straight or gay because these are tidy and convenient boxes to fit into—even if in their hearts, they know they rest more comfortably somewhere along the spectrum. Or maybe “bi” doesn’t feel fully accurate because they do prefer one gender over the other; but still have some attraction toward the other gender.

Know that it’s OK to to identify however you choose—regardless of your past sexual behavior or even if you find yourself very occasionally attracted to a gender that falls outside your typical range of attraction.

In short, you don’t need to convince anyone. Much easier said than done—but so long as these attitudes persist, consider connecting with others who feel the same as you (of which there are quite a few). It’s important to have a space to talk about these experiences with people who can relate firsthand.