“Growing up I never really had a lot of questions about my sexuality. It was never really a huge topic of discussion and I was never really comfortable having those kinds of conversations with my parents. I still liked women but I never tried to be with a man before. I’d had some sexual experiences with a friend before but it was nothing I’d ever really tried to understand or took seriously—oddly it just seemed a little normal.
It wasn’t until I met someone my freshman year of college that I stopped questioning myself and knew that I was bisexual. He was wonderful, and he made me happy. He told me at the time that he was bisexual. It wasn’t until after that conversation that I became comfortable with identifying as bisexual. My friends were very supportive for the most part, but they treated me like just another one of the gays. Though it felt nice to have friends who understood me to a degree, I felt invisible; I felt like my same-sex attraction made me be perceived as someone I wasn’t.
My family, more specifically my mom, wasn’t helpful to any degree. She’d always said things like “I’d still love you if you were gay.” At some point she even barked at me, “YOU GAY??” I answered her honestly, “No.” The guy I met would come over sometimes and we’d spend time together away from school. One day she asked me if he was gay. I told her, “No, he’s bisexual.” She looked at me—I was trying to focus my gaze elsewhere—“Are you bisexual?” I told her, “Yes.” Her immediate response was: Why would you do this to me? From that moment forward I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. She treated it like a taboo, like a sickness, or bad memory that you never wish to speak of. Any of my partners were my friends if they were male.
As the time went on I’d have to convince my straight friends that I was bisexual. My best friend since 6th grade even doubted my claim to my sexuality. My mother continued to say things like that’s nasty and you need to choose, pick one or the other. For a while I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know any other bisexual people, only gay people. I felt very alone in a crowd of people that were supposed to be supportive.
Looking back on it all, as I tell #MyStoryOUTLoud, being bisexual was never a problem that I had to deal with. Everyone else made it a problem for themselves. I tell my story in hopes that others can do what I never had the courage to do for myself back then: stand up for who you are. Do not let others beat you down because they simply can’t understand. Live in your truth and with the love you have because it will take you farther than you realize. Most importantly make sure that you turn that love inward before you try and turn it outward.”
Gerrard D., Graduate Student- American University
