Being Bisexual in a Straight-Passing Relationship
For Pride month, I wanted to share an old essay of mine, originally published in 2021. As a bisexual woman in a straight passing anchor relationship, I experienced some major dysphoria around my queer identity. I felt as though being in a straight-passing relationship erased the part of me I fought so hard to express. I share this essay in hopes of validating other bisexual folks in straight-passing relationships who may experience imposter syndrome around their queerness.
The Healing of My Femme Bisexual Queer Identity - April 2021
Clementine Morrigan just released a new zine titled “Fucking Girls”. It is a zine which discusses bisexual desire and shame. As I read the zine, my own experiences as a bisexual femme were validated and verbalized. It led me to want to share more about my personal experience with being a femme bisexual and the internal dialogue I still continue to struggle with as a result of the homophobia I grew up with, as well as, the internalized biphobia that is still an active part of my queer identity and expression that has followed me since childhood.
From a young age I was taught that there was no room to be attracted to more than the opposite gender. I grew up in an extremely abusive catholic home which stifled any amount of sexual exploration. I remember I started to find other girls attractive in maybe grade two. I got butterflies in my stomach when a girl in my class shared her Kleenex with me. In grade seven, I had a major crush on a girl who I became friends with. It was the first time I wanted to kiss another girl. We sat together on the drama stage talking when she stopped and told me I was pretty. To this day, I remember the butterflies in my stomach and wanting to kiss her. I would have dreams of kissing other girls and in grade 9, my best friend told me she was gay. I remember I felt jealous and I wanted her to like me. She was my first queer kiss and my first girlfriend. This relationship led me into foster care, when my biological parents disowned me for being gay.
In high school, I was bullied constantly for identifying as bisexual. I had boyfriends before my girlfriend and I often got told I was faking it, that I wasn’t actually gay, that it was a faze and that I didn’t look gay enough. So, in mid high school, I cut off all my hair and wore guys clothing. I struggled with dysmorphia as I tried to fit into what people were telling me bisexuality meant. I felt my bisexuality was also limited in my relationships, as when I dated a partner, often times talking about my attraction to another gender was seen as a threat.
Well into my late twenties, I struggled with my bisexuality. I constantly changed how I labeled my sexual orientation. I would switch from lesbian, bisexual, pansexual back to lesbian, bisexual and finally landed on queer. I appreciated the fluidity that identifying as queer provided to me. It also protected me from stigma and judgement from identifying to strangers as bisexual.
In my twenties, my bisexuality was expressed through flirting openly with men and women. For the entirety of my twenties, I was in a monogamous same-sex relationship with my now, ex-wife. I began to find ways to express my sexuality within the parameters of a monogamous relationship which felt both unsatisfying and shameful. I often wondered what being sexual with a male would be like, if I would like it more, if liking sex with males would make me less queer and if maybe, like I had been told all my life, maybe I wasn’t actually queer after all. I would feel immense guilt about my attraction to men. I would try to watch lesbian porn to prove to myself that I found women attractive.
When I entered into my first long-term polyamorous relationship with a male partner, my internalized biphobia began to morph into the same thoughts I had struggled with in my previous relationship when I would have sex with other women. I would be having sex with women and my mind would race to whether or not it was queer enough sex, whether or not I liked it as much as I liked having sex with my male partner and maybe I wasn’t gay. I found that making the first move for me sexually with other women was challenging - I didn’t want to be too forward and I didn’t feel as comfortable communicating my kink desires to women. I do not identify as a switch and often wonder if be being a femme, submissive, bottom means that I fit too much into what society confirms as heteronormative sex. It makes me doubt that I will find a compatible female partner who will be ok with what I desire sexually.
As I continue to struggle with my bisexual identity, I am beginning to see growth in myself and find healthier ways to combat the homophobia that has always been a part of my life in one way or another. For one, entering into a relationship in which I am actively able to date other women, not for the benefit of my male partner but as a way to express my sexual orientation, is extremely healing. In addition, being able to also express my attraction to other males is healing for me, knowing that it will not be met with anger or frustration. I want to be able to openly express my attraction to women and men openly, without fear of judgement, slut shaming or extreme expressions of jealousy by my partner/s and others.
I actively work on my intrusive thoughts about sex with women and men and comparing the two, trying to analyze and justify my queerness. My partner pointed out, that the sex is different. One is not better than the other - I do not need to choose like I have internalized that I have to. I have such fear of “not really being gay” that this fear shows up in ways in which I doubt my queerness, when I am actively fucking another woman. All of the things I have lost - family, security, safety - to be queer, make me fear the possibility that maybe I wasn’t actually queer enough to justify losing all of those things.
But I actively try to remind myself that I am queer enough. That the concept of “enough” is a societal construction to “other” people who do not fit into the box of what makes someone gay enough to be validated in their queerness. Queer sex with women is different than sex with a partner of the opposite sex, and, like Clem writes, the differences that exist do not have to be based on the gender of the person but person themselves. Sex with different partners, is different sex. It does not have to be compared. It does not have to be a way to prove my queerness. It does not have to be one or the other.
I can be a femme, bisexual bottom, and still be queer. It will take time for my internalized homophobia and biphobia to heal, but I am actively on my way.