I will say this for passing: it gives one a lot more opportunities for coming out.
I just came out to a new friend from massage school. You’d think the act –a short sentence, one second, two words: “I’m bisexual” — would get easier over time, and with practice. But to the contrary, I find it harder now than it ever was before.
My first coming out as bisexual — to my first crush, as a freshman in high school, just a few weeks after finally hearing the term and recognizing myself in it — was met with an anticlimactic “well duh, Arwyn”. Two years later, coming out to my first romantic relationship got me an amused “I know”.
You might say I did not do in the closet well. I was — and am, when I feel safe — a voracious flirt, never adhered to straight female gender roles, and had Ru Paul pinups in my locker instead of the usual… who was usual to crush on? I never kept track. Anyway, “coming out” in adolescence was, contrary to most other QTBLGs’ experience, ridiculously easy, an exercise in stating the obvious to anyone who spent any time with me. With the arrogance of ignorance and unacknowledged privilege, I scoffed (in the safety of my own cranium, at least, even then however dimly recognizing its privileged origins) at those who found it hard, who dithered and postponed and passed rather than come out and say it — or simply live it.
And now, when the moment comes to say it or lie by omission, I find myself hemming and hawing and dithering, and, yes, sometimes shutting up and just plain passing. And I hate it. What happened to “duh”?
Duh is no more, after eleven years with a man (Mr “I know” himself in fact, my first and only), after leaving high school and college and the groups of friends I came out with. And it really vanished after getting pregnant and having a baby, with a man, in the “usual”, heteronormative way. After all, I am, indubitably, a breeder now, and everyone knows “breeder” means “straight”.
It doesn’t matter in the public eye, it seems, what other signals I send: having a child, with a man, makes me straight. After all, this is the Pacific Northwest, and I run with a crunchy crowd: unshaven pits, Birkenstocks year round, having a “partner” instead of a “husband”, and being stridently outspoken for “gay rights” merely marks me as yet another crazy white neo-hippie liberal.
Add to that a social network comprised almost entirely of other women-who-spend-the-day-with-their-kids, the fear of losing straight friends to innocent flirting (not an unreasonable fear, I think, in a culture that equates bisexuality with unquenchable nymphomania, and paints us as seductresses and adulterers when it bothers admitting our existence at all), and I find myself, for the first time since I was 14 years old, being perceived as straight not just by a homophobic heteronormative society, but by people who know me. For someone who has been explicitly, outspokenly out for so long, it is a decidedly unexpected and uncomfortable experience.
But the hardest part, the part I cannot figure out how to work around, is that I had always relied on “living out” — being obvious, refusing to pass — as my way of dealing with the issue of any children of mine knowing my sexuality. If it were simply a part of my public identity, a fact that anyone who knows me would know, then the Boychick would grow up knowing it, simply and easily and without any fuss. But the very act of his creation has taken my public identity as an out bisexual from hard to maintain (I’ve spent my entire adult life in a monogamous relationship with a man; it hasn’t been exactly easy for a while) to seemingly impossible. To the extent that I “pass”, that I am understood by others however falsely to be straight, I am confronted with a dilemma where the Boychick is concerned; being closeted (used here as a verb, of which I am the subject and others the actor) means that I would be forced to decide what and when — and indeed, whether — to tell him.
And who wants to hear about their parents’ sexuality? If not a part of one’s (public) identity, one’s sexuality is a matter of what one wants to do to or with whom, which is not information I can see as entirely appropriate to share with my child. If not understood to be a part of my public identity, any outing of myself to him (“honey, I’m bisexual”), would necessarily be followed by his asking “what does that mean?”, and then what would I tell him? “Oh nothing, just that sometimes I dream of shagging women, and used to chase the hot queer chicks in high school”? I think not.
I hear some of you wondering “then why bother telling him? if you’re monogamous with a man, aren’t you basically straight anyway? what does it matter what other people think?” All I can tell you is, it does matter. We are talking about no less than who I am, at my very foundation. I may pass, in this heteronormative society that is so fond of stuffing us in to boxes whether we like them or not, but rather than make my life easy as some may think, passing is excruciatingly painful, like a tourniquet on a limb, like being told every day the sky is yellow when I can see it is blue. It is being forced to agree to a lie I know to be false, a lie about myself. It may seem “unimportant”, my sexuality a mere technicality, but in a thousand ways every day, unseen by those blinded by straightness, even a monogamous woman is expected to assert her heterosexuality; the straight world surrounds me with its memes, its jokes, its assumptions, its understanding of the world and of female/male relationships: each is just a tiny little prick to my psyche, but oh do they add up.
I live with enormous heaps of straight privilege. The fact that I can pass when needed, that I could when my unmarried partner was on death’s door in a rural hospital in the Midwest proclaim myself his fiancée and thus claim access to his bedside and his medical information, is a huge privilege that humbles me, for I know how many do not have it. I do not pretend that the pain of being invisible holds a candle to the daily risks of a life lived as a queer woman with a female partner, or multiple partners, or no partner at all. I do not claim that merely as an also-queer woman that I know what it is to live as a woman in relationship with a woman. To lay claim to that status is a hubris I strive to avoid — sometimes at the cost of disassociating from my queer identity altogether.
I can speak with lived authority only of my own pains, my own risks, my own queernesses, small as they are: the pain of being invisible, the risk of either alienating others or dishonoring myself, the queerness of a sexuality half lived… the dilemma of what to do about the Boychick.
The only solution I see, if I cannot live my life obvious (as I once did unthinkingly, without knowing how sweet I had it) — if I cannot not pass — is to come out again, and again, and again. Only now am I seeing the value of practices like National Coming Out Day, for if there is one thing I might claim to know better than my woman-partnered sisters, it is invisibility. I may pass for straight, be seen as a breeder and thereby shoved into a closet again and again every moment of my child’s life, but I don’t have to quietly stay there.
I am happily monogamous with a man. I have a child. And I am bisexual.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
Oh trust me, you can still shamelessly flirt with your lady friends.
I think both women and men are lovely. DH knows that now. Several of my friends know that. I have never told Eleanor that, but I do tell her whenever it comes up that boys can love boys and girls can love girls. I don’t want to confuse her too much. But I say it in the same way I explain that some people need wheelchairs to help them get around. Or that skin comes in all different colors. Etc, etc.
Will she ever see me hugging or kissing a woman? Maybe. Who knows. She does see me with my closest girlfriends. And we flirt pretty shamelessly. Good times! I think as she gets older, there will be more opportunities to talk to her about all of this. Or she will hear me say what an attractive man or woman that is. Or maybe going to enough Pride parades will make her the one to say “Duh”.
Arwyn, it is such a relief to read your words. I too am happily monogamous with a man, have a child, and am bisexual. Unlike you, though, I have not known my whole life that I’m bisexual. Because of this, and because I don’t know what it’s like to be in a partnered relationship with a woman, I have doubted my “claim” to the label. I am not out, except to my partner and some close friends. But I thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing this, for giving me something to identify with.
My plan is to have that conversation with my daughter (who is now 3) when she is old enough for me to be able to express openly to her what it means to be bisexual. I’ll know that time when it comes. In the meantime, she is learning from me, her father, our friends, and our faith community that there are many kinds of healthy loving relationships.
Karen, you are so very welcome, truly.
elliesmadre: Absolutely I can and do (with my male friends, too), but it is more problematical now than it used to be: there’s the kid issue (just having a child/children around can be both inhibiting and limiting); there’s the fact that not all straight women would want to flirt with a taken bi woman; there’s my social inhibition in new situations and with new people, which then establishes a relationship without flirting, and makes it feel awkward if I were to start; and there’s also some fear of being seen by my queer sisters who live without straight privilege/a male partner as a tease, as coopting their identity for the sake of a few moments of fun, then running back to the privilege of my hetero relationship — which is the trickiest, because I both want to be respectful of others’ identity and assert my own.
Although I do definitely still flirt, because it’s part of who I am (and hey, it’s fun
), I also try to be conscious of the way it affects others, both individuals who might be uncomfortable with it, and communities who might be damaged or hurt by it.
Mostly, though, it’s my social anxiety and the social sphere I exist in, alas.
I don’t have children yet, but I’ve been married to a man for three years, since I was 22. So far, I’m still in touch with enough people who knew me when I was dating women to have it be a given. My husband actually dated men in high school, although he’s never been as out as I am.
This is definitely something that’s on my mind a lot. I often wonder if I would have ended up with a woman had I gone into a different profession. There just aren’t that many women in the games industry in general, and at my college in particular. I’m one of only ten women (eight of whom are only into men) in my graduating class of 150. And it’s really impractical to have a relationship with someone outside of the school, since students spend pretty much all their time (60+ hours a week) working in the labs.
Not that I regret being with my husband. I love him, we have an excellent relationship. But once he asked me if I feel guilty when I have sex dreams about other people. I don’t. But I do feel a little bit guilty when I have sex dreams about him as a woman.
well said Arwyn. i completely know that feeling. the constantly being put into the “straight breeder” box, and having to constantly come out as queer identified.
*le sigh* as always, you put my own feelings into way better words than i could ever articulate
Chex: I often wonder if I would have ended up with a woman had I gone into a different profession.
That’s a good question, and I think a fair one. I met The Man early enough in my life that there wasn’t much I could have done differently, but I do wonder if I had been at somewhere with more diversity and more openness than our suburban high school, where the women-attracted-women were slim on the ground (one I chased before The Man, and one who chased me, and probably another couple who stayed off our social circle’s radar), whether I still would have ended up with, well, a straight white male. And yet I also cannot at all regret the way it turned out (even the thought of changing it actually gives me anxiety), for he is my lifemate, and it would be hard to imagine how someone could be better for me than he is.
But once he asked me if I feel guilty when I have sex dreams about other people. I don’t. But I do feel a little bit guilty when I have sex dreams about him as a woman.
For me it’s exactly the other way around! I’d be really interested in knowing your reasoning there.
(Tiffany — Thanks. Miss you!)
I guess it’s just a matter of how I interpret my own dreams. I don’t really have any feelings for anyone else, so when I have sex dreams about other people, they don’t seem meaningful to me or linger in my mind. I just think of the sex in those dreams as a metaphor for something else. But I do, occasionally, wish my husband were a woman.
He just read this comment and has informed me matter-of-factly that this wish is a result of our Culture of Dissatisfaction.
Anyway, I feel like my dreams where he is a woman are a direct result of that. I have this desire, which I feel is disrespectful to my husband. I would be sad if he wished I had, for example, larger breasts (I have very small breasts), and had dreams that I had larger breasts, so I feel guilty when I have fantasies (or dreams) about changing his body.
Hi Arwyn, this post is months and months old but I just stumbled on it while exploring blogs by my tweeps.
Although I’m not a parent a lot of what you’re saying struck a nerve with me and is exactly what’s going through my head at the moment. I’m in a similar space to Karen in that I never applied the word bisexual to myself until recently and only my partner and a close friend know. It seems a strange middling place to be in which I have so much hetero privilege I hardly feel I’m allowed to claim the title, but to ignore it feels like trying to ignore my left arm. I recently had an argument with the same close friend because she totally feels she can lay claim to the title despite also being in a relationship with a man (the argument was my fault, I was an arse). I can’t shake the feeling that while bisexual people are represented on the GLBTI spectrum, I can’t claim a place in it while I still exercise hetero privilege (whether I want it or not).
Anyway, this has been circling my mind for a long time so these thoughts might be a bit rambling. Thanks for writing the post at any rate. I’ll bookmark it.
I’m altogether too familiar with that feeling (the “can’t still claim a place while exercising/possessing hetero privilege” feeling), and I can’t entirely dismiss it, because there is something there. There ARE those who, it seems, claim the title for titillation then run back into a privileged world because it’s easier. (When I’m not frustrated as hell with them, I can almost feel compassion, because the kyriarchy has created a system in which to be queer really is that scary and sometimes that dangerous, and it is so much easier to pass for straight.) And no amount of waving my queer flag is going to eliminate my very real, very copious hetero privilege.
But. But. It was the very invisibility of bisexuality — real, sometimes monogamous, nuanced, sometimes straight-partnered bisexuality — that made me so confused for so long (ok, not long compared to some — I came out the first time when I was 14 — but far longer than I’d've liked). There was straight, and there was queer, and never the twain did meet in my knowledge (except in mega-uber-nympho-slutbunnies/psycho killers of bad b-movie infamy), and so I had no idea where I fit. And I know I’m not the only person for whom that is true.
It is ONLY by coming out as bi — all of us, male partnered, female partnered, not partnered, polyamourous, monogamous, serialist, low sex-drive and nymphos alike — that we can do away with that invisibility, and make it easier for the next generation who know they’re not quite gay and not quite straight and need a name and thus an understanding and acceptance for who and what they are.
Just like when I feel out of place in feminist circles because of my life circumstances — taking care of the Boychick during the day, being financially dependent on The Man, not having a degree and a back-up plan — I refuse to allow that to shut me out, because I am feminist, and I am queer, and it is ultimately kyriarchy that creates the systems that would shut me out. I’m a cis white feminist, and a bisexual woman with mountains of straight privilege, so I need to not insist on being centered in those spaces, and to be sure to center others whose voices are more marginalized, whose lives are more at risk. But I will not give up my right to being in them altogether, because that too is a concession to kyriarchy, which would have us be divided and therefore weakened.
Which is not to try to tell you — or anyone else — what to do. I’m not in your shoes, your life, so I can’t know all the factors in your decision. But that’s how I’ve answered those niggling voices (“but you’re not really queer, here, let me chop off that limb for you”) for myself. For whatever that’s worth.
Thanks for such a thoughtful response. That’s exactly what those niggling voices in my head are saying, so it’s both comforting and plenty to think about.
Hi Arwyn
I’m another later blog nomad wandering here. I’ve been out to friends as bisexual since my teens, but I used to encounter assumptions of straightness and even when told otherwise, sometimes disbelief of my bisexuality/pansexuality as being any more than a phase.
But the broken record technique does work after a few years. Since I joined a number of GLBTI groups and started self-identifying as bisexual at national gatherings like the NZ Interfaith Forum, I have gradually gained some recogntion as a queer activist. This in spite of being married to a man for 15 years.
My 13 year old son is aware of my sexuality. He says he’s straight but he doesn’t mind how other people identify. To him, homophobia is just another type of bullying and he doesn’t like bullying.
But I still want to protect him from teasing because of me, so while I’m out at work and in my own spheres of life, I don’t self-identify as queer at my son’s school. Teenagers can be cruel if they identify a potential chink in the impression of normality.
[...] Passing for straight: parenting with a man as a queer identified woman [...]
Another who’s just found this! I’m in almost the opposite situation, I’m a completely hetero woman with a bi husband and 2 children. It’s interesting to hear about other people’s situations. Being with me is pretty much the only time he’s ever been monogamous, but he isn’t out to the world at large. I suspect the reason is that he’s always had to hide his activity – in suburbia it’s more acceptable to be gay than to cheat! Ironically now that he’s completely open with me, he is no longer acting bisexually and is also in the breeder role. So there’s no longer anything to come out about. We currently comment and compare attractive men, it will be interesting to see if that continues when our kids get older and more aware.