Not in the homophobic sense, but more in the "Where the hell were you assholes when I was coming out as bisexual? Oh, yeah, you all decided I didn't exist, or was a fencesitter, or was straight trying to play gay, or gay trying to hold onto straight privilege..." It never occurred to whole segments of the queer population that some of us might honestly be bisexual.
Things seem better now. I rarely get the virulent bisexual hate that I used to receive in my younger days. Every now and then a lesbian my age or older will give me a dirty look, but nothing major. Granted, it may also be that after being hounded out of one lesbian support group in the late 80s/early 90s I started to work VERY hard to make sure I never allowed anyone I didn't know very well that sort of power over my emotional well-being.
I'd known I liked girls as well as boys since the age of five. I also learned, nearly as early, that no matter how awesome it was, girls did not kiss girls, ever.
After being caught kissing my best friend by a male classmate, I'd had to fight our way out of a circle of taunting, jeering, rock throwing boys. I say I fought, because my best friend was too freaked out to do much of anything but cry. So, I quit kissing girls. That, and once her parents figured out what the genesis of the fight was, it was decided that my friend be moved to the AM kindergarten class so no more incidents could take place. They needn't have worried, we were both so freaked out about the attack, they could have locked us together in a room alone and we wouldn't have touched one another with a ten foot pole.
I spent the rest of my childhood and adolescence having quietly unrequited crushes on several of my female friends. There would be no more kissing until some drunken fumblings my junior year, that could handily be blamed on alcohol consumption. Sometime in junior high I'd found my mother's copy of "Everything you ever wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask," and read the parts on bisexuality avidly, but did not really think to apply the label to myself. Then in my senior year, one of my best male friends cut school to come over and pick me up at my high school, and confess tearfully to me that he thought he might be bi or gay. I looked at him for a minute with my head cocked to one side, and digested this whole "bi" concept, then laughed and said, "Me, too." We cried and hugged on each other, and I decided that this whole girl side of things bore more exploration.
Granted, there are still a lot of folks who don't "believe" in bisexuality. And as an overly cynical bisexual woman, I can sort of understand why. I spent years bouncing and bartending in a fetish/goth club, where I saw the whole spectrum of alcohol fueled "two-beer bi" behavior over the years. The regular customer who would grab me for an intense liplock on her way out of the club every saturday, but when I approached her early in the evening before she started drinking said, "Oh, I'm not bi. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression." Yeah, what on earth could have given me the impression she liked women? From that to being constantly propositioned by nervous straight girls whose boyfriends wanted threesomes, for a while there I got pretty skeptical of the existence of other bisexuals myself.
But back to the freaked out 17 year old who had just admitted to herself and her gay best friend that she was bisexual. I could get support at queer teen support groups, but only if I pretended to be a lesbian. Several prominent members of the Gay community had spoken: bisexuals didn't exist. We were sexual scam artists, lust-guided missiles out to destroy the hearts of the true queers, and then retreat to the safety of the heterosexual world.
The first person I asked to "marry" me (it's in quotes because at the time no state had legalized gay marriage, and it would be at least a year before Hawaii did), was a woman. I did eventually marry a man. At the point he and I were dating, I'd quit dating women out of a sense of self protection. Even if I could get another woman (usually lesbian) to date me, it always ended badly, usually with accusations of "You're not really queer, you're just a tourist!" or "You don't want me, you're really just into guys."
Many of my dating relationships, even casual dating relationships, with women self-destructed under accusations that I'd rather be with men, or wasn't really into women at all. Which I find absolutely ludicrous in hindsight, but at the time those accusations wounded me to the quick. Was it really me? Was I not "into" the women in my life enough? What was I doing wrong? With the wisdom of age, I realize that those relationships were doomed, and had I been a lesbian, there would have been other, different, accusations leveled at me. But at the time they filled me with self-doubt and a lot of anxiety. How could I be more into women? Was there something I just wasn't getting?
As a result of all this, I am ambivalent about Pride events. On the one hand, I'm truly gratified by the progress the LGBTQI community has made in the last forty years. On the other hand, as a bisexual woman with trans friends, I still see that an awful lot of queer culture isn't particularly inclusive itself, and if we can't all get along, how can we ask everyone else to get along with us? In other words, it's conflicting for me to preach tolerance for people who didn't tolerate who I really am/was, and who don't want to tolerate my trans friends. It doesn't mean I don't do it, but I'm always conflicted when supporting people who, when I needed them the most, wouldn't have pissed on me if I were on fire.
Mickey Schulz is a guest author for the California NOW blog; her opinions are not necessarily those of California NOW. Copyright Mickey Schulz, with permission granted to California NOW for use on this site.
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