“Bi: the hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality” by Julia Shaw

Yayyyyyyyy!!!! I’m Bi!!!!!!!

Congrats, everyone! Now, you know! I usually don’t talk about my sexuality unless we’re friends or dating. I definitely don’t talk about it, that I can remember, online. I’m not 100% sure I actually want to post this, tbh. BUT, this is important. Close friends, some close family, and my girlfriend know, but not everyone. This is my coming out post. Yay!

The reason for this post is because I read this book. It’s an inspiring, researched, and conversational dive into bisexual people, the queer people of B in LGBT+. It talks about the history of the word itself. From Ellis’ Sexual Inversion (even before him) to Kinsey’s Scale to Klein’s Chart to Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality—we get a broad overview of bisexual history. Many issues bisexual people face are uncovered, like the challenges of self-identifying or the harm of not having Bi people in government. Other issues included misrepresentation in media, blaming bisexuals for transferring AIDS to straight people, conversion therapies that are still operating, and courts denying citizenship to bisexuals. It’s hard for me to remember statistics and cold numbers, but Shaw’s interpretation (or what other researchers interpret) of the data, left me with a sense of belonging that sometimes is missing from my life. I definitely felt like I belonged at theater school, and at my job at Advance Auto Parts, both places where eventually, I could be open about being Bi. Since leaving school and AAP however, it’s hard to feel that sense of family, especially with people who are not queer-identifying. Right now, living in Miami, the norm is that one assumes one is straight, unless clearly expressed otherwise. I imagine I’m always considered a type of gay because of the theater work I do, my personality, my tattoos, etc. Other than my own inner tension, I get a feeling that most people seem open-minded.

My perspective is that down here being queer can be a silly punchline, like it’s funny to see gay people. Toxic masculinity shows up in Miami a lot, and I feel it contributes to the treatment of queer people by making us unserious. Like neurologically disabled. Like a proverbial little girl who threatens to punch you. Laughable. Un-respectable. Dis-respectable. “Gay people can’t do shit to me,” is a main vibe I get from most toxic straight men. It’s hardly ever said explicitly, and it’s an attitude that is just my conjecture, really. Projection, maybe. I feel like there's an undercurrent of aggression that makes this attitude homophobic. It’s tough too, because I’m in a straight-seeming relationship and so, I often benefit from new people not knowing I’m Bi. The only new people who seem to see me are other queer people. According to the book, many Bi people feel this tension. Shaw suggests using the label, mixed-orientation relationship. Not bad, but I don’t know, man. People down here struggle with the pronoun game, you know…Maybe when that gets settled we can graduate to mixed-orientation couple? I don’t know, man. It can be hard to get respect. I’d tell ya, I’d tell ya. Many people struggle to come out as Bi, if at all, whether they are the children to closed-minded parents or parents themselves, deeply ashamed of their sexuality and its “disgusting” nature. Being attracted to multiple genders carries a stigma even Gay and Lesbian people might reinforce. A Bi person is consistently seen as more sexual, deceitful, and careless. According to the book, a study found that a Bi person was less likely to be hired by an employer, than both, people who proudly declared they were gay/lesbian or people who didn’t mention their sexuality at all on their application.

There’s even a section describing how Judges would deny people asylum on the basis of not believing they were actually bisexual. In one person’s case, his affair with a woman in the UK, after claiming having had a relationship with a man, which initiated his need to flee Uganda, discredited him to a Judge responsible for deporting him. There’s tons of information in this book that’s empowering because queer people worldwide are suffering; and just to know the kind of suffering is valuable to read. There’s chunks of information about animals and how non-heterosexuality shows up in nature. How Ram’s will repeatedly prefer other rams for sex, instead of sheep, and how this is actually a problem for farmers. Some have even made a “tinder-style” app to connect potential ram/sheep couples. The book mentions members of the starfish family can change their own gender, and will have sex with the same or different gender. Also that, Bonobo monkeys settle fights and disagreements with sex. They’re like a better version of us. “Not normal” sex, or all the sex that encompasses homosexual, plurisexual, bisexual or pansexual behavior, is actually just as natural as “normal” sex or straight sex. The writer makes the point that to assume sex between animals is always for the purpose of breeding or to show dominance, is limiting, as research shows its also for strengthening bonds and having fun, among a few other things. To assume that every sexual behavior is ultimately straight, as in, “for the purposes of making babies or overpowering the other,” is not completely truthful about what sex is as its observed in nature and in our own world.

There’s also research done in prisons, and parts of Afghanistan, where women and men are legally or culturally separated. In those places, as well as in boarding schools or in the military, some people engage in homosexual behavior, but still call themselves straight. Avoiding to identify as anything other than straight because no women/men were around. They saw sex as a need and so fulfilled that need, however they could, in the moment. The book’s coverage of Klein’s Chart helped broaden my understanding of my sexuality, so I think it’s unfortunate that other people don’t have that privilege. According to the book, a fairly new LGBT+ support group, in a men’s prison in the UK, boasted just three members. I’m not quoting the writer (I’m going off the top of my head), but it feels like the implication is that they were more likely to hold onto labels, that were already socially approved, than consider a more nuanced label for their sexuality. This black-or-white thinking helps to maintain harmful ideas about sexuality throughout the world. Which is ultimately a big part of the thinking that influences how queer people are mistreated in certain places. There are anal probing experiments, forced rape in order to turn straight, imprisonment, kidnappings, and cruel violence. Queer people in Poland, and elsewhere (for example), continue to be likened to pedophiles as just one part of the ideology that is used to justify hateful policy. With a broader picture of sexuality, I’d hope that violence would become harder to incite through deliberately pinning Straight people against Queer people.

It’s hard for Bi people to “look” queer enough sometimes and this, along with other ideas, can cause the Bi-erasure that leads to black-or-white thinking. Bi-erasure, Shaw is saying, is when Bi people are lumped into straight or queer categories without real acknowledgment of their unique difference. The writer describes the importance of having queer iconography and literature around her. Not to prove to others that she is Bi, but to celebrate the part of her that isn’t always visible to the outside world. The queer part of her that might look straight with her opposite-gendered partner, but belies her real self-identification. Which is who she is, but that in other places, gets queer people tortured, killed, or jailed. I related to this because when I was single, I found it was easier to tell people I was Bi, like at work or a bar, but now in a relationship, I can be reluctant to be open about that. I feel I might come across as flirting, untrustworthy, or less than. It can be hard to feel confident in myself when I’m a little worried about whether or not people around me have some stupid shit to say to me. And for me, reading this book helped me look within, and realize I was believing in some of the “stupid shit” myself. Stupid shit that, honestly, I haven’t been informed enough on to combat or correct. This book helped me discover myself. It is an empowering read, like it says on the cover, and I hope others feel empowered by it too.

P.S. I think I have to up my queer game because in my room, the only thing I have, is a Sunday in the Park with George poster that my beautiful girlfriend got me. And it’s like, it’s not the gay-est musical, I don’t think, but the title does a good enough job of sounding like a beautiful romp with the boys. I also have an AI picture of me as a girl in a quinceañera picture, but it’s a recent gift from our Stage Manager from my last theater job, so it doesn’t count. Yet. I think my tattoos are queer! uwu. I hope to get cuter and more colorful ones. I’m thinking of that new Chipotle one of the burrito with wings. Then, I’d get free burritos for the rest of my life. It’s actually pretty sicc, bro, honestly a dub. sicc... Also, Martyr! gave me an idea for a tattoo that involves stained glass in shards, a religious (Islamic) representation of the multitudes within us, but that the author, Kaveh Akbar (I believe (I hope!)), is connecting to queerness.