From Gay Panic to Queer Joy

"Bisexuals aren't real.”

“They are either gay people in denial or straight people looking for attention."

These were the words I heard about bisexuals growing up in the 2000s, and they are still words I hear today. As a young girl, I knew something was different in how I experienced attraction. Sure, I had crushes on boys in my class, but I also desired a deep closeness to girls that I didn’t know how to describe that resulted in several poems about our friendship and telling them things like, “if I was a boy, I’d want to date you.” These feelings terrified me, so I boxed them up and sealed it with caution tape, a marker of the dangers of what lay within this box. I clung to the fact that I occasionally liked guys like a life vest in a sea of overwhelming confusion and chaos. 

Then one day, that life vest was no longer enough to keep me afloat in my denial. In my early 20s, a person very close and dear to me came out as gay and shared with me, “I’m just not physically attracted to women and never have been.” “Wait…What? That’s a thing? It’s possible to not find women attractive?” These thoughts rang in my head as I could hear the air leaking out of my life vest, sinking me into a gay panic. 

It was at this moment that I realized I couldn’t be straight…so I must obviously be “not quite straight.” Right? Because people can’t be bi. That’s the thing of legends, just like unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster, and a working soft serve machine at McDonald’s. So I settled for being “not quite straight.” But the more I noticed women (working as a barista just seems to bring out the queer in us), the more I realized “not quite straight” just wasn’t cutting it…so that must mean everyone is a little gay and just in denial! But some straight friends quickly dismantled this theory, much to my dismay. This left me feeling lost at sea, questioning if I’m not straight and I’m not gay, then who am I? I felt torn between the tension of knowing I definitely was not looking for attention and that my attraction towards each gender was real, while also feeling the strain of biphobia in both queer and straight communities. 

“Being bisexual is an equal split of attraction between each gender.”

“Oh, you're bisexual? What’s your percentage?”

I heard these comments about other bisexuals as I questioned my own sexuality. It caused me to look at my sexuality through both an electron microscope and the Huble telescope. Trying to name something that somehow felt both too tiny to see and too big to grasp. Chaos surrounded me. It felt like I needed a statistical analysis of my sexuality of each gender, and I don’t know about you, but I did terribly in stats class. 

I felt pressured, as though I couldn’t come out until I knew exactly how I experienced my queerness with the proper label…as though I needed a detailed thesis with data to pair with the statement that I am queer. I believed I would find rest in knowing how I experience my queerness and like this would be the thing that would inflate my life vest and save me from this gay panic. I felt like my queer card had an asterisk and I needed justification to occupy queer space. Rather than allowing people into the chaos with me, I sat on the outskirts ripping through the data of my life regarding the types of attraction one could experience (emotional, physical, sexual, romantic, etc.) seeking understanding so that I could feel justified entering queer spaces, especially as a bisexual person. 

“But you’re bisexual, so you could just marry a man. Why is it so important for you to be in queer community?”

“Your experience isn’t the same as gay/lesbian people in Side B spaces, because you have hope for a mixed orientation marriage.”

I’ve heard both these statements as I began entering queer and Side B spaces and sharing about my sexuality in church settings. These statements have caused me to minimize my experiences of grief, longing, and even joy while comparing myself to my gay/lesbian Side B siblings. 

My therapist recently said to me, “you deeply respect the journey others have gone on in reconciling their queerness and faith, but do you have that same respect for yourself?” And I haven’t. Even stepping into Side B spaces for the first time, I felt myself shrinking back, not because I feel like I didn’t need the space, but because I felt like I didn’t have the same claim that others had to that space. As a woman who has a deep longing for biological family and marriage, I questioned if this desire betrays my queer Side B community, my chosen family. It has made me question if I were to get married to a man, would that make my experience less valid and worthy of occupying space? As if it is somehow easier to hold a traditional sexual ethic because I am bisexual. As if I am not also carrying a heavy burden. 

“Is ‘Queer Joy’ possible for bisexuals?”

I’ve struggled with panic and depression since the first grade. Having peace and joy about anything can feel like an impossible task, let alone towards my sexuality. But I’ve been hearing a whisper, a gentle alluring voice calling me into the wilderness and chaos. And the voice is asking me to let go. To stop trying to know everything, let go of my life vest, and to surrender to something better. 

This has led me to stop making Excel spreadsheets of my sexuality and attractions. I’m trying to step away from treating my sexuality like a riddle to solve all the possibilities that lie under the Bi+ Umbrella (pansexual, polysexual/multisexual, omnisexual, fluid, etc.). Now, I just say I’m a chaotic bisexual. Because my sexuality has always felt like chaos, like the seas would swallow me up if I didn’t have some understanding of my sexuality to cling onto for dear life. Yet the understanding never came. 

Now I’m letting go of that life vest and trying to walk to Jesus in the raging seas, because when I let go, I hear him inviting me to come play with him as he giggles and splashes me with water. He’s inviting me into Queer Joy in the middle of a raging hurricane, into experiencing that strange joy that comes from letting go and trusting him. It’s a joy I feel when my fellow bisexuals and I all accidentally wear the unofficial bi uniform that is olive green shorts with a black top. It’s a joy I feel when we make friendship bracelets and listen to Taylor Swift. It’s a joy I feel when I let go of the death grip I have on understanding and begin playing with Jesus. It’s the strange joy I feel from letting go and gettin’ bi.