I am a firm believer that there are no coincidences — I know this because the universe had me come into this world on Bi Visibility Day. So, on my birthday, I not only get to celebrate another year of my life; I also get to reflect on my bi+ journey and thank those who have supported me in all my bi-cycles.
Though I've long known that I wasn't straight, I only started identifying as "bisexual" in my early twenties, when I encountered a more expansive definition of the term. While bisexuality was for decades defined as attraction to both men and women, bi activists have pushed for a more inclusive definition of the term that acknowledges the full spectrum of gender identities. Today, bisexuality can encompass any emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction towards people of more than one gender. This evolution has also helped popularize the label bi+, an umbrella term that includes bisexual, pansexual, and queer people who fit under this expansive definition of bi.
I came to my queerness at a very early age, writing te amo over and over in my middle school journals when I’d have a new crush on a femme in class. I’ll never forget the girl who I shared my first kiss with. Mainly because intimacy with other femmes continues to make my heart want to beat out of my chest, but also because that same year I received endless questions about what my sexuality was from my peers.
Unfortunately, I’m not alone in this experience (just ask Brazilian pop star Anitta or Heartstopper star Kit Connor). While bi+ folks make up the majority of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S., we tend to receive scrutiny both from within and outside the queer community. Biphobia appears in the form of erasure, shame, misconceptions, questioning, surveilling, and policing. But while it’s important to address and take action against biphobia, it is not the only experience that bi+ folks have, and it’s certainly not the only story we know.
Bisexuality offers room for intimacy, connection, and love in unique and multifaceted ways. Bi+ individuals are abundant and know that we get to decide what bisexuality means and looks like; and in order to continue challenging the stigma that we face, we have to center bisexual individuals in these conversations. To capture the ways the meaning of bisexuality has evolved over the decades, Them spoke to 6 bi people on what being bi+ means to them today.
One of my earliest memories of my bi journey brings me to the Q27 bus in Queens Village, NYC circa 2006. That bus is where I would first come out to myself. I was sitting next to my homegirl, when all of a sudden the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes on gets up and pulls the stop to get off. I am completely and utterly frozen by her beauty. Never have I experienced this feeling for a woman in my young life. My hands get sweaty, my heart begins to race and my cheeks turn bright, tomato red. My homegirl shouting at me to stop staring finally pulled me out of my trance.
Later that day, finally alone I think, “What was that about, Connie? Why did she make me so nervous?”
I wouldn’t fully come out to myself until I turned 26. As I reflect on these memories and remember all the different lives I've lived, the word “bisexual” takes on a different meaning. Bisexuality was originally defined as having an attraction to both genders, but our current definition is being attracted to more than one gender. This makes me feel like “bisexual” got a past just like me, but it’s evolved. I see and feel that growth. This is the epitome of being part of the LGBTQAI+ community — an evolution, a reclamation, a performance, a revolution.
As a Black, Japanese, and Ghanaian bisexual woman, moments of reflection on how my identities shape the way I navigate my world are by no means novel. Much to my amusement and embarrassment, my journey with bisexuality is reflected in cliché — I welcomed my bisexuality slowly, then all at once. My adolescence was marked by the question many bisexual folks have grappled with: Do I want to be her, or do I want to smooch her? Sitting in an undergraduate developmental psychology course, I saw a familiar face from my adolescence: my dear María Pero No Santa. In reconnecting, she introduced me to this world of joyful queerness that I had never been privy to. I felt seen, safe, soft, celebrated.
After 20 years of being questioned, I held my bisexuality in a tight embrace with wholehearted acceptance. Owning my sexuality was born out of community and a willingness to find strength in resistance — woven into the fabric of bisexuality are connection, joy, triumph, complexity, and liberation. To my fellow bi+ folks who have never had the chance to explore your sexuality and grapple with its validity — be it because of a lack of opportunity or because your relationship(s) appear cishet to others — I hope you share my liberation. Your bisexuality transcends your physical experiences and does not waver in the face of others’ perception and acceptance of who you are.
Bisexuality feels like getting dumped at the Fort Lauderdale airport by a Pisces femme and then getting ghosted by a Cancer man — the duality! Love is hard. Naive little me never expected that with the abundance of choices in love it would also mean double the heartache. But leaning into my bisexuality has always felt comforting.
Love has always felt very fluid for me and when I discovered the term bisexuality on YouTube at the age of 17, I felt so incredibly understood. Who would’ve thought! I’ve since found my little community of fellow bi-pals and I’m eternally grateful for stumbling upon that one YouTube video titled, “How To Know If You’re Bisexual” all those years ago.
Being bi+ is abundant. Bisexuality means not only accepting but rather fully embracing my sexuality and its very essence. It means living outside of every box I thought we needed to fit into in order to survive and succeed. My superpower has become welcoming oddities and third options, truly holding the abundance that exists when you live on your own terms. I have become more open-minded, loving, beautiful, creative, and brave.
While it’s far from easy to be openly queer in the world and often even in your own home, it became essential for my survival and success. Being a femme, queer, Latina means no one can tell me shit about how I need to dress or act because for once in my life, I can confidently say I know myself and I love myself. And no one can take that from me.
I’m a trans woman. I’ve known that since I could speak, but I didn’t dare speak my full truth for another five decades. On the path to full authenticity, I fell deeply in love with the two women I married. That was real. The early 1980s were a complex time to wrestle with gender and sexuality. Sex could mean death. I dated men, but never found love. After both marriages crashed and burned, with my children grown and out of the house, I fell in love with my now partner of 11 years, Charles. This is real.
I have the capacity to love across the full gender spectrum. I stopped “apologizing” for that and learned to embrace it, along with the trans identity that never did go away. Because this is me. Being in love with a cis man who fully embraces his own sexuality allowed me to keep digging for my own authenticity and, finally, fully express it.
There is real freedom in being able to embrace all that we are, apart from who we were told to be. And authenticity is contagious. When we are fully ourselves, those around us can be more fully themselves. And that is very real.
There is freedom in my bisexual identity — freedom from the labels and boxes that society ridiculously insists upon. I have heard so many small-minded comments throughout my life:
“You’re just gay.” I’m not just anything.
“You have to choose.” Why? Also, I’ve made my choice. I choose not to choose. Look at any multiple choice test; all of the above is a valid option.
I came to accept, acknowledge, and embrace my same-sex attractions at age sixteen. I already knew that I was attracted to girls. These other feelings were just too strong and familiar to ignore. I forget the first time I heard the term “bisexual,” but when I did, a light bulb went off in my mind. That’s it! That’s me!
For years after that, I constantly felt like I had to defend my bi identity. Protect it. When people called me “gay,” I always had to correct them. Women — mostly straight women — tried to use my bisexuality as a way to eliminate me as a potential partner. They saw my identity as a denial of homosexuality, and so did men. Everyone tried very hard to negate the existence of my bisexual identity. Now, I feel that the openness of my identity has broadened my world emotionally, romantically, and socially in so many beautiful ways.
These replies have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.