I was getting impatient.
I need to tell you something first, she said, avoiding my eyes.
Okay, I said slowly, elongating the second vowel.
Getty Images/ Jena Ardell
I had never heard that word before.
What does that mean?
And then I shouted, Oh, my God, Im that too!
Bisexuality is more complicated than that, of course.
(If you’re wondering, What is pansexuality?"
here’s what you better know).
You see, growing up, I was confused.
But I went home and asked my dad what that meant, and it still didnt fit.
I was bothand I thought I was the only one.
Learning the wordbisexualon the bus that day a couple of years later was an unforgettably powerful moment of validation.
Not only was there a name for what I felt, but I wasnt alone after all.
I started dating my first love, a woman, when I was 15.
It was with her that I hadmy first sexual experience.
I was very comfortable identifying as bisexual then.
I had crushes galore, and gender felt irrelevant to my attractions.
I also helped start the Gay/Straight Alliance at my high school.
When I later started dating a man, though, I felt a significant shift.
Suddenly, my peers questioned my queerness.
Even my boyfriend at the time told me, point-blank, No one is bisexual forever.
You eventually have to choose.
For many years after that, I dated cis men almost exclusively, mostly as a result of convenience.
But the love interests who tended to stick, who wanted me most, were cis men.
I was even engaged to one before I graduated from college!
I came out anewonly to be shocked when I later fell for a man all over again.
Its also our internal experience and how we choose to describe it.
Thats what happened to me before I realized I was thinking about it all wrong.
What does it actuallymeanto be bisexual?
And who is allowed to claim it?
She knows in her heart where her attractions lie, but her experience betrays that.
If thats what she wants to call herself, which is up to her.
Suddenly, the puzzle pieces of trying to understand my own sexuality fell into place.
Bisexuality can look like primarily being attracted to and/or dating one gender, while also having interest in others.
It can look perfectly portioned with equal experience across genders.
Or, like with my own experience, bisexuality can look like shifting external behavior with a static orientation.
Ultimately, bisexuality isnt a phase or a confusion or a burden.
Its a legitimate experience and identity.