
Coming Out pt. 5
In which she finds labels to be inadequate
Ah, the alphabet soup of identities. Fondly referred to as QUILTBAG on the Interwebs. There is no dearth of labels from which a not-straight not-cis-gendered person can choose — A list so long it’s almost impossible to remember them all, but shall we try?
Gay, of course. And lesbian, the two that always start the list, don’t they? Then there’s queer, which can cover gender identity too. This gets us into another layer of levels in the four-dimensional hypercube of sexual and gender orientation: Intersex, transgender, two-spirited, androgyne, gender queer and non-gender conforming. And then there’s asexual and pansexual. Plus the subcultures and identities within identities — butch or lipstick lesbian, bear, tomboi, leather daddy, dyke and so much more, with caveats and cross-overs.
To each their own and for me, from when I first came out at fourteen until I was about seventeen: Bisexual.
This is a hard identity to bear for many reasons. People who identify as bisexual get called fence-sitters, or are met with knowing eye-rolls as it is assumed they either ‘haven’t made up their mind’ or are ‘not confident enough to just come out as gay’. Sometimes, of course, this is the case, although that shouldn’t make the identity any less valid for the time a person chooses it.
Then there’s the assumption that our relationships are an indication of our sexual orientation. Often, when a bisexual identified individual starts dating someone, friends and family assume they no longer identify as bisexual.
This is absurd as it implies that it’s our relationships that determine our sexual orientation, rather than y’know, us. No one would assume someone who is straight identified and single isn’t entirely aware of who they are attracted to, but we do this to bisexual people all the time. As if bisexual represents ‘confused’.
Not to mention identity erasure. If a bisexual woman is in a relationship with a man, is she still bisexual? Well, YES. Because her identity is about her, not the person or people she’s dating or to whom she is married.
On top of that, no one is fixed. People change. How we identify changes. A man who once called himself straight could fall in love with another man. A transsexual identified woman who only dated men might identify as bisexual after she finishes transitioning. A woman who always considered herself a staunch lesbian could fall in love with her genderqueer friend who uses male pronouns.
Regardless of the identifying words we choose (or have imposed upon us) they are arbitrary and will never capture or explain the fullness of any human being. We are way too damn complicated for that ever to be possible. Labels can only be an approximation of a person.
Bisexual was a word that fit for me, genuinely, until it didn’t. Not because I was ‘actually’ a lesbian or ‘actually’ gay, but because how I saw myself as a bisexual woman didn’t fit with how most people defined bisexuality.
I wasn’t interested in dating men although I could be attracted to men. I’ve had incredible connections with men — mentally, spiritually, emotionally and even physically — but sexually? Sexually men do nothing for me. Just kissing a guy kills it for me — it doesn’t matter how intense all those other levels of attraction are. I’ve just never been sexually attracted to a man, have never wanted to be in an intimate relationship with one, and that is that.
But what to call myself if not bisexual? You would think the abundance of choice would have made it easy for me to find a label that fit, but no label is free of the baggage of assumption.
Take ‘lesbian’, for example:
1. People who assumed I was a lesbian got confused when I said stuff like “Alan Rickman is so hot. He could read to me any day” or “I have a crush on *super pretty boy at school* — he’s so funny and interesting.”
2. The problem of the lesbian porn icon — bored women who only have sex with each other until the pizza boy/plumber arrives. This attracts unwanted attention and lurid behaviour from men who have watched too much porn and don’t realise that a woman telling them she’s a lesbian is not a come-on or invitation to a threesome with her girlfriend.
3. The straw woman man-hater lesbian. Some people (cough-dudebros-cough) wanted to know ‘what men had done to me to make me hate men’ or if they could try to ‘convince me’ to ‘give them a try’ — as if my sexual orientation wasn’t something I was born with or was a ‘problem’ to fix.
The biggest problem, of course, was that I just didn’t identify with the word. It never fit for me (still doesn’t) and that’s why I’ve never called myself a lesbian — although plenty of people have chosen that label for me.
I didn’t like gay much either, although it felt like a better identity than lesbian—more general and encompassing. Unfortunately, I’d get ragged on by women who said calling myself gay was ‘unfeminist’. Plus there was still that problem where people couldn’t fathom that I could be attracted to men physically but not sexually (There’s a difference between finding someone physically appealing and wanting to have sex with them). I’d say something like ‘David Bowie is such a babe’ and people would get all confused.
I was lamenting this identity problem to Nadine one day while we were coming home from school on the bus. By now we were in grade twelve, and I’d developed a monstrous crush on her. She was a wicked ally and one of the few people by whom I felt truly seen.
My crush had started mid-way through the tenth grade when she stood up for me in our science class. I’d complimented one of our classmates on the PJ bottoms she had worn to school that day — I think they were covered in muppets or something—and she snarkily said, “You like them, or you’d like to get into them? Dyke.”
Nadine told the girl off, and after school she insisted on holding my hand as we walked the ten city blocks it took to get downtown. She shouted to anyone who stared at us, “We’re gay! And we’re allowed to exist!”
Personally, I hadn’t cared one bit about getting stared at, or even our classmate’s remark, but it was nice to have a straight friend notice the everyday things I’d learned to live with. For this reason, Nadine had also become my best friend — the person with whom I could share my biggest and deepest worries and fears.
For some reason I could not tell you, I was really worried about not being able to find the perfect word for my sexual orientation. I’d been going on about it for weeks — flopping between dyke instead of lesbian (“Because it’s more forceful, y’know? Although, even as a reclaimed word, I have to be so careful because I understand how hurtfully it’s been used in the past”) or not-straight rather than gay.
I had probably been going on about it in a loop for far too long.
“Why do you care about other people being confused or not? That’s their problem, not yours.”
Right.
I wasn’t supposed to care what other people thought. I was supposed to just speak my truth. But the problem remained, there was no easy way to explain who I was, which is to say, there was no single label that could capture the fullness of my humanity, or anyone’s humanity.
And thus began the process of letting go. Throughout my late teens, I dodged labels as best I could as I realised no label could be definitive of anyone. I’d get creative, calling myself bisexual-ish, not-straight or ‘dykey McLesbo’ and I gave the long explanation when asked:
“I’m attracted to women but I sometimes get crushes on guys, but I don’t want to have sex with them, I just think they’re nice sometimes. I really only want to date women. I’d say I’m 90/10 bisexual—closer to gay than straight.”
This changed, however, a year after graduation, when I was nineteen. I signed up to be an anti-homophobia volunteer with the Calgary Sexual Health Centre (CSHC). The role was fun — I accompanied a staff member from the CSHC to high schools around the city to talk about my experience of being gay and coming out.
It was a really well-structured class. The CSHC staff member began by presenting a list of labels similar (but not quite as extensive) to those listed above. Students were asked to respectfully define each one, although ultimately it was the CSHC staff that gave a ‘final’ definition. I appreciated this aspect a lot because this was where I got my clarification of attraction. Lesbian, for example, was a defined as: A woman identified person who is mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically and sexually attracted to other women.
They were always good at pointing out that generally, when we choose to have an intimate partner relationship with someone, we are probably highly attracted to them in most or all of these ways. This was great when it came to the time in the class when it was turned over to me and opened up for the students to ask questions. When asked which label I chose, I would tell them I didn’t, but that I felt all those levels of attraction for women.
But as I did more and more of these workshops one word on that list began to be a lot more appealing, especially as I began playing around with gender.
To be continued…
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Other parts in this series:






