I am bi

It’s Pride Month, but the world feels on fire right now. I was honestly wondering if I should post anything at all; sometimes this can make us feel like our own lives or feelings don’t matter, that the bigger picture takes priority. But this is not an either/or scenario. We can care and fight for the world around us and still believe our individual stories matter. Even more so with Pride, when someone, somewhere is wrestling with feelings they cannot understand and somehow a personal story can tie it all together. We never know the impact our sharing, our vulnerability can have on others.

I am bisexual. I have been bisexual all my life, attracted to people of multiple genders, but I didn’t have the awareness nor the courage to put a label on it until my late 20s.

My mom clocked me at a young age. I had a best friend, who shall remain nameless, that I was obsessed with. Talking on the phone for hours, always together at school and wanting to do everything together. Naturally my mom was curious and so she asked during one of our routine car rides necessary in our small town. Did I like [name redacted] more than a friend? No, I wildly exclaimed, she was just my best friend. I wanted to disappear into my seat. I don’t know why I had such a strong reaction then. For one, I knew my parents were more understanding than most, and in fact, my late uncle was gay. I wasn’t embarrassed my mom had asked me so directly because that’s how she was all the time. I think I denied it so vehemently because it didn’t feel right.

I knew what it meant to be a lesbian and I knew I wasn’t that because I also liked boys. I was simultaneously girl crazy and boy crazy and I had no example, no proxy to help me understand. The math didn’t come together, so I tucked it neatly away in my head as just a girl desperately wanting to be close to girls as friends and close to boys as partners. Even throughout high school, university, and living in big cities, I had friends from all walks of life, but never really had bi friends to put two and two together.

It wasn’t until I lived in Singapore that I realised it myself. The irony of it all–I can’t even find an LGBTQ book in their national library but somehow it’s where I made most of my queer friends, had the most outrageous dating stories and ultimately came out. It’s funny how it wasn’t even a big moment, just a simple conversation with a friend and a small lightbulb going off in my head.

Finally there was an explanation, an understanding of what I was feeling my whole life. I was simultaneously relieved and mortified. Why hadn’t I figured this out sooner? It felt like a very big part of my identity had been unlocked at a very late stage. Shouldn’t I have known? I was embarrassed to say the least. But that didn’t last long. I was single at the time and wanted to get out there and date. I was never one to wallow.

Most people in my life don’t know I’m bi, simply because I have a husband. I saw him one night at the club when he was hyping on top of a DJ booth (true story) and the rest was history. I wasn’t thinking of his gender or what this all meant in the grand scheme of things. But there’s a choice I want to make now.

Honestly, I could just let people keep assuming I’m straight. It’s a choice most bi people make (literally, there are even statistics on it, only 19% are out). We mask ourselves depending on the audience, otherwise you’re too queer for your straight colleagues and too straight for your queer colleagues. Then there are the assumptions; pick your favorite: you’re unstable, confused, untrustworthy or promiscuous. No wonder bi people don’t want to be out.

I did what most people do to fit in. I played a character, I went with the grain, I masked a lot to get that seat at the table. At first I thought this was just self-preservation, being the only woman in the room, but it wasn’t just that. I was hiding a lot of myself to make it through the day. This works for many people and many scenarios, but it wasn’t working for me. I always felt off, a huge disconnect between my different selves. I’ve moved through different environments where enough was enough. I wanted people to change to my point of view and they needed to do it now. That had its own consequences and heartaches. And in all honesty, that wasn’t my way of handling things either.

For most of my life, I feel like I’ve been trying to be what I thought I should be instead of who I actually am. But something’s shifted for me recently, so profoundly that I’ve been trying to piece it together in phone calls and voice notes with my friends. Maybe it’s the magic of my 30s, maybe this is what people call confidence.

It almost feels like a lightning bolt saying this. I know who I am, I know what I want to do. That’s the only thing I can control. People can say whatever they want about me, they can make any assumptions about the actions I take. I can’t control that. It’s a strange, new feeling for me if I’m honest. I’ve spent most of my life desperately wanting to fit in, moulding myself to be a good little cog in the machine, even when it made me miserable.

And over the years, after events, I would have people come up to me asking how they navigated these systems. Queer people and women telling me stories of horrendous behaviour, wondering what to change about themselves to advance. But why try to advance in a broken system when you can just make your own? That’s why I get so inspired by entrepreneurs and founders doing exactly that.

According to many studies, being this out and open will negatively impact my future prospects and career. This would have sent my younger self into a spiral, but now that I’m older, I don’t care. I’d rather make my own path than settle for someone else’s.

And in my path, I choose visibility over comfort. I am bi. It’s just as important as my experience and my knowledge. I’d rather be with people and move in spaces that support that. My friends, family and colleagues at Canva already do that; why would I settle for anything less?

If you’re bi and reading this, Happy Pride. I hope you’re doing well.