I had high hopes for my first relationship with a woman. I’d imagined it ever since I was an indoctrinated evangelical Christian, though only fleetingly just incase God might smite me. When I was a late 20 something I’d on occasion visualize making love to her, while I was in the throes of passion with (insert name of guy here) or while waiting for him to hurry up and finish so I could make a cuppa. I would picture her lying next to me, her soft skin brushing against mine. We would sink into each other in our sameness. It would be more spiritually sacred than any encounter I’d ever experienced.
And when the day finally came it was all of those things I’d dreamt about. Emotional, soft, intense-but also something I hadn’t countered for, piercingly painful. The kind of pain that cuts into your heart so deeply it leaves an unsightly crevice in its aftermath. My sin? The justification for my punishment? I was a bisexual, freshly awoken. Had only I had known beforehand that such an intrinsic part of myself was so legitimately despised among so many I probably wouldn’t haven’t bothered coming out of the closet at all. But there I was, already hopelessly in love, lost in a discoloured rainbow of prejudice with no guidebook.
I’d had fantasies too of my eventual coming out story. Logically I’d assumed my old church friends would be the least receptive. They’d say patronizing things like, ‘Carly we love you, but this isn’t God’s best plan for you’ and other Christian cliches meant to soften a homophobic blow. But they didn’t, instead they embraced me and my new label. They even humoured me when I told them I was ‘going to marry her’ three weeks in. And my partner would of course be my greatest cheerleader, she’d take infinite pride in knowing she was the one to finally shake me out of my queer coma. But it sadly soon became clear that in her eyes my sexuality alone demoted me to second class status in the gay hierarchy.
My ex- boyfriend and childhood friend was the first to meet her wrath, he had to go-though I wasn’t sure why-and so upon her command he did. Fifteen years of friendship came to a cold close, no goodbyes were permitted. Talk of men, any men could induce a panic attack at any given moment.’ Then there was the innocent safety condom that fell out of my bag that time when I was rummaging for my chapstick. I remember how she glared at it, then me as if my sexual history warranted me unclean like a soiled Victorian woman in centuries past. Or the consistent accusations that I was cheating, a moral line that I have never crossed, which she would of known had she’d sought to look past the stereotypes she associated with ‘my sort.’ Saddest of how was how I wanted to share with her how special she was, how this was like no love I’d ever felt before, but those conversations were abruptly silenced, ‘stop comparing me with men’ she would say. So gradually I just stopped speaking and crawled back into my lonely B marked box.
For the record I do realise that my ex is an extreme example but I tell this story to illustrate what I have noticed to be a real repeated issue in the LGBT community. When I finally left that abusive relationship, I published my story on a bisexual forum, and was surprised, if not shocked to be met with cries of ‘me too,’ ‘or and it happens all the time’ and ‘we’re used to it.’ Needless to say I quickly realized that I wasn’t alone and there was a problem even greater than I had initially imagined. The so called community is tearing up its own people on the inside and we keep excusing it while the straight world turns a blind eye and lets us get on with it. On LGBT dating apps there are lesbians who clearly state on their profiles ‘no bi girls’ as if we’re one cohesive whole, or the youtube videos (I don’t recommend watching them) where biphobia is affirmed as a preference rather than discrimination. Because lets be real here and at least, as a bare minimum label this for what it is.
I’m not completely unsympathetic to the reasons why some lesbians might avoid and berate bisexuals, though reasons are still not excuses. There are certainly documented accounts of women having their heart broken by the bicurious, and a legacy of insecurity that comes with that. Then there’s the issue of the good ole patriarchy which inadvertently teaches women that heterosexual relationships are somehow superior and the ‘penis’ is God , but its not, and anyway they can be easily enough purchased from Ebay if needs must. Besides lesbians statistically have better sex than their heterosexual counterparts. On a deeper level I think the biphobic ideas and attitudes circulating in our community come ultimately from a fear of not ‘being good enough.’ And though I’m a great believer in all feelings are valid, its not fair to take them out on a varied and vast group of individuals. That’s what therapy is for.
I really don’t care much for rainbow flags in shop windows, LGBT Marks and Spencers sandwiches, Pride converse or ‘I’m a ally’ profile picture frames on Facebook. What I want to see is a death to homophobia within our own movement, and a unification from within where all sexualities are equally regarded. Because surely there’s enough hostility in the world outside already for us to be adding to it. Lets repaint our rainbows in the fullest colour to include everyone. Purple and pink are complimentary colours afterall.