I knew I was gay right around the time that my parents got divorced – I was 10 or 11, maybe; the dates are hard to pinpoint. I’d never experienced divorce before, but it was pretty difficult for me to wrap my head around. So, I did what any kid would probably do in my situation: I kept quiet. It was so hard to do starting out; I was scared. I didn’t know what to believe. I was intrigued at finally figuring out the word for "my condition," but terrified at the prospect of going to Hell.
In the following years, I continued to keep quiet. I fostered friendships, found a passion for reading, attended church every week, and even attended church conferences, such as C.I.Y. Move and the like; young adult bible study sessions were even held in my own home for a couple of months. Still, I pushed it to the back of my mind. At around this time, I had convinced myself it was just a phase; in a couple of years, I would fall head-first for the girl of my parent’s dreams and things would be OK. But it didn’t quite work out that way.
I worked at a local amusement park, operating rides big and small. It was there I met my first real crush; he wasn’t a TV celebrity, he wasn’t known for anything world changing. I didn’t even know his name, but I knew his personality and it was around him that I felt like maybe it wasn’t just a phase; and maybe, just maybe, that was OK. He was tall, handsome, and he never shut the hell up, but I found that to be an exciting endeavor.
Still, I was in the closet; I could never talk to him, let alone date him. Jump forward to the next summer and we’d become friends. Some friends from high school were the first that I told. And though it didn’t work out – thankfully – I still struggled with how I presented myself and my identity
I didn’t even tell them that I was gay, but that I was bi. Looking back, this is one of the things that I regret the most.
Bi-erasure is a problem within the LGBTQA+ community that needs to stop. The problem with coming out as bisexual when you are in fact queer, gay, or lesbian is that it erases the validity of the bisexual identity. The validity of being bisexual is hard enough for those who identify as being so; not only are they attracted to men, but also to women, and to some, that can be extremely difficult to understand.
For example, if a male is married to another male, people will automatically assume that he is in fact gay. And this isn’t always the case. RJ Aguiar, a YouTube personality, is a huge advocate for the bisexual community. As a bisexual male, his identity is constantly being questioned.
Often people ask him why he doesn’t “just come out already”. This is not only rude, but also incredibly ignorant. From the get go, RJ has let his audience know about his identity. RJ attributes this ignorance to binaries and orientation versus conduct.
Check out the video below for RJ’s “Setting the Record Straight”:
For more information on bisexuality and bi erasure, you can visit http://www.glaad.org/bisexual/bierasure.
