About three months ago, on April 20 of 2016 (I know, I picked a rather unfortunate date but failed to notice before it was too late), I came out as bisexual, publicly. This was a huge step for me, and I’m so happy I did it. Here’s an excerpt from my Facebook post from that day:

“Today, I come out officially, not only as a bisexual, but as a bisexual that is open to relationships with the same sex (unlike how I was in the past due to my desire to follow Catholic Church doctrine).
I first started noticing that I was developing feelings for the same sex in middle school.
My first crush on a girl was a close friend of mine, who is quite possibly the most conservative Christian to have set foot in Edwardsville. I casually joked around about how we’d make a cute couple or something (not subtle, I know) when she admitted to me how she felt about homosexuality: that it’s sin. At the time, I was an extremely lukewarm Christian. I had a bit of Catholicism here, some fundamentalist Baptist there, and even a bit of Pentecostal sprinkled in. My beliefs were mixed, but when I first learned that Christians considered homosexuality to be a sin, I saw it as something I needed to fix within myself; something to constantly conceal; something to never, ever share.

Then I went from Christian, to Agnostic, to Catholic within about a year (and of course now I’m an atheist), which is a very long story that I won’t get into on this post. As I went through RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), I learned why the Church thought acting on homosexuality was sinful. I suppressed my feelings towards girls for a couple more years after that. Then when I learned more about how the Church viewed what they called “Same Sex Attraction,” I decided to come out as bisexual.. Kind of. I made an Instagram post of “coming out”—as a Catholic bisexual who was chaste. Then I met a girl who’s still a good friend. We were both “SSA and Catholic.” She may have been my first love, honestly. We were “girlfriends” for an hour—quite arguably the happiest hour of my life—before my former best friend—who is now on his way to becoming a priest—guilted me out of the relationship. Some part of me realized, I think, how wrong this all was. Part of me knew better, but until I learned other about other things that I now find to be wrong about religion (or, at least, Christianity/Catholicism), I couldn’t bring myself to be open to the possibility of a relationship with a girl.”

To sum up the rest of the post, it consists of my discussing my reasoning for not coming out sooner to everyone and thanking everyone that has supported me on this journey. I didn’t go into how I came to accept myself for what I am, sexuality and all, nearly as much as I should have. I decided to write this because of the fact I realized that I need to delve into it.

I like men and women and maybe everything in between (pansexuality is a form of bisexuality). And that’s OK. And I’m perfectly OK with it now. Yes, sometimes it’s a little scary and I worry about being discriminated against. But it doesn’t mean I’m a depraved human being. I wish I’d have realized years ago that no form of love is a wrong form of love. And I wish I could tell my past self that, I truly do. But I can’t, and the best thing I can do is spread the message. It’s OK to be gay (or anything else in the LGBTQA+ spectrum). It’s perfectly okay. There’s nothing wrong with you and it’s wrong for others to judge you because of who you happen to love.

If you need help with anything related to coming out, relationships, safer sex, etc., there are resources on this

site.As someone who spent years feeling like there was something wrong with me, feeling lost, confused, and even at times helpless, I feel I need to stress that you please remember this: Never feel ashamed for who you are, especially when it’s regarding who you love.