As a cis, white, bisexual woman I understand that I have a lot of privilege in comparison to a lot of other members of the LGBTQ+ community. I also understand that I can only really give advice to women like me, yet I hope that even if you aren't cis, white, or bisexual you can still get a thing or two out of it.

Being bi is just as confusing as it sounds. Between heteronormativity suppressing our feelings, to some members of the LGBTQ+ community not accepting of us, to society's views on bisexuals it can be pretty hard to come to terms with and learn to appreciate who we are. From what I've heard most bisexuals go through similar journeys through life and coming to terms with their sexuality despite privilege or community. So what exactly does this odyssey entail? (see what I did there?)

Let's start at the beginning: realization

Realizing you're bisexual can be extremely confusing and can take years. Many people go through very long periods of their life just assuming they are either gay or straight-- no one ever thinks of trying both. From what I've heard from friends, many people who are homosexual know they are from a very young age, they know they're not straight so they never attempt to explore a little deeper into their sexuality because they're comfortable being gay, and that's okay. The same thing happens with heterosexuality. I never found a need to question if I liked girls because I never thought I needed to, I liked boys and for a while that was enough. It wasn't until I had kissed a friend at a party as a joke that I realized there could more to my sexuality than sweaty nutsacks and "and then what" texts. This tends to be a fairly common theme in bisexuality.

I was immediately thrown into confusion; was I gay, was I straight, was I bi? I soon realized that many girls I had just found pretty I was actually attracted to, and I started to take more notice to my different attractions. This can be messy. Trying to figure out who I was and wasn't attracted to proved not to be an easy task. I would see a pretty girl and instantly think "Do I want to be her? Do I like her because I want her to be my best friends or do I want to date her?" It proved to be challenging filtering my friends from my crushes because traditionally I had only had female friends. It took me about four years to come to terms that I was in fact bisexual. Figuring out who you're attracted to and to what degree is an extremely hard task, especially when you live in a small town where the LGBTQ+ community consists of one or two people. My best advice is to kiss or talk to a vast amount of diverse people. Find what you like, what you don't like, and to what degree. The only way to know is to try.

Once you've realized you're bisexual you'll face a whole new set of challenges: other people.

Whether you're out or not you'll more than likely how society views and treats bisexuals. Depending on the group their coming from, they might be around different ideals but mostly it revolves around the idea that bisexuals are more promiscuous than straight or gay people, because like, you know, logic. If were attracted to twice as many genders we must be attracted to twice as many people, and have twice as much sex. Logic. In my experience, the most annoying token of this is the straight white frat boy. Often times if you reveal to them you're sexuality, you'll be hit with, "So like, uh, do you like threesomes?", or "You should invite one of your 'friends' over", referring to other bisexual girls, as if we have some kind of secret network going around. Chances are even if I were into trying a trio, it probably wouldn't be with your dad bod looking ass, go back to drinking Natty Light, thanks. Questions like this invalidate our sexuality because instead of making us out to be humans, were made out to be sex toys, something for your pleasure. These assholes are best avoided if possible, but to have a little fun I would recommend playing dumb, making him explain his reasoning behind why he would think bisexuality and threesomes are interlinked in the slightest. This trick generally works for most racist, sexist and homophobic jokes.

In general society, even the LGBTQ+ community can tend to not take bisexuals seriously. Bisexual women are seen as drunk party girls who just want an excuse to make-out, and bi men are seen as gays that haven't fully accepted that they're gay yet. This invalidates us and makes us seem, well, confused. Which we are from time to time but were not in that much denial, we know who we are and we don't need society to try and figure us out. Society will constantly try and assign us a sexuality. They constantly say things like "ya, but like, I see you as more into guys.", or, "ya but you probably wouldn't marry a woman." People tend to see it like a switch, we're either gay or straight in one particular moment. You might get asked what "percentage" are you, meaning how gay and how straight are you exactly? The reason this is problematic, even if some bisexuals feel more attraction to one gender than another is because it reinforces that bisexuality isn't its own sexuality, it's made up of two different ones in which you can be one or the other and switch off.

The worst offense of biphobia comes from the LGBTQ+ community. Obviously it is only select people who have these views, and most of the community is very accepting. Yet some of it thinks that bisexuality doesn't count. We're not gay enough, we can hide in heterosexuality, were privileged. Some think we're faking it for attention, or were not stigmatized enough to belong in the community. (Which is A1 logic because they themselves are literally stigmatizing us). This can make bisexuals, especially those in hetero relationships, feel invalidated or like a man with no country. It can be isolating being bi, especially in a hetero relationship, because you can feel like you're not gay enough to really relate, but just remember that you're not gay enough because you're not gay at all, you're bi and you're valid.

It's important to be proud. Be proud that you're bi. You have something very special that is real and meaningful. If you encounter one of the assholes above just remember for one of them there's hundreds of accepting people out there, you just have to find them. Stay happy, stay proud.