I’m walking down the sidewalk to get Starbucks, and holding hands with my current partner. As I lean into him affectionately, I glance around at the pedestrians passing us. Some smile at us, but their silent approval of our relationship reminds me just how different holding hands with my girlfriend felt when we were in public.

I came out to my parents as a lesbian when I was 18 years old. I was a freshman at the University of Delaware, an active member of my school’s LGBTQ+ organization, and had been out to my close friends since 16. I remember being utterly terrified of my parents’ reaction. Coming from a religious family, I thought for sure that I’d be shunned, my school funding would be cut, and I’d be alone. Scenario after scenario flashed through my mind as I’d stood in the middle of the living room with a glass of water clutched tightly in my shaking hand. Their response was both relieving and somewhat unsettling: “We kind of already knew that.” What had taken me so long to come to grips with, they’d been assuming since I was in high school, yet never discussed with me. Once I got over the initial shock, I gulped down my water, choked back some grateful tears, and drove myself back to school.

I felt very confident in this identity for about four years. After that, I started getting confused again. I had had crushes on guys throughout middle and high school, had even had a short-term boyfriend. But once I’d stopped denying the attraction that I felt towards women, I’d taken men completely off my radar. Looking back, I think the reason why I had such a black-and-white perspective of sexuality is that I had never learned anything else. I went to parochial school from third-to-twelfth grade, where heterosexuality reigns supreme. College expanded my concepts of sexuality and gender (thanks, WOMS), and I really started to learn about the fluidity of both. Seeing boys and feeling my heart flutter also made my head hurt, but through this broadened understanding, I gradually developed crushes into dates. I also learned how to balance my masculine and feminine traits, and wear what was comfortable for me.

As a result, I began dressing more feminine, wearing makeup, and growing my hair out. I didn’t realize at the time, but I now understand that my newfound femininity allowed me to pass as a straight female. Though I identified as queer and was attracted to people of all gender identities (also known as pansexual), my stereotypically “femme” choices fit me into the category of straight. Without even knowing me, strangers assumed that I was heterosexual. And though this was a privilege, I also unknowingly gained access to horrible comments and conversations about members of the LGBTQ+ community by those outside it. I didn’t want to hear these negative (and sometimes hateful) remarks about my community and my identity, but people felt comfortable saying them around me because I “looked” straight and therefore was.

The queer-bashing comments were, fortunately, not very frequent. But another part of straight-passing is the assumption that you are exclusively interested in heterosexual relationships. I was constantly asked if I had a boyfriend, a husband, a male love interest. When I began dating my ex-girlfriend, these questions flustered me and I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t want to, felt stressed that I would need to enter into a quasi-political discussion of my sexuality with someone I didn’t know very well. I was afraid to hold her hand in public, to kiss her, be affectionate with her where anyone could see us and judge me. Though we live in a very progressive time where gay marriage is legal and LGBTQ+ people are gaining more and more rights, I would always remember the remarks shared with me, “a fellow straight person,” and know that there were still people out there afraid of love in all its forms.

But the Women’s Studies courses I took in college gave me an educational arsenal for fighting assumptions: extensive knowledge about gender and sexuality, a steady voice in the face of adversity, and a coalition of like-minded women to support me. I started rebutting the vicious words, started correcting “boyfriend” to “girlfriend,” stopped silencing myself in the face of heteronormativity (the societal assumption that every person is heterosexual).

Straight-passing is a unique experience, and not one I ever thought I’d have, but it has truly taught (and continues to teach) me about what it means to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community. It’s also taught me a ton about the erasure of polysexual identities (bisexual, pansexual, etc.); assuming I am heterosexual because I look feminine and date a member of the opposite sex completely removes my queer identity, which polysexual people are all-too-familiar with.

I may always wonder how I’ll be viewed holding a woman’s hand in public, but that won’t stop me from expressing my feelings. And though I’m in a heterosexual relationship, I know that this has no bearing on my queer identity. I’m no longer afraid to curb others’ beliefs about my sexuality. I’ve learned that silence truly is violence: failing to speak out against harsh words about my community made me complicit in those attitudes that can lead to hate crimes perpetrated against LGBTQ+ people every day. I’ve always been an activist, and it is more important now than ever to fight injustice from my place of passing privilege.