Happy Bisexual Awareness Day!

Hi everyone! A bit of a change from the usual programme but I just wanted to wish you all a happy Bisexual Awarenesss day! This is a special day for me in a small way since I came out “officially” as bi back in 2021.¹

I’m very lucky as everyone I’ve told has either been very supportive, or at least not actively negative. A few people just have kept quiet when I’ve mentioned it on meetings at work, but no-one’s ever given me a hard time about it.

I have had some very genuine and curious questions though, so to celebrate I thought I’d put together a little FAQ of the things I’ve been asked:

But you’re married to a woman?²

This is a very common one and always a bit of a stumper. It’s not really a question, more like the first half of a question, and the asker thinks it’s obvious what the second half is but I have no idea.

I guess the answer is “…yes?”. That’s what it means, I’m attracted to all sexes. Women fall under that category so…yeah.

Does your wife know?

Wonderful as you are, imaginary interlocutor, I’m not going to trust you with a secret that I’m keeping from the woman I’ve been with for the last fifteen years and the mother of my child. Unless I’m asking you to help with a surprise present for her or something I guess.

Does your daughter know?

This one is a bit trickier, because she’s still very young. She understands in general terms that some men can love women, some men can love men and some men can love both. As she gets older, we’ll work on presenting a more nuanced explanation.

That said, I once tried to explain to her that there are people in the world who try to tell other people who they can and can’t love, and get very cross when people don’t listen to them. She laughed at the idea because it seemed so ridiculous to her. I had to get her mother to back me up before she believed me (which is fair, I do like to make stuff up). This gives me a lot of hope for the next generation!

How do you know you’re bi?

This is a really good question! How do any of us know we’re [insert thing here]? I just…kind of do? The flippant answer is “the internet has lots of naughty media to help you decide”, if that helps.

Are you sure you’re not just gay?

Nah. For some people, identifying as bi can be a step on their journey rather than the destination³, but this is definitely my stop.

I like to think of bisexuality as a nice little village on the road between Straight City and Gay Town. Some people drive straight through, some come to visit for a while before moving onto wherever they’re headed, but some of us are really just happy here. It’s all good!

Why are you telling me?

Three reasons. Firstly, I figure the more people who are openly LGBTQ+ and it’s all cool, the more normal this all becomes. If I can change one person’s perception of “the gays” in the abstract to “that nice chap who helped me fix that subroutine” or whatever, that’s good enough for me.

Secondly, someone younger than me that I really admire came out a while back, and I realised that even if I can have an easy life by just passing, I owe it to the upcoming generations to do my bit, even if it it’s a tad nerve-wracking sometimes.

Finally, just because I want to! It’s nice to be my real, slightly flamboyant self and to be accepted for that.

Are you hitting on me?

Oh honey, no. I’m sure you’re wonderful but see above about being married to my wife of fifteen years, mother of my beloved daughter etc.

Have a fabulous day y’all!