Queer & sober cabaret
Photo credit: Felix O’Connor (@oximoronic28)
Dear Daring Reader,
Are you moving at snail’s pace? I am. And sometimes it still feels like way too fast.
Pride season is over, and I can tell you it brought up a million emotions! I am not sure how you feel about it, some understandably have conflicting feelings. I know that most of the parades and pride month itself have been made a lot less meaningful by the participation of the corporate world and institutions, but I am just referring to the spirit of protest and celebration of pride, which can be found in a lot of events that might not be the most popular ones.
It was my sixth time walking with a group or organization during the pride parade, though it was my very first time as a person who is out. If you have been reading this weird blog for a while, you might remember that I posted about Pride in 2019. That time I danced with a bunch of strangers who were just as shy, got kisses and compliments from passersby and felt ecstatic for the first time at Pride. I also realized that I was there for me, and all the fellow queers. That day shattered the way I saw myself in a nice fell swoop. It was a long time coming, not the result of a day, yet the shift then was substantial, because it was not a logical or intellectual way of seeing my belonging to communities I shared something with. It was a deep sense of knowing that felt right.
If you are a fellow bisexual, you know that we might spend a lot of time questioning our orientation, to the point that it becomes an unhealthy obsession, and maybe even motivate us to stay closeted until we have the perfect label and know “enough to defend our position”. It is by following people online and reading books that I learned to let go of this mind trick that can keep us trapped. There’s no arbitrary version of “bi enough” to adopt or a label that will always fit perfectly. If you are waiting to come out to people because you don’t have all the answers, maybe consider that the people who will doubt you and question you will not be persuaded anyway, and maybe don’t even need to be consulted or included in this.
After spending most of the pandemic feeling isolated and terribly lonely (as usual), I decided I had done enough thinking and it was time for some action, at snail’s pace, of course!!! While I always knew about being bisexual, a discovery very early in life, when it came to gender, I’ve had pretty big epiphanies since 2020. The same way I didn’t know what bisexuality was while growing up and felt shame and confusion about my identity, I found myself without words to describe my relationship with gender as a teenager and an adult. I still have to remind myself that I can take space with my non-binary self and ask people to use words that affirm my identity, in spaces where it is safe to do so.
I cry sometimes, just because it feels unbelievably good to feel seen in a way I was taught I couldn’t be. Being seen as the messy weirdo who is a genderqueer bisexual. It is not about being grateful for people who don’t misgender me, it is about the shattering of the myth that people expect me to stick to what is considered “normal” and will abandon me if I differ. This idea has made me feel this unbearable loneliness I live with, and that maybe I will always feel. Even though I know now that there are people out there who can embrace who I am, I might still be haunted by the a familiar sense of loneliness, at least once in a while.
And that’s why I cried throughout the entire parade! It felt so vulnerable to be holding a banner with the word “bisexual” and hear people cheer that. There were people watching the parade holding bisexual flags and cheering us on! (And, yes, I avoided using the word “bisexual” for years because I was not out and did not know if it fit me, so now I am going to use it a thousand times in one post!!! 🙂 )
I know there’s a lot of biphobia, inside and outside of the LGBTQAI+ community, and that was not necessarily an unconditional embrace I would get on an average day, yet it felt like a huge act of self-liberation for me to participate in the parade and stand as an out and proud genderqueer bisexual with a group of people who were just like me.
Hiding keeps us separate, lonely and miserable. It makes us feel unworthy of love as the people we truly are. It feeds us the narrative that some parts of us wouldn’t be understood by anyone, or that they are just flat out wrong.
I cried because I released the shame that had been instilled in me. Decades worth of shame and self-hatred leaked out of me in a cry of joy and relief. It took the risk of being vulnerable and opening up about my identity to get there.
Sometimes it comes to cultural messaging about vulnerability and the fact that if we take risks, which require someone’s help or acceptance, we are definitely in for disappointment. Nope!
I am finding community because I ceased hiding. I jumped and took a small risk (relatively small for me, though it felt really big because of the uncertainty) and some people broke my fall with their love. It feels like a successful revolution on the inside, or sometimes like a deeply personal and complicated, but fruitful, insurrection against compulsory cisheteronormativity*. 😉
If you know me, I am a big fan of crying. Let it all out and cry! It can be a huge release of grief, shame and anxiety 🙂 (the main con being that people might be weirded out by your tears, let that be!)
I have been processing how to find community and be vulnerable when meeting new people for a while, especially considering my tendency to assume rejection is on its way at all times, and I have had a few breakthroughs. It has been a life-giving experience to talk to people who get what I am saying or feeling, and make me feel validated. I think we all need more of that in our lives.
On top of this, right now it is disability pride month (at the time of writing in July) and my debilitating fatigue is relentless. Once again, I’m not sure I have the words for what I am going through, they might come in the future, but I choose to validate my experience and share it because so many out there are facing nothing but questioning, while in pain.
With pride, joy, resoluteness and exhaustion,
Dare to be b@ld
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Business Woman’s Special (@bws_dublin)
Queer & sober cabaret
Photo credit: Felix O’Connor (@oximoronic28)
Dare to be b@ld 