I just had a majorly heated discussion in my kitchen with my parents and younger brother about my bisexuality.
This is major in itself, because they don’t have conversations about sex and gender – I even started telling them about the spectrums of sex/gender/sexuality/gender expression! Think that blew their minds a little.
Anyway, my dad and I were the ones really going head to head. I was expressing my disappointment in him that he felt we needed to keep my bisexuality from his siblings and their kids – my aunts and uncles. He said he’d tell them when I had a girlfriend, because it was immaterial until then.
He said that in three years since my coming out, there has never been a moment in conversation with his siblings when it seemed the right moment to just mention it casually. I don’t believe him, but he’s sticking with it.
My brother then asked why I never came out to him. It was then that I really realised that, yes, what they were saying was true, it does feel like you’re making a big deal out of it to tell people directly – but that’s why coming out to your parents is a big deal, and that’s why I was relying on them to pass it on in a less direct manner than a specifically convened time, like my coming out, to relevant family members, who they talk to relatively frequently.
I told my brother, ‘I suppose I expected them to tell you’. I eventually had the courage about a year after coming out to them to specifically bring it up with him by saying “you know I’m bisexual right?” and I was shocked to find out that he knew from reading it on my Twitter profile!
Who is right? My father thinks it’s none of their business, and even when I get a girlfriend, there’s no need to specify, because one’s sexuality is a private thing. If you do, you’re ramming it down their throats and making a big deal.
I think sure, some people don’t want to be particularly open about being a minority and just get on with their lives, and fair play to them, I’ve got no problem with them doing that. But I don’t feel like that about my life; I don’t want people to think I’m straight when there’s opportunity to correct their assumption, because it’s untrue, the same way I don’t want them to think I’m anything else that I’m not.
And in my wider life, I want to enhance bi-visibility, and the way to do it in my intimate network of the family is be out and proud, which I don’t think is shoving it down their throats. I don’t think anyone is going to think my dad is making a big deal if, say, in conversation with his brother about my cousin’s upcoming wedding, talk of my future wedding comes up, and he mentions that it might not be a man, and when his brother asks for clarification, dad tells him I’m bi.
And I’m not saying make my grandparents’ lives difficult by telling them, because there isn’t much point. It’ll get sticky when I do bring a girl home, and I’ll probably have to fight them about telling the grandparents then, but that’s not the issue. Am I right to be disappointed that my dad has kept it from my family?
Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
