Coming Out to…the Little Brother
Posted inagnosticism bisexuality coming out english family

Coming Out to…the Little Brother

My Thoughts



Growing up, I was always aware that my parents wanted me to respect certain Bangladeshi cultural boundaries. I had no interest in doing this, but I toed the party line nevertheless for fear of the consequences. Whenever I did do anything against their wishes, it was either done in a clandestine manner or accompanied by lots of cajoling and placating. My little brother, on the other hand, has always taken a different approach to the parents – pretending that he is completely unaware of their expectations, culturally or otherwise. This has let him go and do whatever he wants, and feign ignorance later to avoid the consequences.


Given the directions I have seen him take socially, culturally and religiously – he's liberal, practical and agnostic – I've never really thought that he'd have a problem with my bisexuality. I'd wondered if he'd find the gay sex part of it a little icky, but nothing more than that. I believed he was a product of his time – educated enough via contemporary narrative to know that there is nothing wrong, morally or medically, with same-sex attractions. Additionally, his agnosticism assured me that he wouldn't espouse any Islamic prejudice. My concerns had actually always skewed towards the more circumstantial side of the situation. He still lives with my parents, and back when I told him, he was going to be doing so for another 2 years before leaving. He was and still is preparing for university, which is hard work. On top of this, he has major ideological differences with the parents, and this makes his living situation even more stressful. I didn't want to add to his burden by telling him about my bisexuality and the issues it brought up. And of course, there was the tiny, tiny worry of what would happen if he did end up reacting negatively. My brother is one of the closest people to me in the world, so even the slightest possibility of rejection made me doubt myself.


However, I've become quite the expert at swallowing my doubts and ploughing on. During a winter holiday we were both spending with the best friend, I hinted at my desire to 'experiment' with a man in casual conversation. He's quite close to the best friend so I knew she could create a buffer if he reacted badly. His reaction was mostly bewilderment though, and I left it at that. The following summer holiday was when I next mentioned my bisexuality. I broached the subject of attractions with him while we were gaming in the den, but backtracked because of the concerns I voiced in the last paragraph. I told myself I was building him up to it, so I should see this as yet another small step in the right direction. But within a few hours I got annoyed at the dithering so I changed my mind, went into his room and told him. And that was it. There was a very minimal reaction. He said he wasn't surprised, that the hints had worked and he had no issue with it. The fact that the parents wouldn't take it too well was discussed. I informed him that I was slowly telling other friends and family at a pace comfortable to me, and hoped eventually to tell them too. He shrugged. I didn't mind - his support was always implied. Don't mistake his apparent apathy for an actual lack of empathy. He's probably the most pro-LGBTQ friend/family member I have created by the way of my coming out. I've discovered him challenging the prejudice of random people in various situations, more so than anyone else I've discussed my sexuality with. 

My coming out has made us closer, and now I can include him in all the aspects of my life. That positive energy has more than anything offset any burden my 'secret' would have left on him, and I am immensely lucky to have someone like him in my life.

His Thoughts


When my brother came out to me, the situation was as follows: I was in my room sitting on my bed, reading or looking at something, I can’t really remember. My brother comes and says, without further ceremony, “The person I’m going to be dating this summer is a guy.”  I look up with a bland face and say “I see.” A moment’s pause. “So you’re bisexual then?” to which my brother responds with a simple “Yup.”

I can’t imagine the scenario in any other way. I tend to take these emotional things with a degree of apathy that some might consider borderline offensive. It’s not malice, it’s just that sexuality to me has never been a big issue. To me, homosexual relationships aren’t wrong, weird, or unnatural, it’s just different. So what if a guy gets turned on by another guy? Or if he gets turned on by both men and women? What’s it to me? It doesn’t harm me, and don’t tell me it results in less children because the last thing the planet needs is more people – certainly not people that think we need even more babies, the wretched creatures. It results in people being happier, as they are able to enjoy a relationship with a person they truly want to be with. Life is hard as it is; let’s not make it harder by enforcing outdated social rules. There are enough fake couples in school.

I first suspected, or considered, as “suspected” implies different sexual orientations are crimes, that my brother was gay or at least partially fancied men by his acute ability to distinguish whether they were attractive or not. I couldn’t do it, not because I felt that trying to distinguish attractive men would make me gay, I simply couldn’t do it, yet my brother could, without fail. The second time I considered his sexual orientation was during a trip with his best friend. We were huddled in a room, eating cupcakes and talking about…I can’t remember, something to do with sex? It’s always to do with sex. Anyways, my brother announced that he’d like sleep with a guy, and that it’d something cool to try out, to which I responded “If you want to be bisexual, then you are bisexual! Haha!” but nothing never truly came of it. The last instance, for which I actually now feel bad, is when we were in the house’s den, playing PS3 maybe? He asked me “Hey, can I tell you something? It’s a big issue and I hope you won’t be weighed down by it.” I simply looked in his direction and mumbled something along the lines of “Um, it’s fine by me…”. It was at that moment my thoughts solidified regarding my brother’s sexuality and looking back, I was an insensitive little cunt for brushing it off the way I did.

Now however, I try to play a more active role regarding these issues. When I see the absolutely stupid reasons for which the LGBT community is oppressed, I cringe inside. I make it point to drive in the fact I fully support the LGBT community despite being straight; as to me it’s a slap in the face for those who try deem them as freaks.
Coming Out to…the Youngest Aunt
Posted inbangladesh bisexuality coming out english family islam

Coming Out to…the Youngest Aunt


I've always worried about coming out to older Bangladeshis. LGBTQ issues don't even seem to exist for them, so how can they be understanding of my sexuality? But I guess you never know till you try.

This post is about my aunt who lives in the States. Earlier this year I flew over to hers as I'd not seen her in half a decade, and I came out to her while I was there. It was unlikely I'd be able to do it face to face any other time in the near future, so I thought I should take the chance. She is the first and currently only Bangladeshi over a certain age to whom I have revealed my bisexuality to. She doesn't know about this blog, and so right now I can only write about my point of view. Hopefully one day that'll change, and I'll be able to share her thoughts as well.


My aunt was born and brought up in Bangladesh. She is a religious Muslim woman in her late thirties who prays five times a day. Make of that what you will. She is also a thinking woman, a scientist and a person who relies on logic and reason in a manner that the world could learn from. We were close while I was growing up. She was still at university when I was in school and this made her feel young and approachable. She is openly liberal, and accepting of the fact that my peripatetic upbringing has made me different. She always acknowledged that said upbringing meant I was not the traditional Bangladeshi son my parents once wanted me to be. Most importantly, she also asserted that this was completely fine. This made me feel that there was someone in my corner, something that was often missing during my childhood.

She eventually left Bangladesh to live, study and work across Asia and America. These experiences have made her, in her own words, different now – although I would personally argue she has always been different. All of this made me think she would be the ideal first candidate to come out to amongst my older relatives. If things went well, she could become an ally. If things went badly, I couldn’t imagine her telling my parents or setting out to harm me in any way. Nevertheless, the actual act of explaining my bisexuality to her was a daunting experience. I was planning to spend almost ten days with her family, and I had already decided to let the first half go by as a normal holiday. The day I eventually did decide to tell her, the baby cousin got sick. The day after my uncle decided to come home early and take us out to dinner. The day after that my aunt decided to have a massive migraine, but by now I was going crazy so I decided to hell with the headache.

I told her we needed to talk, and so we sat down and talked. Same-sex marriage had actually come up a few days earlier on the news, and her own commentary on it had left me a little nervous. She had said that physical pleasure had many forms, which was no big deal, but had questioned its need to be validated through marriage. I made the point about the emotional aspect of a same-sex relationship, she hmm-ed and didn’t press the argument further. Now, we had the entire conversation. Hours of it. In a way, it helped that I was bisexual. I can be emotionally and physically attracted to a woman in the same way I can be attracted to man. This duality actually seemed to make it easier for her to understand. I put it to her in other ways too. I can be attracted to a man a same way she can – we experience the same spectrum of feelings and emotions.

She accepted that a variety of attractions can exist. She didn’t need the cliched question of “when did you choose to be straight” posed to her. But she did want an explanation of the origins of sexuality, biologically speaking. I didn’t have an exact answer and frankly I don't think anyone definitively does at this time. I mentioned various studies that I had read of, including one relating to higher female fertility being directly proportional to a greater number of gay men in a family. She countered that these studies ultimately proved nothing as correlation does not prove causation. She offered the explanation espoused by her friends in Bangladeshi medical circles – the idea that same-sex attraction was a mental disorder. I questioned their qualification to comment on mental health given that this was not their specialisation. I also asked her if she thought I had a mental disorder. I don’t think she believed I had, but was rather setting me up for what I’d face in Bangladesh. I was glad that she was willing to communicate openly and unflinchingly.

We even briefly covered the thorny issue of Islam and its stance on non-heterosexuality. The conversation was actually quite tentative on both sides. Neither of us could claim any great amount Islamic knowledge, me even less so than her. My aunt admitted that she was becoming less certain of what is sold to us by the status quo, from an Islamic perspective at least, as right and wrong. She mentioned the usual obstacles to seeking more knowledge, like her inability to speak Arabic and the need to rely on translations of the Quran and questionable Hadith. She expressed her frustration with not being able to question the validity of scripture others quoted to her, or indeed quote scripture back. To this end, she asked me about a rather popular 'Hadith' used to condemn homosexuality and usually worded as: “when a man mounts a man, the throne of Allah shakes.” Now, I haven't ever been able to find a chain of transmission for this Hadith. Not that the internet knows everything, but I've never seen it backed up with thorough references and contextual information. This is scary given how commonly it's touted online, even to the point that my aunt would ask me about it.

She set about asking a few more practical questions. Who else knew that I was bisexual? Did I talk about it a lot? Did people in Bangladesh know? Her tone implied that she thought I should keep it quiet. I think this was partly because she wasn't completely comfortable with it herself, although she maintained it was because it could put me in harm's way. But I've left behind that phase of hiding for a long time now. All of my close friends know, in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Younger members of the family know, as do many colleagues and acquaintances in the UK and around the world. I told her as much, and she pursed her lips and glared at me. This made me laugh a little. I knew that look – she was annoyed with me. But I knew she would help me deal with things, if things were to ever happen.

The conversation then took a lighter and bizarrely amusing turn. She asked me if sexuality was indeed genetic, who did I think were the other queer folk in our extended family? And then she rattled through all the possibilities. Was it the cousin who'd not gotten herself a boyfriend yet? Or was it the uncle who's marriage had broken down in divorce? Or was it was the one who'd resisted getting married for years on end? Or maybe it was the other cousin who'd never gotten married at all! All of this speculation really did make me laugh. But I had to wonder, with such a large extended family, surely someone else out there isn't heterosexual?
She asked me about my relationships, and if I was dating. When I said yes, she asked me if I slept with everyone I dated, being carefully gender neutral with the word “everyone” in Bengali. This I loved. At the same time, I wondered where she was coming from. Was she uncomfortable with the idea of promiscuity, or the idea of gay sex specifically? Did she think I was dating, or just hooking up? I thought it would be better to clarify my approach to dating – which really meant meeting someone to hopefully establish a meaningful relationship with. That meant a lot of forgettable first dates, or even second and third dates that went nowhere. I was honest about how I did things – I wouldn't jump into bed with someone if I didn't think things were headed somewhere. So no, no promiscuity, but yes, gay sex is implied. Trying to gauge her feelings, I asked her if it mattered to her who I brought home. She was frank. She said she needed time to get used to my bisexuality. For now, she'd encourage me to bring a girl home. It would make my life easier, and it would be easier for her to accept at present. But what if I brought a guy home? Well, she was sure one day she would accept him too. Which is all I needed to hear really, as one day I may be counting on her to be a stand in for my parents.
Coming Out to…the Sensible Friend
Posted inbisexuality coming out english friends

Coming Out to…the Sensible Friend

My Thoughts



I first met her at college in Bangladesh. She's one of a great group of friends I made back home, the real close kind I never thought I'd make so many of. We've always gotten on really well. We're wired the same way, with our to-do lists, control-freak tendencies and drive for perfectionism! In college, she was the nice, smart girl who was out to do good in the world, and had goals that I really respected. But she went to university in the US: the distance and our new lives caused us not to grow apart, but just to generally grow while we were away from each other. A lot has happened to both of us while we've been away for our degrees, and we may never have shared these stories if I hadn't decided to come out to her.



She was the third friend told be told, and the first born-and-bred Muslim Bangladeshi that I was going to disclose my bisexuality to, and as such I was more than a little nervous. I knew that she was at least a little religious, and I worried that this would colour her views negatively. But I also knew that she was open minded, and not the kind of person to hurt me even if she didn't 'agree' with my sexuality. Yet that didn't stop me from worrying about our friendship, and what would happen if she was intolerant or uncomfortable with sexual diversity. Another big question on my mind was something I think many will be familiar with: will she keep this a secret even if she doesn't take it well?

I had to do this regardless of how she reacted though. She wasn't the kind of friend I could stay closeted from. We were close, and I started feeling that keeping this from her getting disrespectful. I still procrastinated, however, and conveniently I never saw her online for a couple of weeks. Until I did, and I actually made plans to Skype her at a specific time so we could talk. I chickened out of telling her by saying it out loud though. I said I had something to tell her, that it was big and I wanted to type it rather than say it. And then I typed it out, just like I had for my best friend a few months ago.

Her reaction was nothing like I expected. My confession caused here to launch into a speech about how she believed sexuality existed on a continuum, and that she was not necessarily completely straight herself. Major shock. I couldn't believe I had a friend from Bangladesh who thought they might not be straight. So these stories about closeted friends around you could be true after all! What followed was an exciting exchange of information. She went on to enquire about my mental health, stress levels and generally made sure I was okay. It was touching, and the talk really helped us bond again. She shared quite a bit about herself, her own mental health and the trials and tribulations that come with moving to university thousands of miles away from friends and family. We talked about life, and how everything was different now. She didn't necessarily have the answers - we talked about us, our minds and our sexualities. Not about how we would deal with it practically, what we would do in the long term or what it meant religiously. I've been planning and planning the practical my whole life, and just to stop and talk about myself rather than my plans was elating in a way I can't describe. We've talked about and around the issue of sexuality many times since. She's helped me focus and vocalise my own thoughts and opinions, and I've come to know myself better as a consequence. Writing this now, I can't help but feel that coming out to her is what has made us friends again like we were in college.


Her Thoughts

I wasn’t shocked when he came out to me. More specifically, I wasn’t shocked that he wasn’t straight. We’ve always teased him about being a closet homosexual. What did surprise me was that I’d never considered that he may have been bi. There may be a lot of dialogue out there about LGBT rights, but I don’t think I have been much exposed to dialogue about being bisexual. As acceptance of homosexuality increases, I think we’re just starting to assume that there are two types of people in the world. Gay or straight. I had always been sure I was straight. After he told me about his experience coming out, I asked him if he thought I might be bi too. He said he wouldn’t be surprised. Apparently I have never talked about guys the way other girls do. I was thinking more along the lines of how sometimes I had thought about girls the way I would normally think about guys and then wondered why that was because I knew I wasn’t gay.

Not very long after, another close friend, different gender this time but also Bangladeshi, also came out to me about being bi. Actually, came out would be the wrong term. It was more like she updated me about the status of her sexuality. Apparently she has been conducting “social experiments” so that she could understand herself better. And she was trying to place herself on the Kinsey scale. This was when I realized just how *not* discrete someone’s sexuality could be. The isolated thoughts I’ve had about girls made sense to me. I wondered whether I wanted to explore my sexuality too. She encouraged me to conduct “social experiments” too, but I wasn’t interested. However, I did ask a bunch of people of both genders awkward questions about their thoughts and tendencies.

Why am I writing about this? Because my blogger friend here asked me to write about my reaction to his coming out to me. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I didn’t feel any different about him or anything. But that conversation did set me on the trajectory of 'non-discretizing' the world around me, and to an extent learn a little bit more about myself. I’m not gonna talk about that; and to be honest, I find that I don’t really care. From what I may have gathered through asking awkward questions, I could be straight, I could be bi, or heck, I could even be asexual. But the interesting thing is that I’m probably a mixture of all the above. Human sexuality is an extremely complex thing and it really deserves to be studied more.

And how does religion figure into all of this? Well, it doesn’t really. Not for me. I can sympathize with my friend trying to reconcile his identity as Muslim with his sexuality. It cannot be easy. But I face no religious conflict regarding my “acceptance” of him. I don’t fear for his soul or whatever. In fact, I can’t really tell you about my religious views, only that it has been a while since I’ve viewed the world through a religious lens and I’ve started to rely on my judgment and conscience to make decisions or form impressions of other people. I can understand why he might have been nervous on this front before telling me. I was going through my “religious phase” when I first knew him. I don’t think I really talked to him about this, but this “phase” was when I tried to reconcile a lot of my ideals with mainstream religious ideals. Over the last couple of years, I suppose I’ve relaxed my religious ideals to an extent that I never even bring them up. It wasn’t a conscious decision. So when he came out to me, I never even thought about religious implications until he specifically asked me to share my thoughts on the matter.

That is not to say I was always a very liberal person when came to sexuality. Back in the A Level days, I certainly liked to think I was very *open minded* because my friends and I didn’t pretend like homosexuality didn’t exist. We’d laugh over what it would be like if we were gay (who needs guys anyways, right?) and we’d put gay characters in skits we made up. But none of that meant we thought it was *okay* to be gay. I’ve even heard something tell me people chose their sexualities early in life by choosing which pheromones to respond to. And I even sort of believed that back then (yeah I know!). But my ideas have changed as I’ve gradually come to understand the complexity and nuances of people. I’ve talked to people, read journal articles, taken a class in brain and behavior. I guess maybe you could say I’ve grown up a little. My friend waited a while to tell me, but I get it. I don’t think he owed me the truth or anything. It didn’t matter when and if he came out to me. Because it really doesn’t affect our friendship in any way. That being said, I’m glad he did tell me because it gave us something new to talk about. It gave a chance to get to know each other again, because so much had changed since we first knew each other. And it helped us build a more mature friendship.
Coming Out to…the Best Friend
Posted inbisexuality coming out english friends

Coming Out to…the Best Friend

My Thoughts

We were introduced by our parents, and as happens with all such introductions, it was awkward and we didn't really get on. Fast forward eight years however, and I can't think of another person who understands me quite like she does. We've had very similar lives - Muslim Bangladeshi parents, the back and forth between home and the other homes, the perennially dynamic existence. 

It didn't take me long to figure out that she wouldn't have a problem with my sexuality, whatever it turned out to be. When we were younger, she'd bring up random bi or gay guys she was friends with. I used to wonder if this was a hint, now I'm sure it was! Occasionally she'd actually ask me if I was straight, and justify her questions by saying I didn't act like most straight guys. But just sometimes, this would also be accompanied by some light-hearted teasing. This was without malice of course, but at the time it was enough for me to clamp up completely about my sexuality.



Over the years, the reasons for my silence changed. We both moved to Bangladesh, and re-adjusting to our lives there became the priority. First and foremost, I was wary of discussing my sexuality at all back home - what if someone overheard? And with college during the day and extra tuition after hours, we spent most of our A level years stressed-out and overworked. I didn't have enough time to clear my own mind, let alone come out to someone and deal with the situation. I knew she was in a similarly hectic situation, and I just didn't think she could be there to support me even if she wanted to. Topping it all off was that while I knew she would care, she wasn't the caring, nurturing type. I worried that she would get all awkward trying to fit that persona and I'd rather leave things as they were rather than make the situation worse.

College ended and we went our separate ways for university. She moved to the States while I came to England. We grew up, spread our wings and so on. University, despite its newness, brought back some stability to my life. I started dealing with my issues, as I've written about extensively in my old posts. I dithered about telling her, however, simply because I'd hidden it from her for so long. We were long past the point where I was justified in thinking my sexuality would create any problems within our friendship. Honestly, I just didn't want to face her questions of why I hadn't told her earlier. And, ridiculous as this may sound, a small part of me just didn't want to give her the satisfaction of being even partially right! 

Obviously, I did tell her in the end. Unlike the more dramatic conversations I've had with some friends and family, this was more of a "let's get this over with and move on" kind of situation. I told her over Facebook, she got angry that I had hidden it from her for so long. And then we did, in fact, move on. Our friendship hasn't really changed since then. We don't talk about religion quite so much, but we never did because we have different beliefs. Relationship talk now includes guys as well as girls, and sometimes we talk about this blog and the practicality of being openly bi in my situation. And that's about it. But that really is all I need, and what anyone else needs I would have thought: friends who will still just be your friends whatever your sexuality. 

Her Thoughts

When my best friend told me that he was bisexual, I was furious. My outrage was not directed at his sexuality — I have never had a problem with other sexualities and had suspected all this time that he was gay. My response was based on our friendship, which I thought meant that we could trust each other with our insecurities as soon as we began experiencing them. For a good hour or so, I remained hurt and insulted. Then I realized that this really wasn’t about me.

In retrospect, I am glad that he waited to tell me. Between the years that I started teasing him about not being straight and he finally confirmed that he was not, I had grown into a more understanding person. I cringe when I think back to an incident when I loudly demanded to know the truth behind his feelings for one of our mutual male friends in front of the said friend. I had asked in jest and he had taken in good stride, only showing a hint of annoyance, but that doesn’t excuse the reality of how grossly insensitive I had been. Back then, I never quite understood how difficult it is for people of other sexualities to live in a world that mostly considers them to be unnatural because in my eyes they were perfectly normal.

My perspective gradually began to change after I made a close friend in college who was struggling with his homosexuality. I listened to his fears about the future—career prospects, familial pressure and the dreadful feeling that he would never find the right person—and realized that while essentially at the core they were the same as my own, there was an additional dimension to his problems as a result of his sexuality. I finally watched the prejudice he purported to experience come into play when he told my mother, a South Asian woman with minimal exposure to homosexuality, about himself and answered her questions on whether he had a choice and could be cured. Such exposures helped me appreciate that it is a big deal for my best friend to be bisexual even though to me he is still the same person, so it is okay that he needed his own space to figure it out. I do think, however, that he should not have completely sprung his bisexuality out of the blue (although he would disagree because I always had my suspicions after all) but I suspect the distance between us after we moved away for university was understandably somewhat of a factor.

While our best friendship has not changed, I feel like it would have evolved more if we lived in the same country. We would have questioned and challenged each other in a manner that cannot be replicated over slow connection Skype and Facebook chat. For instance, when he visited a few months after telling me he was bisexual, he asked if I would ever date a bisexual guy. I responded with an instant yes without considering the cons until my best friend offered one: wouldn’t I feel more threatened because there was the possibility of my boyfriend wandering off into the arms of another man or woman? Suddenly, I was not so sure anymore. I want to have more difficult conversations like this and I hope that we try to have them to whatever extent possible with the physical distance between us.
Coming Out to…
Posted inbisexuality blog info english

Coming Out to…

It's been eight long months since I wrote my first (not really serious) post on the blog, and I haven't actually gotten to the meat of what I wanted to say! I only started writing the Coming to Terms With My Bisexuality posts to provide some context to...