I just had a majorly heated discussion in my kitchen with my parents and younger brother about my bisexuality.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
Please leave your thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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