Coming Out as a Bisexual Man

It’s so rare to read a coming out narrative by someone coming out as bi, much less as a bisexual man, but this one covers a lot of interesting ground, including why it took him so long to come out. But these two paragraphs – and sexual orientation and self determination, and about the fluidity of orientation over time, are particularly fascinating:

If you search the internet for “self-identified bisexual men,” you mostly get results questioning (or validating the question, which is almost as bad) of whether they even exist. Even Savage validated this bullshit at one point, though he doesn’t seem to be doing so any more, and since he’s Dan Savage, maybe I want to forgive him more than I should. It’s hard for me to read these things without wanting to break out into tears — it’s taken me a long time to figure out my identity, and to have someone casually take that away from me as if I’m lying…that isn’t ok. Just to pretend that the question of whether bisexual men exist is a legitimate one to ask is abhorrent — to come to the conclusion that we don’t is nothing less than a self-aggrandizing denial of reality. I know who I am now, and who I’ve always been, and no one has the right to take that away from me. No one ever has the right to tell anyone else who to be.

It’s certainly possible for a person to change their position on the spectrum over time. When talking about this with a friend of mine who only recently came out as gay, he freely admitted that earlier in his life, he had absolutely been attracted to both genders, and was never forcing it for the sake of acceptance. As time has gone on, he’s become less attracted to women, and more to men (he currently put himself at a 5 on the Kinsey Scale, but said that in 6 years it’s likely he will have moved even further). That’s not the case for me, though. I’m not “transitioning” to being gay — I will always, always, ALWAYS be attracted to women. I can’t express strongly enough that the day I stop being attracted to either gender is the day my heart stops beating. I’m at the exact same point on the Kinsey Scale (a 2) that I always was. For anyone to insist that I’m just pretending to be one or the other for the sake of acceptance is the height of arrogance and idiocy.


Do read the rest of it.

Don Lemon

Good for Don Lemon for coming out. I’m glad he’s talking about how being a gay black male is different than it is to be any other kind of male. It’s great to see more LGBTQ people of color stepping up.

Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend has more on the story as it emerged, Lemon’s official statement, and The Grio has a nice piece on why Lemon’s coming out matters:

One thing I know for sure is that there are thousands of young people, black men specifically, who will see Don Lemon, an anchor for “the most trusted name in news” and be inspired. Hopefully, they will hate themselves a little less, love themselves a little more and the blows from the black church will not hit as hard.

Spaulding’s piece on skin color is essential reading, and provides good context for why Lemon’s coming out is vital.

“It Gets Better.”

Dan Savage & his husband Terry talk about growing up gay, the assholes in high school, families you grow up in & families you create. Really beautiful stuff, and please, LGBT teens, watch it.

Change We Can Believe In

QUESTION: “But on AIG, why did you wait — why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage? It seems like the action is coming out of New York and the attorney general’s office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, “Look, we’re outraged.” Why did it take so long?”

OBAMA: “It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

= the best bit of Obama’s press conference tonight.

In This Corner

& Here’s Endymion coming out of his favorite corner, between the nightstand, the bedroom window, & the cozy radiator.

NY Senate Gang of Three

5:20 PM – edited to add that HRC has set up a page so you can thank Senator Smith to standing up for LGBT rights.

Joe.My.God’s reporting that there’s even further acrimony & weirdness coming out of the wrangling that’s been going on in the NY Senate between the “gang of three” anti-gay senators and the rest of the Dems.

For those of you who haven’t read about this before, the brouhaha stems from the Marriage Equality Bill that Gov. Paterson and the Senate Dems back. The three people name – Diaz, Kruger, & Espada – aren’t for the bill.

I always wonder about the embarrassment people are going to feel 20 years from now where the idea of opposing gay marriage seems as lame as being against giving women the vote.