By Nick Dowse, Lambda Legal Executive Assistant
Like many people in the LGBTQ+ community, my journey of coming out has been full of discovery — learning about myself in new, sometimes exciting, sometimes nerve-wracking ways. But one question I continued to ask myself along the way was: Am I enough? Enough of this particular identity to identify as such and be part of this community?
Today, I’m now someone who feels comfortable in their own skin and with their identity. But it took a while to get here, including coming out more than once.
I was born in 1990, a true ‘90s kid. Part of that meant that there was very little LGBTQ+ mainstream presence that was visible to me. To prove the point, up until I was about 12-13 years old, the only identities commonly talked about were lesbian, gay, and sometimes bisexual.
Education in school about sexual identity was barely existent. And forget about anything regarding gender identity! At that time, the Q for queer in LGBTQ+ was used as a slur. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” became law when I was three. The few kids that did come out as gay in high school were mocked for it, and the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at the time was essentially dismissed by a large part of the male student body of my school.
Visibility of bisexual figures, of any LGBTQ+ figures, in any form of mainstream society or pop culture seemed so minimal that there was no way for me to even learn about what that could look like. So when I started questioning my identity in my sophomore year of college, I had no idea what to do. I was scared.
Up to that point, I had always thought I was straight. I mean, what other example was there for me to know or reference? Even as I considered the possibility of being bisexual, I couldn’t tell anyone. Or so I thought.
I had seen what happened to kids in my high school who did just that a couple of years earlier. I was worried the same would happen to me. I also didn’t really know how to explain my identity.
Looking back, I realize I absolutely could’ve told my friends and my parents as both were and are very supportive of the LGBTQ+ community. Some of those same friends are now also out themselves. But I couldn’t know this back then, because I was just so scared about learning about this new part of me. And so, like a lot of people at the same point in their coming out journey, I just put those thoughts in a closet in my mind and shut the door, hoping that maybe it was all just a phase.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
In 2013, I moved to Washington, D.C. to go to graduate school. It was my first time living alone. And much like everyone that moves away for the first time, I got to learn more about myself in ways I hadn’t had the opportunity to before.
Also, the times had changed. Being lesbian, gay, or bi seemed way more common. Being transgender was discussed more in the mainstream. Terms I’d never heard about for different identities were emerging. One of them in particular resonated with me: pansexual.
I read about it, and figured, “Hey, that sounds like me.” And with that, I decided it was time to stop running, in large part from myself. I decided to come out.
I sat down in my parents’ living room, shaking so much internally I thought for sure it looked like I was shivering. “Hey, guys, I think…I think I’m pansexual,” I stammered out loud. I was so nervous about the reaction. But I didn’t need to be. My parents had always been extremely understanding and warm, and they were no different in that moment. The fear had all been in my head. Other than asking what pansexual meant, they were both very supportive and accepting of me.
For a few years, I just went about my life not really acting on anything related to my pansexual identity, not really knowing where in D.C. to go to be my pansexual self, mostly because I was still very shy then. But, as I alluded to earlier, my coming out story has multiple chapters. I would end up coming out twice. Sometimes you don’t get it entirely right the first time — and that’s OK.
In 2019, after realizing pansexual just didn’t quite “fit” how I viewed myself, I came out as bisexual. The word just felt so right, and it allowed me to finally be comfortable in my own skin. Within three years, I was marching in D.C.’s Capital Pride parade with a group, proudly wearing my bisexual pride flag as a cape. And I’ve been doing it ever since.
What would’ve saved me a lot of time and frustration in this long trek of self-discovery would’ve been greater visibility. Representation in the media wasn’t something I understood well growing up. Cis white guys were the default, everyone in the media was me. But when I came out as pansexual and then bi, that’s when I realized I no longer saw myself represented.
Now, I seek out LGBTQ+ representation, especially bi representation, in the media. As a huge fan of video games, games with bi characters, like the “Life is Strange” series in particular, have been a huge source of representation for me. The same can be said of certain TV shows and movies, such as “Heartstopper,” which just so happens to have a bisexual main character also named Nick. (The actor who plays Nick, Kit Connor, also being bi just adds to the joy of seeing people like me on the screen.)
The fact is representation is visibility, and visibility is crucial. We need more bisexual visibility, and LGBTQ+ visibility as a whole. Because with more examples of people who identify as lesbian, gay, trans, queer, pansexual, or bisexual, kids won’t have to grow up with the same levels of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty as I did when I was just starting to discover new parts of myself. That is why Bisexual Visibility Week is so important.
To close, I offer up a very special memory from 2020. I had just gotten off a Zoom call with LGBTQ+ alumni from my old high school, one of those community sessions during COVID. I was talking to my dad and said that he wouldn’t understand some of the things we’d discussed on the call because he didn’t have skin in the game as a straight person. He replied, “No, you’re wrong, I do have skin in the game. I have a bisexual son.”
In that moment, upon hearing him say those words, I realized that my identity, my bisexuality, was visible. And that, to answer my earlier question, I truly was, and am, bi enough.
Happy Bisexual+ Awareness Week to all my fellow bisexuals, both closeted and out, and to all those who have yet to discover it for themselves! You are loved and you are ENOUGH!