Happy Bi+ Visibility Month!
By Bailey Merlin (she/her)
Given how much time I spend working on bi+ projects, it’s wild to think that four years ago I didn’t think my bisexuality mattered all that much.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve known I was bisexual for a long time. But I didn’t understand what that knowledge was supposed to change about my life. I had been in longterm monogamous relationships. I could acknowledge my attraction to more than one gender and then get on with things. What else was there to do?
Quite a lot, as it turns out!
This September, I’m celebrating Bi+ Visibility Month as the president of the Bisexual Resource Center. Much of my life now involves thinking about bi+ness and helping other people talk about it. I co-host Bisexual Killjoy and build spaces where bi+ people can find each other. Somewhere along the way, the identity I thought had very little to do with my everyday life became central to how I understand community and my place in it.
That change took time, but it also took other bi+ people.
There is something powerful about being in a conversation where nobody needs you to explain how you can be bisexual and married/monogamous. Where you can talk about your experiences without someone asking whether you’re actually gay or suggesting that everyone is a little bisexual. Or worse: people trying to convince you that you’re making up being bi to get attention (at this point, I’d prefer folks forgot I was here). You get to move past defending the existence of your identity and start exploring what it means to you. I hadn’t understood how much room that would open up in my life, or how good it would feel.
When I thought my bisexuality didn’t matter, I didn’t yet know how much I was missing. I hadn’t experienced the kind of belonging that comes from being understood by people whose lives might look very different from mine, but who recognize something in my experience. Finding bi+ community gave me space to take myself seriously. Eventually, I wanted to help make that space available to other people, which is a big part of why I do this work.
Visibility can sound simple: Tell people you’re bisexual. Wear the colors. Make a post in September. And while I do love an opportunity to wear pink, purple, and blue, I’ve come to understand visibility as something we build together.
Every person who speaks openly about being bi+ makes it a little easier for someone else to imagine a place for themselves. A person who is questioning might hear an experience that finally makes sense of their own. Someone who has been out for decades might find the community they’ve wanted all along. Someone married to a person of a different gender might realize they’re allowed to participate in queer life right now, in the relationship they’re already in.
I care about that last person because I know how easy it is to treat your bisexuality as something you would get to explore under different circumstances. As though your life has to change before your identity deserves attention.
You can be curious about this part of yourself in the life you have. You also get to decide what visibility looks like for you. Being publicly out isn’t possible or desirable for everyone. You don’t owe anyone a disclosure, and you certainly don’t have to become the president of a bisexual organization for your identity to count. I may have gotten a little carried away.
Okay, but maybe this month you tell one trusted person that you might be bi+. Maybe you come to an event, or read something by another bi+ person and recognize yourself in it. Maybe you let yourself say, without immediately adding a qualification, “I’m bisexual.” Those moments deserve celebration, too.
As a bi+ advocate, I want people to find us at every point in that process. You don’t need to arrive confident or certain of exactly which label fits. You don’t need a particular relationship history. There is room here to ask questions and get to know other people. There is room to enjoy being bi+.
Four years ago, I couldn’t have pictured the life or community I have now. I’m grateful to the people who helped me find my way here, and I’m proud to help keep that invitation open.
Happy Bi+ Visibility Month. Your bi+ness matters. You’re allowed to make room for it.
With love,
Bailey