Navigating Solutions and Darkness

Hot takes are easy. Hardliner stances are easy. Nuance takes time to settle in. Sometimes it takes years. And maybe that's okay, as long as we aren't externalizing the feelings we have into hateful actions against other people. 

Photo by  Wellington Cunha  from  Pexels For almost a decade of crushing on girls, I didn't even know that homosexuality was a thing - let alone bisexuality. Even when I found out about homosexuality, of one thing I was sure - that wasn't me. I wondered though - I wondered who I might know that might be. And I thought about the older, attractive girls I admired. The ones who had a reputation for disregarding social norms and conservative school rules about segregating boys and girls. The ones I so desperately wanted to be... but never to be with. Right? I thought about them and concluded that perhaps they might do these strange things with each other - make out with each other the way guys and girls were supposed to do. I tried to imagine it, and experienced a thrill, and came away even surer than before: That that's not me. That's just not me. It was only when I found myself hanging around a schoolmate's classroom, hoping to catch even the slightes...

Photo by  Sharon McCutcheon  on  Unsplash Much has been written about biphobia and bi-erasure in recent years, and I think about it every time I go home. This is because in the last five years, I have had to come out to my family at least 10 times. Twice a year, every year, each time I go home. And I'm received with the same exact reactions each time. There's (1) completely ignoring what I just said, and acting like it's nothing to do with them. There's (2) a 3 hour discussion on how bisexuality isn't a real thing because "everyone feels affection towards members of the same gender, and that doesn't make you queer or anything." And (3) you're not bisexual because you've never been with a woman, you just want attention/ to boost your SJW cred. Set aside the fact that I've had crushes on girls exactly as long as I've had crushes on boys (read: since kindergarten.) Set aside the fact that you're not actually "required...