memevector (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
memevector) wrote2005-01-17 06:46 pm
memevector) wrote2005-01-17 06:46 pm
tenth anniversary
Ten years ago today, I first went to my local bi group.
I'd been looking at a lot of bi/queer stuff for a few months before that, because I'd recently fallen in love with someone who identified as bi, and I felt a desire to understand their world. I'd found gay politics interesting ever since I understood that there was such a thing, but I'd thought of myself as straight, albeit with a few question marks.
One day in January 1995, I was reading an essay by a Lesbian writer, and it suddenly dawned on me: If I reframed some of my teenage feelings in the knowledge that it wasn't compulsory to choose between straight and gay, then the category "bi people" might include me. Ooh!
So for a few days I tried that idea out in my thoughts ("Here's the bi person walking down the street...") and it seemed to fit, and the sense of limits falling away was exhilarating.
Luckily it was only about a week from that day of realisation to the next bi group meeting (which I knew about from a listing on the net). And I happened to see a post from another newbie bi person nearby, and we made a plan via email to meet up and go together.
I was quite trepidatious waiting for the group to start, in case someone I knew walked by in the building and said "oh hi, what are you here for?" I didn't feel ready to answer that question! But luckily that didn't happen.
When we were actually sitting talking at the bi group, I looked round the room and I had a sense of "yes! these are my people!"
Afterwards as we left I was still harbouring some "am I bi enough? do I qualify?" But I was reassured by K, who said "Oh don't worry, I've been out as bi for years now and I still have that thought".
So I jumped into the bi community with both feet and here I still am! Hurrah!
I'd been looking at a lot of bi/queer stuff for a few months before that, because I'd recently fallen in love with someone who identified as bi, and I felt a desire to understand their world. I'd found gay politics interesting ever since I understood that there was such a thing, but I'd thought of myself as straight, albeit with a few question marks.
One day in January 1995, I was reading an essay by a Lesbian writer, and it suddenly dawned on me: If I reframed some of my teenage feelings in the knowledge that it wasn't compulsory to choose between straight and gay, then the category "bi people" might include me. Ooh!
So for a few days I tried that idea out in my thoughts ("Here's the bi person walking down the street...") and it seemed to fit, and the sense of limits falling away was exhilarating.
Luckily it was only about a week from that day of realisation to the next bi group meeting (which I knew about from a listing on the net). And I happened to see a post from another newbie bi person nearby, and we made a plan via email to meet up and go together.
I was quite trepidatious waiting for the group to start, in case someone I knew walked by in the building and said "oh hi, what are you here for?" I didn't feel ready to answer that question! But luckily that didn't happen.
When we were actually sitting talking at the bi group, I looked round the room and I had a sense of "yes! these are my people!"
Afterwards as we left I was still harbouring some "am I bi enough? do I qualify?" But I was reassured by K, who said "Oh don't worry, I've been out as bi for years now and I still have that thought".
So I jumped into the bi community with both feet and here I still am! Hurrah!
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Blimey, I beat you there by about ten days. I always assumed you got there first.
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I remember you being at Bicon 13 (1995), I didn't realise you were relatively newly out. You looked happy and confident, which I'm sure I didn't at my first Bicon, despite having been publicly out for about a year and having figured out I was bi about 7 years earlier.
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