So Your Loved One Came Out as Gay, Lesbian, or Bi

Hi everyone! I'm updating this from 2021 with what I would say now, because I had a lot of juvenile, shitty opinions at 17 and I believed in monosexual privilege. I just feel a responsibility to fix the bad advice I gave out all those years ago while also taking accountability for any harm I perpetuated. So anything I say now will be in italics.

'Tis two thousand and fifteen in the year of our Lord. Same sex marriage has been legalized in all fifty states, Oregon has a bisexual governor, and while we are far from equality, conditions for the mainstream American LGBTQIA community have improved considerably since June of 1969. More people are finding their identities and coming out - and you probably know one of them.

Whether you know it or not, you likely know someone who is attracted to their same gender, probably someone you love if they were willing to trust you with this. This is a guide on how to be a good ally.

That's why I'm writing this series of posts. If you're heterosexual, heteroromantic, cisgender, and dyadic, you probably know very little about any of the letters beyond L and G. And you might even be pretty ignorant about those two.

Okay I would actually say this is still pretty accurate besides the LG vs. BT and ace inclusionism nonsense.

First of all, I want to make two disclaimers. One, as far as I know I'm not intersex and have never met someone who is. I don't know much about it, honestly, though I'm trying to educate myself. That's why I'm not going to write about coming out as intersex. Two, because I'm American, these next few posts are going to be very US-centric. Depending on where you live, the social and political attitudes surrounding LGBQA (especially LGBQ) and transgender identities could be completely different from anything I'm used to. Please keep that in mind.

I would just get rid of the A here but other than that it's okay.

Now let's begin.

Maybe you're a mother who just found out her daughter wore that dress for a girl or woman, not a boy or man. Maybe you're a teenager whose best friend just admitted to having a same-sex crush. Maybe you're a grandfather whose grandson brought his boyfriend to a family party, an aunt whose niece says she wants to marry another woman, you might be a man whose bisexual girlfriend just came out to him, you might be a brother or sister who just found out they might never have biological nieces and nephews (though this assumption is actually cissexist, because gay and lesbian trans people exist).

Okay, not bad. 

If any of these apply to you, or if you're in a similar situation, you need to keep reading. There are things you need to know.

• If you're conservative, keep your opinions to yourself.

We've already heard it all about a million times, and don't need or want to again. Kindly shut the fuck up.

I mostly stand by this, actually, but I've learned that realistically being hostile to conservatives accomplishes little. You need to be willing to educate people and help them understand, but I also want readers to remember how much trauma I still hold from realizing just how conservative my childhood best friend, my cousin, my chosen sister, the girl I would have made the maid of honor in my wedding and had been planning to have my kids call Aunt Ella if I had any, was. I know you don't want to hear this but if you're conservative, you're just going to lose someone you love.

You need to understand that your loved one is trying to open up to you about an important part of their life. They want you to be there when they get married, they want to introduce you to the love of their life, they want to know you won't poison their mind by telling their kids it's wrong to have two moms or two dads, they want to know it's safe to come to you for relationship advice. Remember that whatever opinions you have won't change us and likely will hurt us deeply, and that if it's based in religion...well, I believe in God, but I also acknowledge that the bible was written two thousand years ago and translated and mistranslated and revised and censored hundreds of times across multiple languages by people who often had biases or ulterior motives. And some people believe the word that was translated to homosexuality actually meant something closer to pervert, so like someone who sexually harasses or assaults people. Considering the cultural context of the time surrounding adult men having ritualistic sex with young boys, and considering that Judaism, the culture that Jesus and many other biblical figures came from, is often gay-friendly, this makes more sense in my opinion than thinking God just hates gays for no reason.

I've also been told that "love is love" doesn't make any sense because gay love is actually just lust and that romantic gay love doesn't exist. I want to address that here because it often seems to come from conservatives.

Okay, first of all, I could say the exact same thing about straight relationships and it would make just as much sense to me. Let's just ignore the existence of trans and intersex people for a minute, because I know that's a battle I won't win and because homophobia is often based on the assumption that both partners have the same genitals. It's completely illogical and cruel to think that two people could never ever share a romantic connection just because they have similar biological sex configurations or can't have biological kids. 

Like what about infertile straight couples? What about intersex people? What about straight women who've had hysterectomies? What about people with hormone imbalances that give them physical sex characteristics not associated with their assigned gender? And since y'all love to misgender trans people and would therefore supposedly say a trans man/cis man or a trans woman/cis woman couple are hetero, what happens when that trans person goes on hormones or has procedures like bottom surgery that sterilize them? What about straight cis people who just don't want kids? 

A lot of you seem to believe the purpose of marriage is to have biological kids (which many cis gay and lesbian couples can still do in the same ways as infertile cishet couples). So what happens when you take biological kids out of the equation?

And I always seem to hear straight women complaining about how their boyfriends never clean the house or get them off properly during sex, and a lot of my female clients have come from environments where they were abused by a man they loved. And I take pleasure in caring for every woman I've ever dated and making sure she's happy and healthy and feeling loved and desired. A lot of the hetero relationships I witnessed as a child were unhealthy. My dad, and therefore by extension also me, Ella, and Ella's mom and siblings, were all the products of a teenage pregnancy and shotgun marriage that ended in a divorce between two people (my grandparents) who said later they were never really mutually in love and just got married to avoid the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock as teenagers in the 60s. And, yes, gay relationships can be just as unhealthy and abusive and toxic as straight ones, or just as loving and kind and healthy. Judge people as individuals, not as what genitals their partner has.

Third, there are gay people who don't have sex. When I first realized I was, I had been planning to save sex for marriage - the only thing that changed was I had come to terms with wanting to marry a girl. A good friend of mine from around that time is an asexual lesbian who is engaged to a woman, and a mutual friend of ours is bi and has identified as gray-ace in the past. My last girlfriend is sapphic and on the ace spectrum. And I've heard of all that also happening with gay and bi men but don't know any who I feel like I could ask about that.

As for me personally, I'm not a super sexual person even now, I'll likely be on anti-depressants soon which will basically decimate my libido, and my attraction tends to disappear when I'm stressed or my mental health isn't up to par, but I still want a girlfriend and love everything romantic that goes with having one. Loving someone else and being loved. Making someone coffee and breakfast in bed. Romantic dinners out. Cuddling under a blanket by the campfire. Caring for each other when one of us is sick. Surprise dance parties in the living room. Making her favorite dinner. Being called baby and sweetheart. Sending her romantic playlists. Getting married. Adopting pets. Going to winter festivals together, holding hands and drinking hot chocolate. Working through relationship issues. Growing old together. Going out to buy her favorite truffles and run her a hot bath when she's on her period, and wrap her in blankets and tell dad jokes until she laughs and forgets she was in pain. Being buried side by side. I still want passion and commitment and adoration, the only difference is I want all of that with a woman. There is nothing wrong with gay sex or any other kind of sex, but if someone like me who doesn't always want it can still fall in love with a woman, can still cry from happiness at the thought of proposing to one, can still daydream about having a wife, can want to grow old with one, can want to be with her in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, till death do you part, then what is that but love?

• LGBQ people can be asexual.

I'm loathe to use a line from Gay Inc. and the homonormativity of its predominantly cis and/or white supporters, but being gay or BPQ+ is not about sex. Not exclusively, anyway.

Orientation is composed of two different parts: sexual attraction and romantic attraction. Romantic attraction is composed of feelings which cause in an individual the desire to have a romantic relationship or do romantic things with another person (or people). What counts as romantic is up to the individual, as no action is inherently romantic.

Sexual attraction is composed of feelings which cause an individual to desire sexual contact with another person.

Keep in mind that sensual attraction is also a thing, and is distinct from sexual attraction. It's up to an individual to decide what counts as sexual. Some people consider kissing, especially open-mouthed kissing, sexual. Others consider breasts sexual, though breasts aren't actually sexual organs. Some people consider butts sexual. Again, butts aren't sexual organs. Others believe that only genitals are inherently sexual, and the only thing that should be sexualized.

I, personally, am somewhere in the middle. Mouth kissing isn't sexual to me, but kissing on other parts of the body might be. The sexualization of breasts is mostly a western thing and I absolutely support the #FreeTheNipple movement, but that doesn't change how breasts are seen and how they can be sexually stimulated. Butts? If you're penetrating it with something, yes. Genitals? Definitely.

A person can desire sexual intimacy but not romantic, romantic but not sexual, both, or neither. Which brings me to my next point...

See the above point and just ignore the rest of this lmfao

• LGBQ people can be aromantic.

See above. Being gay or BPQ+ isn't exclusively about romance either. Homoromantic asexuals, homoromantic homosexuals, and aromantic homosexuals are all equally gay. Biromantic asexuals, biromantic bisexuals, and aromantic bisexuals are all equally bi. Panromantic...well, you get the idea.

And no, your loved one's hypothetical lack of romantic attraction is not an excuse for you to assume that being same-gender attraction is just about sex or to hypersexualize LGBQ people. If you do, you're just a homophobic, arophobic asshole - and one with flawed logic, at that. There are aromantic heterosexuals too, but I highly doubt you're going to use that to justify hypersexualizing straight people. Why the double standard?

Call me homosexual and I will cut off your fingers slowly and painfully with a rusty knife. But yeah, some gay and bi people are aro and aro people can be any sexuality, just like ace people.

• Us criticizing or making jokes about the LGBTQIA community doesn't mean you can do it.

Let's examine the dynamics of privilege and power when it comes to gay jokes and criticism of the gay community.

I'm nonbinary and bisexual. I don't have any systemic power to oppress cis gay people or gay trans men. Trans lesbians? Yes, because I benefit from transmisogyny.

There is no harm in me complaining about cis gay people. I'm oppressed by homophobia, so I can't benefit from it in any way. I have absolutely no institutional power over cis gay people on the basis of gender or sexuality.

And straight trans people also have straight privilege, but they can do very little to oppress cis gay people. The power dynamics between a cis gay person and a transgender straight person are way different than those between a cis straight person and a cis gay person.

In the (amazing) Adhamh Roland song "Rich, White, and Gay", Roland complains about how wealthy, white, cis LGB people often fail to take their privileges into account and, in effect, further perpetuate the oppression of QPoC, poor LGBTQIA people, and trans people. As a trans man, he is personally hurt by this - and for that reason, the fact that he's singing about it is okay.

Honestly, I'm not thrilled about the idea of a wealthy, abled(?), straight(?), white trans man singing about issues that affect non-transmasculine nonbinary people, trans women, LGBQA trans people, poor trans people, disabled trans people, and trans people of color more than they'll ever affect him.

The song does, however, bring to light some valuable discourse for the trans community. And the fact that Roland is trans makes the song completely different than if he'd been cishet. 

It's okay for him to criticize the LGBTQIA community because he's part of it, and because as a trans person he has been institutionally oppressed by the cis gay people he's criticizing.

If he was cishet, he'd just be invading a space that he wasn't part of and talking over actual LGBTQIA people to condemn other LGBTQIA people.

See the difference?

I am...fucking cringing. Okay, yes, I still believe Adamh Roland had a point with his song but categorically treating gay men and lesbians like assimilationists who oppress the rest of the community is not cool, I don't care how progressive you think you're being. And I also feel like there's just a lot of pressure in the LGBT community to reject everything associated with traditionalist heterosexuality and I get why, but the problem is that it leads to shaming people who are "too straight" or ignoring that a gay relationship that looks heteronormative to you is still a gay relationship and there's nothing heteronormative about that. Like, I'm a femme who loves domesticity and rarely wears pants and loves cooking and wants nothing more than to live in a little house in the suburbs with my butch wife who does all the household repairs for me and our two cats and dog and have a vegetable garden and go to church and have barbecues with the neighbors and go for walks around town together on our days off and travel together and have our nieces and nephews visit for sleepovers and stay up way too late and get hyper because we're the cool aunts who gave them s'mores and cocoa, and I feel like whenever I express those desires I'm told that I just want to kiss up to the straights and like my desires are somehow regressive compared to, like, fucking Erika Moen, or a demisexual cishet woman with stretched ears and tattoos who likes to spank her fucking bearded indie hipster boyfriend. Like, no, that fantasy is still two married commie dykes who are both at least a little genderweird.  It ain't heteronormative. 

So, yeah, I'm a little wary of anything that posits gay people as assimilationist or universally "rich, white, and gay."

• Us using the Q-slur doesn't mean you get to.

I use the word queer. I describe myself as queer.

And that's okay, because I'm taking something that's used as a slur against people like me, people who don't conform to rigid standards of sexual and gender identity, and I'm turning it into something positive and even empowering.

Cishet dyadic people don't have that same connection to the word. It's not part of their cultural history or identity, it was never used to systematically oppress them, and it describes a minority group that they'll never be part of.

For me, it's a tool of oppression turned into a reclaimed slur. For them, it's a word used to silence anything outside of their arbitrary norms.

Within the LGBTQIA community, there are several different attitudes surrounding the word.

Some people don't use it at all and don't want anyone else to either.

Others are okay with others using it for themselves, but not as an umbrella term and not to describe anyone else.

Others are okay with other LGBTQIA using it for themselves and as an umbrella term, but not with cishet people using it.

Some LGBT people aren't okay with cishet people, heteroromantic asexuals, aromantic heterosexuals, or aromantic asexuals using it, but accept it as a reclaimed slur and/or umbrella term by LGBT people (and I, for one, believe that unless they're aro or ace themselves, they shouldn't be telling any aro or ace that they can't say it). Being ace or aro doesn't make you a fucking kweer what the fuck also how does being a literal gay or trans person uncomfortable with cishets using a slur mean you're out of your lane? And what about all the LGBT aros and aces who are uncomfortable with it, do they just not matter?

The consensus, though, seems to be this: if you're cishet and dyadic, don't say the Q slur. The same applies to f***ot and d*ke, by the way. And if you aren't MGA, even if you're gay, don't say bi*et or bis**t.

Okay so my feelings on being called queer are in the FAQ. I do call myself a dyke, obviously. And no, you can't do it too.

• There are more than two genders.

The reason I bring this up now is so that I can explain the BPQ+ community.

You might have heard of nonbinary people by now (people whose genders aren't solely male or solely female). Or you might have heard the term for the first time when I described myself as nonbinary in this post.

If you've heard the term before, you might be under the assumption that nonbinary genders were invented on Tumblr to make teenagers feel special. Nonbinary people get that assumption a lot, and it's obnoxious and ignorant. You aren't cute, you're just transphobic (and, from personal experience, probably also ableist and misogynistic).

Click the link. Nonbinary people have always been around. You just didn't notice, and that's no accident.

And, because there's more than two genders, there's obviously people who are attracted to more than two genders.

Yes, in Latin or something, bi meant two.

Language changes. And the vast majority of the bi community doesn't define our orientation as "attracted to cis men and cis women" (despite what non-bis and some cis bi people seem to think). The definition of bisexuality - or biromanticism, for that matter - is the attraction to two or more genders.

Some bi women aren't attracted to men. Some bi women aren't attracted to women. Some bi men aren't attracted to women. Some bi men aren't attracted to men. Some bi people are attracted to multiple genders, but not all. Others are attracted to all.

The polysexual community is another under the MGA/BPQ+ umbrella, and perhaps the least well-known. Polysexuality - and polyromanticism - is the attraction to three or more genders.

The pan community is definitely less-known than the bi community, but seems to have more awareness than the ply community. Pansexuality and panromanticism is the attraction to all genders or the attraction regardless of gender. Laci Green is pansexual, and I've included a video of her explaining her sexuality in the coming out resources.

So why do we need more terms, you ask? Why not just use bi?

There's no real reason. It's just personal preference.

Oh my god no. First of all everyone is attracted to nonbinary people and being attracted to us doesn't automatically make you bi. I'm not super active in being critical of these identities because in my experience a lot of people view pan and poly people as acceptable targets for biphobia, but pansexuality and polysexuality were formed out of transphobic misconceptions of bisexuality, and bi and nonbinary and trans people have all discussed how harmful it is to us to say that bisexuality doesn't include all genders or that being into trans people (who are already included in every sexuality anyway! And so are nonbinary people!) makes you bi. I'm nonbinary, a lesbian or a straight man attracted to me isn't bi. If I'm into another nonbinary person, that doesn't make me bi either as long as their gender isn't male-leaning.

• Your loved one doesn't owe you progeny.

If you're a parent or grandparent who is reading this because your child or grandchild came out to you, or you're a sister or brother whose sibling came out to them, you might need this.

Chances are, before this revelation, you were expecting your loved one to eventually be in a heteronormative marriage and to give you biological nieces, nephews, or grandchildren. And now you're realizing there's a good chance that won't happen.

First of all, it might. Your loved one could use a surrogate or a sperm donor.

Second, your assumption is cissexist. Monogamous couples consisting of one trans man and one cis man are sometimes able to reproduce. So are couples with one cis lesbian and one trans lesbian. Your loved one could also choose to co-parent with someone with whom they can get pregnant. They might also settle down with a nonbinary person.

Third, your loved one might adopt or foster children. It's considerably harder for LGBTQ couples to accomplish this, however, due to homophobia.

Fourth, you worrying more about whether you can have a kid to spoil than about your loved one's wellbeing and happiness is actually really selfish. Just because you're related to them doesn't mean they have to have a kid to make you happy. Have your own damn kid, if it matters to you so much.

This is okay actually.

• No, not all bisexuals want threesomes.

Why would anyone ever think this? Non-bis are weird.

It isn't non bis thinking all bisexuals want threesomes and endangering bisexuals because of it. It's straight people, and they also apply that assumption to gay people, especially lesbians. Like for example, I have my Tinder set to women only for now but I still get so many thirsty fetishistic cishet men and couples on my feed, either just blatantly disrespecting lesbians' boundaries or thinking that a lesbian would want to have a threesome involving a man when they wouldn't ever consider asking a straight man to do the exact same thing.

• Just because they're attracted to theirs same gender, doesn't mean they're attracted to EVERYONE of that gender.

Yes, straight women, it is still safe for you to change in front of your LBPQ friends and relatives. And straight men, I'm fairly sure that your friends are not, in fact, looking at your ass just because you're showering in the same locker room and they happen to be into guys.

Do you people just think you're really hot or something? I don't understand. You wouldn't assume that a straight woman is attracted to every man ever, or that a straight man is attracted to every woman. Why would you assume that about LGBQ people - especially if they're RELATED to you!?

Just because they complimented you or hugged you or smiled at you doesn't mean they're flirting with you, either. They're probably just being friendly, but this stereotype has caused me to distance myself a lot from girls.

Even when I was in the closet, I realized that they would be suspicious of me if I even looked at them wrong. And it probably would have been even harder if I'd been assigned male, because teenage boys are less emotionally open with each other than teen girls.

And I didn't even understand flirting. I didn't particularly want to date, and I was mostly confused or annoyed when I heard my peers talking about sex (something they did incredibly often, and incredibly loudly). But I knew I thought girls were hot, and sometimes felt attracted to them. And I was terrified of this "gaydar" thing all the straight kids seemed to think they had. So I was very careful about how I looked at girls, talked to them, and acted around them.

Since then, I've realized that "gaydar" doesn't exist in straight people. Ever. They only assume ever assume anyone is straight or gay, which is monosexist. And if they do assume that someone's gay, it's either because that person is doing something sexually or romantically coded with a person of their same gender (or who is perceived to be of their same gender) at that exact moment - and this doesn't always even apply when it's women doing the sexually or romantically coded thing - or because they fit certain stereotypes, like speaking with a lisp, liking Tegan and Sara, or dressing in a way that's gender nonconforming.

Straight people amaze me.

And, obviously, I fit the third stereotype. So a lot of people assume I'm a cis lesbian whenever I'm wearing something masculine. Since I do this fairly often, and since my personal fashion sense tends to be pretty similar to the fashion trends followed by many masculine or androgynous LGBQ women (plaid, beanies, bowties, button-down shirts, skinny jeans, etc.), I can understand the confusion...I think.

Because of that, a lot of them instantly feel threatened by me. Straight boys either mock me because I don't look like a straight cis girl, or assume I'm going to hit on their girlfriends (I've decided my hotness gives them an inferiority complex and they're afraid their girlfriends will like me better). Straight girls either assume I have crushes on them or alienate me because they don't want anyone thinking they're lesbians - god forbid anyone think for even one second that they're a gross dyke, after all. (Yes, I understand that #NotAllStraightPeople do this. Please put the cries of heterophobia away now.)

Truth is, I have no plans for any of that. Not only am I entirely disinterested in flirting, but straight cis girls honestly scare me a little. They have harassed me for my gender expression when I didn't even approach them, they call clothing "boyfriend" if butch lesbians like it, and they seem to have a bizarre heterosexist obsession with figuring out exactly who is and is not gay. I'm telling you, it's freakish.

I'm getting off track. I can rant about the antics of the straighties in another post.

Point is, you probably have a lot of internalized biases about LGBQ people. And that might be your own fault. You might actually just be a piece of shit.

But I'm going to assume you're not a piece of shit and that you're just a person who grew up in a homophobic society. Because we all did. Homophobia is everywhere. It's been drilled into us before we ever knew that Heather could have two mommies. We just have to make the choice to fight against it.

One of the biases that you might have internalized is that gay and bi people are attracted to everyone of their same gender. This is highly illogical and patently untrue - and actually, I'm wondering why it isn't straight cis guys we're worried about.

LBPQ women, straight and BPQ+ trans guys, and DFAB nonbinary people who are into women can, mysteriously, walk into a locker room filled with naked women, not stare, and treat them like humans. I do it. And one of my friends is a bisexual cis girl who is involved in sports and has been for years. Because of the locker rooms, she sees other girls naked or at least scantily clad on a pretty regular basis.

Guess what? She actually doesn't seem to care. Just because she's attracted to other girls doesn't mean she's going to turn all horny and shit any time she's in a situation with them that could potentially be sexualized. Just because she's friends with girls, guys, and nonbinary people doesn't mean she's attracted to all of her friends.

But if a fourteen-year-old girl wears shorts and a tank top to school, and her bra strap shows, she's suddenly a "distraction" to her male classmates and even to her male teachers. If adults are sexualizing this child, they shouldn't be working around minors in the first place.

Am I the only one worried about that? Am I the only one with any sense left in this godforsaken society? Why aren't we more worried about straight cis men?!

 Straight women, why the hell doesn't this tell you that you should be more worried about your straight male friends being attracted to you than your lesbian/bi/pan/queer friends? We're not the ones talking about the "friend zone" when you don't have sex with us after we're nice to you!

And why would ANYONE worry about this with their relatives? If your cousin, of all people, has seen you naked dozens of times before coming out to you, it's very likely that after you know they're gay or bisexual, nothing needs to change. Believe it or not, we're no more into incest than straight people.

Like, I know. Shocker. But being bisexual literally just means that I'm attracted to multiple genders. Not that I'm hypersexual (...? I'm on the asexual spectrum...there are times when I go about three or four months in a row without feeling sexual attraction...), not that I'm into threesomes, not that I'm into incest, not that I'm incapable of controlling myself around people when I am sexually attracted to them. It means that I'm attracted to multiple genders. That's it.

And the fact that anyone would assume it meant anything else, when they wouldn't assume those same things about a straight person, is homophobic and biphobic.

So don't do it. Don't be a douche. And do actually educate yourself.

I'm actually ok with most of this? Like the hetties are ridiculous lmao. But it's even more relevant now that part of my job description includes watching women piss in a cup and doing body searches (I don't touch them anywhere and am just focused on making sure they don't have drugs) and how some people would react to that if I told them. Okay, here's the thing, in that specific circumstance there's literally nothing sexual about it and it's mostly just awkward for everyone involved. Also, if you're curious, the most I've actually seen so far was a little pubic hair, often from women older than my mom. There's also a gay male employee who does the men's tests a lot of the time and he feels similarly about the whole thing. And when I'm changing in a women's locker room or in front of a straight woman I just look away? I do have, like, self control and shit. A lot more boring than anyone was expecting, I'm sure.

This has been the first in the series of So Your Loved One Came Out posts. Signing off, this has been Mod Eli.