By

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I was born and raised in the South, home of the judgmental, the homophobic, and the racist, the place where being a mixed girl who likes girls can get you a lot of hate. Therefore, you could probably understand why for the longest time, I denied a huge part of who I was.

When I was younger, I was a lot more perceptive than the other kids my age. I wasn't blind to the hate I saw happening around me targeted towards gay people even though I was still too young to know what being gay meant. I heard adults whispering about how disgusting it was, thinking that I wouldn't hear them. I went to church where I heard them preach that homosexuality is a sin. Even before I knew what gay or homosexual meant, I didn't miss the clues around telling me that liking somebody of the same sex was wrong.

Therefore, when I was old enough to catch myself eyeing the curve of a woman's breasts or the sway of her hips for longer than I was supposed to, I was automatically disgusted with myself. It had been ingrained into my brain by society that the thoughts about other girls I was having was wrong, so I buried them underneath similar thoughts I was having about boys at the time.

When I finally learned what the word gay meant, I was horrified with myself. I was finally able to put the two ideas of people who liked people of the same sex and gay together. Now I knew who it was the adults talked about in whispers around children and who the other kids in school openly shamed-because that's what their parents, the adults, did-and I was terrified to find out that that applied to me too. Because I liked girls.

I remember writing in my diary before I knew the word for bisexuality that I was 17% gay, then it was 33%, then 47% or something like that, the number gradually increasing as I started to be more accepting of who I was. I remember also writing that being gay was the worst secret that somebody could have whether they were only half gay or 100% gay and didn't like people of the opposite sex at all. It wasn't that I personally thought that it was wrong, it was that, like I said, I saw how the other people like me were treated when that "secret" of their sexuality got out. I saw my friends being slut-shamed just for liking girls and guys being called fags and pussies for liking boys and I didn't want to be subject to that kind of torment on top of the bullying I was already going through.

Then, I learned what bisexual meant. I remember feeling so lucky because I wasn't gay and thinking I could hide behind half of my sexuality so that I wouldn't have to suffer the kind of abuse my friends did for theirs. Even then, it was still a fight to accept it because the idea had been ingrained in my head for so long that it wasn't right. Girls weren't supposed to like girls, even if they liked boys too (for some reason, I had convinced myself that liking boys too would counter balance liking girls and make it more acceptable). Hearing my mom talk about how my lesbian friend-who was my age- was too young to be considering her sexuality and my dad make dumb ignorant comments about gay people and use gay as an insult against my brother certainly didn't help my confidence in myself. Their, especially my dad's, ignorance about the subject astounded me, yet still managed to make me feel ashamed of myself because I wanted them to accept me, but feared they wouldn't.

I denied the truth to myself for years. I would go through a short period of self-acceptance before returning to beating myself up because I knew the people around me wouldn't accept it, including my family. I was sure they would tell me that it was a faze, that I was too young to be having sex (don't really know what that has to do with knowing my sexuality, but that's my mom for you), or that I was using it to cover up the reality that I was a lesbian. That was what I had seen happen to others and surely I wasn't special or an exception, so it would happen to me too.

Then, one day I realized that THEY don't need to be accepting of me for me to accept MYself. I didn't need to come out to the world as bisexual to admit to myself that I was. In fact, why do I need to tell the world that I'm bisexual to begin with? Why can't I just come home one day with a girlfriend with no questions asked? But, alas, that is not how the world works.

While I've finally learned to accept myself for who I am in the sexuality department, I still haven't come out to anybody but a couple of select friends. I'm still afraid that others won't accept me, but I think it's a really important step that I've accepted myself first and hopefully I'll be brave enough one day to tell my family and not as close friends too that I'm bisexual.