I write this post whilst listening to a song that she showed me, stealing glances at my phone to see the sweet messages she sends me, and attempting to ignore the butterflies in my stomach that she gives me.
Ella Fitzgerald’s voice ever so beautifully twirls around my head as I think of her,
“At the sound of your voice
Heaven opens its portals to me
Can I help but rejoice
That a song such as ours came to be?”
Reader, I am in love.
It makes my palms sweat to know that someday, maybe soon, I will face the challenge of telling my family my sexuality. My parents, along with many other individuals, follow the mindset that bisexual women are overly promiscuous, are in a ‘transitionary’ phase, and engage in sinful behaviors resulting in a damnation to hell.
Good thing I prefer hot weather.
This ideology, otherwise known as “binegativity,” (Klesse, 2011) is a cultural concept that either hypersexualizes bisexual women or illegitimizes them.
Research has concluded that heterosexual men tend to view bisexual women as objects for their own pleasure, while still believing that at that end of the day, women were created to be with men (Alarie & Gaudet, 2013). In other words, many heterosexual men cast judgement and disbelief upon bisexual women, though ask to watch them scissor at the end of the night.
Through all this, I am still cognizant of my privileged identities. I am white, cis gender, and unapologetically feminine. Most folks presume that I am heterosexual. I am mindful of this privilege in that many of my friends have celebrated me and my queerness with loving, open arms. Other LGBTQ+ members have not and will not receive the same warmth as I have. Fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color each year, and the violence and oppression of these women has turned into a nationwide crisis. I am privileged to know that my life will not be in danger when coming out to my parents, but I am afraid of the emotional and relational repercussions that lie in the aftermath.
Women should be able to express their gender and sexuality without fear of violence, fear of relational dissonance or dissolve, or really, anything other than support.
But while I hold this fear tightly in my chest, her head resting on it makes the pain bearable. So, to my newfound love, if you are ever to read this:
Thank you for making the pain fade away.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 
love this and love ella fitzgerald!! the queer experience is so nuanced and beautiful and this was a lovely read 🙂 i hope everything goes well with your parents!
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