Lesbian

A few people have privately pinged me about the fact that my info, both here and elsewhere, now says 'lesbian' instead of 'bisexual'.

A lot of pondering went into that change. I identified as bisexual for eleven years (secretly for the first ten years) so it is a label that I had come to find comfortable. However, the more I thought about it the more inaccurate and inadequate it became. Similarly, although I used to feel ambivalent about the exotic, othering 'lesbian' label, it had become familiar and I was ready to accept it. Identifying as bisexual felt wrong, while the lesbian label felt right.

The kinds of questions I'm being asked about this are: Have you changed from a bisexual to a lesbian? Or were you a lesbian all along? If so, what about that 10-year string of heterosexual relationships?

They're good questions, and I have been trying to answer them myself. It's difficult to consider one's own past objectively, but I have tried to be at least critical of my experience so that I can answer accurately.

It's true that until this year I believed I was attracted to men as well as women. I was convinced of this despite all available evidence, that being that my relationships with men routinely sucked and were devoid of physical and emotional satisfaction. (Yes, I do mean all of them. Sorry, any exes reading this, but them's the breaks. And really, if you're smart enough to read this blog you must have realised just how badly matched we were). I persisted with the pursuit of a safe, respectable heterosexual relationship despite proving to myself time and time again that they just didn't work for me. There were other issues at play in some of my poor partner choices - emotional baggage not related to my sexuality - but normalcy was part of it. I didn't want to rock the boat, so I kept on trying, one disaster after another.

I don't think I was ever truly bisexual. The frequency and potency of my attraction to women has been largely unchanged since my childhood (even when I thought I was just desiring a close friendship) and it has blossomed since I accepted that this is the only way for me. Without the red herring of "needing" a normal heterosexual relationship I can't imagine why I ever wanted one in the first place!

I'm wearing the 'lesbian' label with pride and joy today, where once it used to both frighten and tantalise. And I am very, very happy to own that element of myself. It feels like coming home.