Pride for A 30-something bisexual

Hello! It's been a while since I've even thought about making a blog post, but I wanted to talk a bit about pride month and what it means to me, as someone who is probably considered a "late bloomer." And if my mom is reading this, I hope this helps explains some things in a way I haven't been able to say in person.

I was 100% boy crazy as a kid and well into my teen years. All of my friends had boyfriends, so it was like a job for me to pick a boy to have a crush on and try to get him to go out with me. That resulted in 15-year-old me getting ghosted at a movie theater by my so-called "boyfriend." It led to some seriously uncomfortable dates with boys I didn't even like. And those awful dates led to a pit in my stomach and tears when I had to tell them I didn't want to hang out anymore. I felt bad for hurt feelings and time wasted, and just had a general embarrassed, uneasy feeling about all of it.

I was a theater nerd, so I was always surrounded by other kids who confidently labeled themselves as gay or bisexual, and while I considered myself a "hardcore ally," I hadn't even considered that I could be a part of that community myself. It wasn't until I was 25 and already married to a man (at the time) that I had any sort of revelation about my own sexuality. I had gone on a few dates with girls in college, but I was never one to put labels on things or stick myself in a theoretical box. I remember thinking about what my life would look like if I hadn't met my (then) husband, and I could not imagine myself going back into the dating world and choosing to date a man. But then I battled with whether it made a difference. Did it matter? I was already married, so why worry about my sexual identity now? Were my feelings even valid?

My wife told me she was struggling with her gender identity around the same time that I was going through my own self-discovery, and frankly, I did not take it well. I reacted poorly, I made it about myself, and I was really upset about the prospect of her changing from the man that I knew into someone completely different. My first worry was what my family would think. And what about having kids the traditional way? It was uncharted territory for both of us, and in a way, I felt as if I was going to be "outed" by being married to a trans woman. I realize now that as supportive as I was of the LGBTQIA+ community for those around me, I had some serious internalized homophobia toward myself.

Me? Gay? Absolutely not.

But my best friend? Everyone else? Hell yeah. Let me set you up with someone. Let's go to pride and support everybody.

As we got closer to 30, I became more comfortable with identifying as something other than straight, and my wife fully came out as a trans woman. We had our son in 2022, and it was a lot of big changes at once with all sorts of ups and downs along the way. I struggled quite a bit postpartum, and my wife was newly on hormones, so that partnered with a newborn's sleep schedule - well, you can imagine the type of emotional stress we were under. But still, I wouldn't change a thing. We found ourselves among the most supportive people who love us unconditionally, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

This is the first year pride feels like something I can actively participate in as a bisexual woman. I'm not embarrassed by it anymore, and I'm not ashamed that there are people out there who won't understand it. I'm comfortable with myself, and I hope I can exude that confidence in front of my son, so he knows it's okay to be whoever he is and feel however he feels. I'm not really sure why I'm sharing all of this, it just feels good to shout into the void I guess.

Happy Pride!!