By Tami Gorodetzer
I joined the corporate workforce in 2014, fresh out of college. I held my identities in full view throughout the four years I was active on campus and didn’t spend a ton of time thinking about what I needed to adjust prior to starting my first “real” job. Not long after my first day, I put up a photo of my then-girlfriend posing with me at a summertime wedding. I was open with my co-workers and leaders about the fact that I was dating a woman. I had no inhibitions about my relationship and the implications that came with it. But months later, we went through a breakup that left me not only heartbroken, but extremely isolated from my queer world. So, I joined my company’s PRIDE ERG.
Joining PRIDE gave me back the queer community I thought I had lost, but I quickly noticed a pattern: we had gays, we had lesbians, and we had allies. I had never identified as a lesbian, but I also was never strongly vocal about being pansexual, bisexual, queer. The thing is, I’ve never felt as deep of a desire to find a label that fit as the others around me seemed to want to label me. Then, I took advantage of my day job and used my company’s social media to comment on a student’s post about Lavender Graduation. I congratulated him, told him we knew how special the occasion is, and said we couldn’t wait to see what he does in the future. Our Corporate Relations team heard about my outreach and asked me to be part of a video series they did featuring goodness of employees. In this video that was going to be available to all internal employees of my 45k+ company, I outed myself as bisexual. The home page of our intranet opened to my story. It felt like employees stared at me just slightly longer in the hallways. Suddenly, I was very out. So, what else was there to do besides become the PRIDE president?
This should have been a celebration. Instead, it launched a seven-month identity crisis where I spent days and weeks crying to my roommate feeling like a fraud because I was leading an LGBT+ group but I wasn’t a lesbian. I had never claimed to be a lesbian, though. And the “B” was always in the acronym so there was no prerequisite to be a lesbian. But wow, did I feel like it was a requirement! The closer I got to a year of feeling like I wasn’t allowed to be who I am, the more conversations I began having. First, they were private. I had a 1:1 with one of my board members about her stories of blatant biphobia. I had a conversation with a past leader about wanting to make sure our group reached all audiences in the community, wondering if we were reaching our “A’s” or our “T’s” or maybe our “B’s.” Then, heading into the 2019 planning year, I decided these conversations should be more public.
I pitched a storytelling event to my closest board members, some of my closest friends. I asked if they would each be willing to share a hard story if I agreed to do the same thing. “I Get Bi+” was born in the spring of 2019 and launched as our first event for Pride Month that June. We featured three stories and I sat next to two of my best friends and listened to painful realities. My closest friend shared her stories of being cheated on by women, who happened to be bisexual, and how that made her see bi+ women as liars, cheaters, deceptive, and attention-seeking. Next, my vice president shared his story about the reality that he forgets bisexual people exist. When watching a TV show, he got distracted and a character he recently saw dating a woman entered the screen with a man. He commented that he thought this character was a lesbian, dismissing the option that she’s bisexual. This was a harmless and thoughtless comment but when considering that he was helping lead a PRIDE ERG of a Fortune 100 company, should this be taken so lightly? Then it was my turn. I shared what it was like growing up in my bisexual body, being ashamed that I couldn’t figure it out, that I couldn’t “pick a side.” I detailed what it was like to feel afraid to tell my queer friends when I was dating men, worrying they would think I am no longer queer and would exile me from my community, my home. I explored the ways I judged myself for dating men, wondering if it did call my queerness into question. I indulged my audience with what it was like to know you could fall in love with anyone, with everyone, and how that made you awkwardly lonely when you were alone and unable to explain how you felt to anybody. But the end of my story was explaining this gift.
Being bi+ or pan or queer or however I’m being defined today is a gift. How lucky am I to just love, with no parameters or discriminations? It took me a long time to like who I am and after almost six years at my company, I got to share it. Most of co-workers knew me as “out.” These co-workers also would have described me as a lesbian. Most likely, that was the only identity they knew besides gay. But after that event, after the ways the company responded, I never shy away from my truth in my identity, I am not afraid of correcting those around me, and I take genuine pride in representing my openly bisexual self. Being out as bi+ at work, not just being out at work, gave me the understanding of how important it was to shine light on our community in queer spaces and in corporate spaces.
Tami Gorodetzer (she/her) is a corporate professional and social activist. She has presented at multiple conferences on the topics of intersectionality, racism in queer spaces, and bisexuality.