By Casey Lawrence
The grass always seems greener on the other side, when you can’t see over the fence that you accuse me of sitting on. You say I can choose a side, and when I do, I’ll see.
You say that I can choose to be straight, to drop to the safe side of the fence, where the grass is green. You say your side is withering, covered in trash that the people on the green side throw your way. When you choose your side, you’ll see.
I am bisexual.
I am not on the fence.
There is no fence to sit on, no hard divide.
There’s this unfortunate belief that we, as bisexuals, can choose to be straight when we no longer want to deal with the oppression of our queerness. We can’t.
There’s this unfortunate belief that when we, as bisexuals, commit ourselves to a partner we are choosing a side. We aren’t. If my partner is a man, I am bisexual. If my partner is a woman, I am still bisexual. If my partner is neither—
I am bisexual.
I am not on the fence.
If there is a fence, I stand in its shadow.
My capacity for attraction to more than one gender threatens the belief that queer people and straight people are fundamentally different. They aren’t.
My ability to love threatens the status quo for straight and gay people alike. So they ask, they beg, they laugh, they yell: CHOOSE A SIDE ALREADY. But I can’t. There aren’t two sides to choose from. It is a spectrum, and I have my place on it.
I am bisexual.
I am not on the fence.
It’s not a matter of choosing.
I didn’t choose to be bisexual. I didn’t choose for people to think that my sexuality is a phase, a lie, an exaggeration. I didn’t choose to be invisible. But I am.
When my partner is a man, you call me straight. That is erasure. When my partner is a woman, you call me gay. That is erasure. I am always bisexual. I always have the ability to love people of genders similar to or different from my own. I don’t get to choose.
I am bisexual.
I am not on the fence.
The fence is a lie. I am not.
Casey Lawrence is a 20-year-old Canadian university student completing an undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature. She is a published author of LGBT Young Adult fiction (see Out of Order) and has been actively involved in LGBT activism in her community since she co-founded the Gay-Straight Alliance at her high school.