"How do you do, fellow queers?"
May 28, 2019 9:05 AM   Subscribe

I'm a very late bloomer. I finally figured out I was queer in my mid-30s (yay!). But I pass for straight and I'm still trying to figure out whether/how to be publicly queer as a bisexual cis(ish) woman. Are there resources for people like me?

Last year, after getting a ton of much-needed mental health help, and finally being able to feel all my emotions for the first time without panicking, I came out to myself. Then I came out to my husband. Then I came out to some of my friends. Smooth sailing so far.

Still, even after a year, I'm still wrapping my brain around the fact that I feel queer as fuck. A lot of the thoughts/feelings that got mangled by my mental illness were, in fact, me being super not-straight.

I just don't know how to process this or whether to make any other changes to my world. I feel much better finally "getting" what the hell was going on with me, but I don't know how to Be A Queer. I'm in a committed, opposite-sex relationship, so I've got bi invisibility and a ton of privilege. I'm still working through internalized misogyny, homophobia, and biphobia.

Is there some online or IRL support network for fellow late bloomers?
posted by MetaFilter World Peace to Human Relations (9 answers total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
1) IT'S HARD

2) When I was coming out as bi beyond my tiny social circle, I felt like in order to count as "openly bi," I had to make some big gestures or changes that made me so blatantly queer that I'd never have to out myself again. Which, you can do that if you want. (Haircuts are the traditional starting point; this is not entirely a joke.) But it turns out it worked better for me to just get really comfortable casually outing myself.

Which, how you do that depends on you and your life and personality. For me it meant getting used to mentioning my ex-boyfriend, because I had one of those, and my wife, because I have one of those too. Maybe that won't work for you. I know other people who do it by mentioning celebrity crushes, which super doesn't work for me (I couldn't recognize most celebrities if my life depended on it, I find the idea of mentioning attractiveness openly kind of silly) but maybe you're the sort of person who can pull it off.

Or maybe it's something you can bring up by talking politics. Maybe you start going to queer events and then you tell lots of fun stories about those events. Maybe you get involved in a queer advocacy organization and then you tell lots of stories about your volunteer gig. Those are all things that either out you or raise the possibility that you're queer.

3) I wonder, though, if the question is really "How do I meet queer people?" Which is a bit different.

I've never found bar scenes useful as a way of meeting people of any orientation. And I gather a lot of newly-out bi folks find bar scenes unwelcoming, and maybe even experience the LOL GO AWAY STRAIGHT TOURIST thing. So: meetups? Support group? Volunteer? Go see queer poets read? Go see queer bands play? See if there's an LGBT hiking group or board game group or square dance club or whatever in your area? Those are things that people I know have found super useful in finding community.

4) Lean into the "ish" in "cis(ish)". Exploring gender presentation can be a great way to make yourself visibly queer. But more importantly: If you have lingering stuff that you're still not out to yourself about, it can make it harder to be fully open about the stuff you do know about. If it turns out you've got an extra-fancy gender, and you're freaked out and in denial about it, casually letting people know you're any kind of queer might feel a bit too close for comfort. So getting the gender thing sorted out could get you closer to being the sort of person who can just casually say "Yeah so I was at my incredibly gay bowling league last night and..."
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:26 AM on May 28, 2019 [5 favorites]


My 'realizing I'm super queer' experience is different from yours so I can't speak to that aspect but I can tell you that one thing that I've really been enjoying the last year is a Meetup for LGBT+ women where we just eat dinner and hang out with fellow queer people. It's not a dating group or a political organization, it's purely for being social with people that have at least one thing in common with you and it's been really great getting to know other gay people that I wouldn't typically meet. I'm now good friends with this 60 year old couple and cool big sister type to some newly out women so if you can hop on meetup and find a lesbian dinner group I'd say go for it. Also if you want to chit chat with another bi lady feel free to memail me, welcome to the club!
posted by julie_of_the_jungle at 10:49 AM on May 28, 2019 [3 favorites]


Hey, congratulations on finding yourself!

I am not in the same situation, but have friends who are. A little bit ago, one of them asked me for help being more visible at work in ways that wouldn't be likely to make other women think she was hitting on them, and I wrote her a thing.

The other thing I recommend is talking to your partner about how he can help you be more visible and how to address the ways privilege and heterosexism shape your relationship. Here are a set of questions I wrote as a list of things I wish straight men would think about in dating queer women.

Welcome to the community!
posted by bile and syntax at 11:17 AM on May 28, 2019 [4 favorites]


I have found a lot of success in donating my time to support queer activities. Joining queer art circles, making queer friends.

I always feel like my story sets me apart from other queer folks - I'm about as hetero as you can be but then my partner transitioned to the same gender I am so I guess I'm queer now? And I've found a ton of people have been super accepting of this narrative, and they care less about if I count as their definition of queer and more about if I'm doing the work and being accepting of others.

Being "visible" was a really hard thing to understand, but visible to the people I care about most feels really, really good.
posted by rebent at 11:36 AM on May 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


Coming out again after about a decade in a professional closet:

Having an IRL social network has been really important for me. I feel a lot of online spaces are overrun with toxicity right now especially where bi people are concerned. I do volunteer work for the local center. It might be worthwhile finding a welcoming congregation if that's also your thing.

One of the things I've found (that I can't keep up for mental health reasons) is that I'd been doing a lot of selective self-censorship and managing of "who know what?" So being able to just drop the pretense and say, "I learned this at an HIV tester training," "I'm reading an anthology of transgender fiction," "the way that person talked about his (butch) supervisor really got under my skin," "I'm running one of the booths at pride this weekend," and "can we please adopt one of the better style rules for gender-neutral language?" was such a relief.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:37 AM on May 28, 2019 [4 favorites]


I would say hang out in more queer communities. You don't have to be performatively queer. I'm a normcore bisexual and I've found that just being in the right places to be around other bisexies works fine. Finding places that skew to an older crowd is a better more comprehensive fit if you feel uncomfortably or internally pressured to change your look or act in some way artifical.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:51 AM on May 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


Late 30s bi cis-ish female-ish person here - I've known I was bi for a long time but didn't put much effort into being involved in a queer community until recently. I joined a queer-specific group for a hobby, and it's worked out great and it's been a super-welcoming group and has connected me with other queer community events.

I was worried about being put on the spot to prove I'm "gay enough" or something, and in my case that was 100% internalized biphobia and not a problem at all in any group/meetup I've been to. Based on our contact info spreadsheet, almost everyone lists their identity as "queer", so you can also ID as queer if that feels true and easier.

I talked to my hairdresser about options and got part of my head buzzed and got several compliments from queer ladies, so +1 "lifestyle" haircuts if you want to be more visible.

The hobby group has also been helpful for hanging out with some other not-totally-cis (and totally-not-cis) folks to see how they handle pronouns and gender presentation and identity.
posted by momus_window at 1:51 PM on May 28, 2019


Hang out in queer spaces, make local queer friends, and specifically seek out people who are in similar situations. There are likely way more of those folks than you think, and being able to have the "oh wow me TOO!!!!" experience is really valuable to a ton of people.

If you don't have a ton of experience with queer spaces, my only gentle caution would be to make sure you listen a lot, and read the room. Different cities and different circles and different ages etc etc all have their own norms, but most queer meetups are intended to be welcoming, and people will help you get settled if you're making an effort to be respectful.

Best of luck to you!!!
posted by Narrative Priorities at 6:05 PM on May 28, 2019


I have found Autostraddle to be a fantastic resource to validate and provide me a community, as someone who isn’t very visibly queer and who has lost touch with a lot of queer friends as I’ve gotten older and moved. As an introvert I prefer to mostly build online community before meeting up with people in real life. The breadth of topics and identities on the site is wonderful and a good way to get a sense of “queer culture”.

Autostraddle is very welcoming to folks with any queer identity and explicitly affirming for those in opposite sex relationships who deal with bi-erasure and/or the double whammy of femme-invisibility. I highly recommend reading the site on a regular basis, digging through their archive for all the awesome coverage for and by bi folks (or queers coming out late in life) and getting all up in the comment section. People are very friendly and thoughtful there! And once you’re feeling comfortable, there’s in real life meetups all over (especially next month for Pride!) and even a summer camp I’ve wanted to go to for ages.

Another unexpectedly great online community that has real life meetups is one centered around the fun podcast Han and Matt Know It All here on Facebook (if that mobile link doesn’t work, the group is called “Han and Matt Know It All Fan Club”). The FB community has a bunch of offshoots; one is for queer listeners and there are a lot of people asking similar questions as you! I believe Han, who is part of the married couple who run the podcast, realized they were queer later in life while being married to a cis-dude (Matt). They’re poly, Han is also genderqueer, and they both talk a lot about identity on their podcast (it covers advice columns and is super fun but honestly I listen casually and mainly just enjoy their robust community of fans). One of the more recent episodes had Han talking about a letter from someone who wasn’t sure if they were allowed to call themselves queer because they’d only been with men and of course the answer is “you’re queer enough!”

Also, welcome, and happy upcoming Pride!
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 6:51 PM on May 28, 2019


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