I'm bisexual, which you probably already know.
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I am reminded that October 11 is National Coming Out Day. Since coming out is a process, not a single event, here I am again: I'm bisexual ("queer" and "pansexual" are also fine) and polyamorous, and am in long-term relationships with partners of more than one gender.
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In case anyone reading this doesn't know, I'm bisexual, meaning I'm attracted to people of more than one gender. It's relatively easy/safe for me to be out, both because of where I live and because I'm semi-retired, but it feels both more important and a bit riskier to be out now than it did two years ago.
I'm also polyamorous, and have both female and male partners: that makes it pretty clear to most friends and family that I'm bi, but I suspect some people who see me in passing assume I'm straight, and a few assume I'm a lesbian, depending on which partner they see me with.
"Queer" also fits, enough so that I have a "Queerville" shirt I bought from the Somerville High School Gay-Straight Alliance. (I say "bi" rather than "pansexual" because it's the term that people were using when I came out, not because one feels more accurate than the other.)
(Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eftychia for her post, which reminded me of National Coming Out Day.)
I'm also polyamorous, and have both female and male partners: that makes it pretty clear to most friends and family that I'm bi, but I suspect some people who see me in passing assume I'm straight, and a few assume I'm a lesbian, depending on which partner they see me with.
"Queer" also fits, enough so that I have a "Queerville" shirt I bought from the Somerville High School Gay-Straight Alliance. (I say "bi" rather than "pansexual" because it's the term that people were using when I came out, not because one feels more accurate than the other.)
(Thanks to
eftychia for her post, which reminded me of National Coming Out Day.)Tags:
Last week was LGBT Pride week in the Boston area. adrian_turtie and I decided to march in as much as possible of the Dyke March Friday evening and, if we weren’t too worn out and if the weather allowed, go to the parade on Saturday. The Dyke March was my priority because it’s more political, and a lot less corporate, than the Pride Parade is these days, for the values of “political” that matter to me, not “how many politicians are going to try to shake my hand?” Conveniently, what I wanted more also occurred first, so I didn’t have to guess whether the less-desired thing would use too many spoons.
We got to Boston Common Friday evening while people were still gathering, and looked around at the assorted tables; I took a “Rise Up, Resist, Repeat” button that a gay legal aid group was giving away. Then we sat down, and listened to the MC give an introduction and play a bit of music. She started with something like “I want to talk about the land we’re on,” which had me expecting her to say something about the people who lived in Massachusetts before European settlement; instead, she talked about Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, the trans women of color who started the Stonewall Riot.
At that point we were sharing a bench with another woman, and chatting with her, which was fun. She said she was trying to go to every Dyke March (meaning every city’s, not every instance), and asked if she could take our picture. We happily said yes, and posed. Other than that, we talked to a bunch of people who were representing different causes, including some unrelated petition carriers and a random tourist who asked me whether gay people can get married in the United States. I told him yes, everywhere in the country now, but Massachusetts was first. (I didn’t grow up here, but sometimes it feels right to boast about this state.)
Last year, we marched almost the entire route, and then I had to lead Adrian into the T station at Park Street because the large number of police car strobes had triggered a seizure. So, this year’s plan was to leave when it got dark enough for the strobes to be a problem.
That turned out to mean we had to leave a few minutes after we started moving, just before we got to the edge of the Common: there were police cars, with strobe lights, lining the march route. I realize they were intended as helpful, but part of me is thinking “the police stopped me from marching in the street.” More seriously, there seem to be more, and sometimes more intense, strobes out there every week. At least some of them are intended as safety measures (e.g., to get people to pay attention to stop signs), but strobes are also a seizure trigger for some people.
So, we grumpily got back on the red line, went to Harvard Square for pho, and then home to Arlington. [continued on next rock.]
adrian_turtie and I decided to march in as much as possible of the Dyke March Friday evening and, if we weren’t too worn out and if the weather allowed, go to the parade on Saturday. The Dyke March was my priority because it’s more political, and a lot less corporate, than the Pride Parade is these days, for the values of “political” that matter to me, not “how many politicians are going to try to shake my hand?” Conveniently, what I wanted more also occurred first, so I didn’t have to guess whether the less-desired thing would use too many spoons.We got to Boston Common Friday evening while people were still gathering, and looked around at the assorted tables; I took a “Rise Up, Resist, Repeat” button that a gay legal aid group was giving away. Then we sat down, and listened to the MC give an introduction and play a bit of music. She started with something like “I want to talk about the land we’re on,” which had me expecting her to say something about the people who lived in Massachusetts before European settlement; instead, she talked about Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, the trans women of color who started the Stonewall Riot.
At that point we were sharing a bench with another woman, and chatting with her, which was fun. She said she was trying to go to every Dyke March (meaning every city’s, not every instance), and asked if she could take our picture. We happily said yes, and posed. Other than that, we talked to a bunch of people who were representing different causes, including some unrelated petition carriers and a random tourist who asked me whether gay people can get married in the United States. I told him yes, everywhere in the country now, but Massachusetts was first. (I didn’t grow up here, but sometimes it feels right to boast about this state.)
Last year, we marched almost the entire route, and then I had to lead Adrian into the T station at Park Street because the large number of police car strobes had triggered a seizure. So, this year’s plan was to leave when it got dark enough for the strobes to be a problem.
That turned out to mean we had to leave a few minutes after we started moving, just before we got to the edge of the Common: there were police cars, with strobe lights, lining the march route. I realize they were intended as helpful, but part of me is thinking “the police stopped me from marching in the street.” More seriously, there seem to be more, and sometimes more intense, strobes out there every week. At least some of them are intended as safety measures (e.g., to get people to pay attention to stop signs), but strobes are also a seizure trigger for some people.
So, we grumpily got back on the red line, went to Harvard Square for pho, and then home to Arlington. [continued on next rock.]
A couple of friends' posts have reminded me that this is National Coming Out Day (where "national" means "United States").
For anyone who doesn't already know: I'm bisexual, and often self-identify as queer. I'm also polyamorous, and have both female and male partners.
For anyone who doesn't already know: I'm bisexual, and often self-identify as queer. I'm also polyamorous, and have both female and male partners.
Gratuitous icon post: "bi-furious" pin I got at last Friday's Dyke March.
I claim no exclusivity here, if you like and want to use this icon: it's a cell phone photo of a pin someone else created. (The original image may be under copyright; as the photographer, I hereby place this cropped photo of it in the public domain.)
ETA: I am pleased by all the positive response this one is getting.
I claim no exclusivity here, if you like and want to use this icon: it's a cell phone photo of a pin someone else created. (The original image may be under copyright; as the photographer, I hereby place this cropped photo of it in the public domain.)
ETA: I am pleased by all the positive response this one is getting.
This morning, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rysmiel and I were at a halal market, which they say has good meat, including good cold cuts, to get fruit and something to put on sandwiches. As rysmiel was looking at the ingredients on some smoked chicken, I looked at a package and went "Matjes!" in pleased surprise. Since I was enthusiastic, and we couldn't find smoked meat (only pastrami, which is a bit different), we got a package of matjes herring, as I wondered idly what language that word is from*. The rest of the large print on the package was in Polish, which neither of us knows. (The legally required small print was in French and English, of course, but the ingredients list just said "herring.")
There is absolutely nothing to stop herring from being halal (or kosher; I regularly buy kosher pickled herring in sour cream). I'm not sure how much of my surprise was seeing matjes in neat packages, and how much was the Polish package in a Montreal supermarket that has lots of hummus and date paste and other Middle Eastern foods (and fairly standard brands of tea and kinds of apple and such).
So, city life.
For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant in the Gay Village and ate pasta. On our walk back to the metro I saw banners on the street with amusing and/or inspirational quotes about various aspects of gay life and liberation. (I couldn't read all of them; my French isn't what it might be, though I can read more French than I can speak.) I spent some time chewing over "Being gay is not a choice; it is a necessity," going quickly from "not for me" to "yes, it is" to wondering what "being" means here. (I may be misremembering the phrasing, and what I'm working with is my on-the-fly translation, not what was printed on the cloth.) I trust the writer's description of his own experience, but once the text is printed on a banner above the sidewalk, people are going to apply it more broadly. For me, it's more complicated; the "not for me" tangles in with the different choices that come with being bi, as well as other people's tendencies to assume I'm straight if they see me with a male partner. But how much effort I make to be visible is separate from not making an effort to hide.
It would be nice to have a similar collection of banners in English, and maybe some in other languages, in my own Village.
*cattitude was sitting at his computer when I told him this story, so he asked the net. With that spelling of "matjes," apparently either German or Swedish (Dutch would have another "a"). But I suspect that matjes is the English, and maybe French, for that kind of herring, just as "biscotti" is the French and English for a particular kind of Italian-style cookie.
rysmiel and I were at a halal market, which they say has good meat, including good cold cuts, to get fruit and something to put on sandwiches. As rysmiel was looking at the ingredients on some smoked chicken, I looked at a package and went "Matjes!" in pleased surprise. Since I was enthusiastic, and we couldn't find smoked meat (only pastrami, which is a bit different), we got a package of matjes herring, as I wondered idly what language that word is from*. The rest of the large print on the package was in Polish, which neither of us knows. (The legally required small print was in French and English, of course, but the ingredients list just said "herring.")There is absolutely nothing to stop herring from being halal (or kosher; I regularly buy kosher pickled herring in sour cream). I'm not sure how much of my surprise was seeing matjes in neat packages, and how much was the Polish package in a Montreal supermarket that has lots of hummus and date paste and other Middle Eastern foods (and fairly standard brands of tea and kinds of apple and such).
So, city life.
For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant in the Gay Village and ate pasta. On our walk back to the metro I saw banners on the street with amusing and/or inspirational quotes about various aspects of gay life and liberation. (I couldn't read all of them; my French isn't what it might be, though I can read more French than I can speak.) I spent some time chewing over "Being gay is not a choice; it is a necessity," going quickly from "not for me" to "yes, it is" to wondering what "being" means here. (I may be misremembering the phrasing, and what I'm working with is my on-the-fly translation, not what was printed on the cloth.) I trust the writer's description of his own experience, but once the text is printed on a banner above the sidewalk, people are going to apply it more broadly. For me, it's more complicated; the "not for me" tangles in with the different choices that come with being bi, as well as other people's tendencies to assume I'm straight if they see me with a male partner. But how much effort I make to be visible is separate from not making an effort to hide.
It would be nice to have a similar collection of banners in English, and maybe some in other languages, in my own Village.
*
cattitude was sitting at his computer when I told him this story, so he asked the net. With that spelling of "matjes," apparently either German or Swedish (Dutch would have another "a"). But I suspect that matjes is the English, and maybe French, for that kind of herring, just as "biscotti" is the French and English for a particular kind of Italian-style cookie.Another set of saved comments from my journal, for later reference and, if you want, discussion here: ( defining people, avoiding overcommitment, what understanding people might mean, friendship and romantic relationships, being angry at lots of people, testing )
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Another set of saved comments from my journal, for later reference and, if you want, discussion here: ( defining people, avoiding overcommitment, what understanding people might mean, friendship and romantic relationships, being angry at lots of people, testing )
Tags:
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