BiTalks #18 Hetronormativity
Compulsory heterosexuality (people assuming you’re straight and you having to prove your sexuality)
Often when I meet a new group of people I get that eyeroll and ‘oh, if you’re bi kiss x/y/z’ and acting as though women only ever say they’re bisexual to attract men. People assuming your sexuality based on the person you’re dating/in a relationship with/having sex with
When I date women, I get ‘cute gay couple’ ‘how sexy it is’ and ‘but how do you have sex?’ comments and told how ‘lucky I am not to have to deal with men’ and when I date men I get comments about how great it is I’m settling down and how great is is to have a family and all other nonsense, as though nonhetro relationships can’t have families or that man/women ones can decide to not have children. Being forced into the gay/straight binary
When I first came out as bisexual I was question by pretty much everyone from classmates to family, all of them asking some variation of ‘ yeah but are you a lesbian now or just messing around?’ as though bisexuality didn’t exist, and for my classmates it was somewhat understandable as we were 13. but it still hurt that they made comments of one or the other. But it hurt most when my mum said I couldn’t tell my brother or Nan, as ‘it was most likely a phase, so no need’
if you have any nice stories - when unexpectedly people actually did NOT assume heteronormativity - please, share them too!
I feel lucky in that generally the people I surround myself with accept my sexuality and one of the first questions asked is about how you define yourself, which is absolutely amazing.
For example, when I met my friend Zoe she started by asking how I identify, not just sex-wise but gender too, and as I met more people through her it seemed to be a normal question and I really liked that nothing was assumed.
