The first time I brought a girlfriend home was on my 25th birthday. When we walked in, my uncle introduced her as “Cydney’s, uh … buddy.” My cousin’s girlfriend, knowing better, laughed and mockingly repeated, “buddy.”
By then, at least some people knew. Some months prior, I’d passive-aggressively posted a pansexuality meme on National Coming Out Day with the hashtag #IfYouDontKnowYouWerentPayingAttention — though honestly, I hadn’t given people much to pay attention to.
In actuality, the first time I came out was when I was 14. I was in boarding school at Interlochen Arts Academy. My gay awakening happened when my classmate sang “Confrontation” from the “Jekyll & Hyde” musical. That infatuation blew over by the end of class, but more consuming crushes came in quick succession in the following weeks. Shortly after that, I called my mom.
Me: “I’m bisexual.”
Her: “Oh, you’ve decided that now?”
Then I called my dad.
Me: “I’m bisexual.”
Him: “Oh … I still love—”
My phone died.
In the years immediately following, I joined high school Queer-straight alliances and had awkward crushes across gender identities. My Queer friends and I lovingly teased each other about celebrity crushes and took part in the annual Day of Silence. For the first few years, at least, I felt relatively comfortable with my Queerness and accepted by my friends, both Queer and straight.
I started questioning things in the first few years after high school. I’d opted out of college at the time, for reasons ranging from money to general disillusionment. Being out of school took away my access to clubs and other institutional extracurriculars for young adults, which meant no more QSAs. I met a few cool Queer people through theatre, and I took part in debates about Queer inclusion at the church I was attending at the time. But even so, such limited exposure to other Queer folks and a lack of community meant that part of myself was falling into the background, drowning somewhat in the transition to adulthood. Outside of a circle of other Queer folks, it became nearly impossible to envision where I could fit in that community.
When I started using dating apps, the Queer selection was pretty limited. Cis men seeking women were simply more available: more choices and more dates. Simple math. In my early 20s, about six or seven years after I’d come out, I realized that I had never dated somebody who wasn’t a cis guy. But did I want to?
Honestly, it was hard for me to envision what a Queer relationship would look like. Depictions in the media were, and in many ways still are, limited. I saw heterosexual relationships all around me, but I couldn’t paint a picture in my head of what I might feel like in a Queer relationship.
There was also another piece: I wanted to have kids. In the last few years, a chronic-illness rollercoaster has changed my feelings on this, but at the time, it was something I really wanted someday. And I knew that options like adoption and in vitro fertilization were — are — expensive. Having grown up in a family where the bank account hitting zero was not uncommon, biology seemed like a much more reliable bet. So where could a Queer relationship fit into that equation? Even when the Obergefell v. Hodges decision came out, and I knew that the possibilities for Queer families were only expanding, it felt like a half-formed dream, not something I might actually have someday.
I was starting to question how Queer I actually was. In a world full of amazing, beautiful people who were expanding our collective understanding of what things like sexuality and gender can mean, there I was: assigned female at birth, femme-presenting, somewhere in the bi/pan realm and possessing an exclusively heterosexual dating record. I started to worry — maybe I shouldn’t take part in Queer discussions. Was I taking space away from those who had genuinely struggled because of their identities? Less than a lifetime ago, people had to riot to go to the bar in peace. Some people’s families still disown them. What did it mean that the cringiest part of my coming out story was my phone dying? People could (and frequently did) look at me and think I was straight. Should I step back to make space for those “more Queer” than me?
I stopped telling people I was bisexual. I was worried that if I claimed the label without any hard evidence (i.e. a dating history), people would think I was just doing it for attention or merely “bi-curious” — perhaps just looking to experiment or lead people on.
Then, I started to question if I was ever Queer to begin with. I started to occasionally tell people I was straight when asked, and I slowly started to think it might be true.
It didn’t last forever. I eventually developed a huge crush on somebody who was decidedly not a cis-man, and it became abundantly clear, once again, that I am not straight. As the dating world slowly and cautiously reactivated amid the pandemic, I started looking at Queer profiles on Tinder, eventually joining Queer dating apps like Her.
Then something else happened: I decided to take an indefinite break from dating cis-men. There were a lot of reasons for this. First of all, the sex was frequently disappointing — and I tried more than just once or twice. I often wasn’t happy with how I was being treated on dates, or even just in general. I also didn’t want to go my whole life without exploring my Queer side, and I was worried about getting distracted before I got the chance.
There was something else, too. The more my image of myself evolved, the more I loved the view. Thinking about what it would be like to hang out with other Queer people, what kind of person I could be if I owned my identity publicly and explored more aspects of myself; it was a weird little zap of energy. It made my fingertips zing like I’d had too much coffee. I felt like I’d have to go for a run to get it all out.
So now, having acknowledged that I was definitely attracted to more than just men or masculinity and knocking the “opposite” gender off my list of possibilities altogether, what was the right label?
I’ve been best friends for several years with a guy I once dated for five months. A while back, he started dating a girl who was really uncomfortable with the idea that we had stayed friends after breaking up. One time, over tacos at Maiz, I exasperatedly said, “Just tell her you turned me gay!”
My words hung in the air. I didn’t particularly care what he told his girlfriend to keep the peace, but I had just said something out loud that I wasn’t sure was true. I couldn’t figure out whether I was lying, oversimplifying or appropriately simplifying. I was still pretty fluid in who I was attracted to, but I had no desire to end my extended break from cis-men. It is known that sexuality can change over time, especially in young adulthood, so was my sexuality actually evolving, or was I just naturally gravitating toward those who treated me better? Did that make me a lesbian?
Another time, one of my friends referred to me as a “sweater lesbian with leather jacket energy,” and that really made the term grow on me. So, tentatively at first — worried about gatekeepers who might think that my fluid sexuality didn’t properly fit the definition — I adopted the label.
This was all great and liberating, but it did offer one conundrum: Who actually remembered, or had ever even known, that I was Queer? How many people had I told back when I was 14? I’d told my grandfather — maybe not any of my other grandparents — but I doubted he even remembered. I didn’t know who in the extended family my mother had gossiped to. I tried to remember the last time it had even come up in conversation at all.
Slowly, I came to a somewhat mortifying conclusion: It seemed I was so timid about my identity that everybody forgot. I basically had to re-come out.
I “bi-erased” myself. I gaslit myself out of being a lesbian; clearly, I need a prescription for Queer imposter syndrome. That’s the truth of it, and it kind of makes me want to crawl under the covers with a picture of Ruby Rose.
This leads us to my passive aggressive Coming Out Day post and ultimately to the birthday where I introduced my “buddy” to my family. If my first coming out was a realization, the second was a commitment to myself, my identity and my truth. Since then, I’ve diversified my dating history, made Queer friends and gotten involved in the local Queer community by serving on the planning board for Ypsi Pride. Turns out, I’m plenty Queer enough to blend in — my innate love of Doc Martens and flannels definitely help. Ultimately, though, Queer people can look a million different ways and enter into relationships with all kinds of people. Being in community with other Queer people actually helped me to internalize that the whole point is loving and finding joy in ourselves and each other regardless of who we love or how we present ourselves to the world. THAT’S Pride.
I first came out in 2011, and it’s hard to discern who evolved more: American culture or me? Has the greater populace collectively started to understand how fluid things like sexuality really are? Or, did it just really take me a decade to learn how to sit with myself?
There’s a weird truth here: Nobody ever told me I couldn’t be lesbian. All those years that I was doubting my truth, the only voice telling me to do so was my own. I was afraid of some straw man judgment about whether I was bi “enough,” gay “enough,” Queer “enough.”
It’s worth noting that more Americans identify as bisexual than gay or lesbian. That same survey found that bisexuals are less likely to be out: “Only 19% of those who identify as bisexual say all or most of the important people in their life are aware of their sexual orientation.” So perhaps I’m not the only one whose friends and family spent years largely unaware of my orientation.
These days, I prefer to call myself Queer, a term that I feel more broadly encompasses who I am, but there are instances where I call myself a lesbian, and I don’t think that’s inaccurate. I move in Queer circles without being questioned, and I’m trying hard to turn that same courtesy inward.
So, from a sweater lesbian with leather jacket energy and an impressive case of imposter syndrome: Claim yourself. It’s worth it.
Statement Correspondent Cydney Heed can be reached at cheed@umich.edu.