I saw this ask submitted to biconfessions, and it sort of got me thinking.

I have known that I am bisexual for several years, and I am to a point where I am pretty open about it. Although, even now, as an “established” bisexual who has experienced both sexual and emotional intimacy with same-sex partners (and opposite sex partners), I sometimes still feel insecure in my bisexual identity. It’s almost like I’m afraid that it’s going to up and disappear someday.

For example, if I see a male I am attracted to, I sometimes think to myself “It sure would be nice to have a boyfriend”, and then I start to feel guilty almost. As though having a “heterosexual thought” might somehow mean that I’m not really bi anymore. I particularly felt like this a lot when I was younger and questioning. My best friend is gay, and I was afraid he would assume that I was just imitating him or “doing it for attention”. That part of this ask really hit close to home for me.

Now, obviously, I know that being attracted to any particular person doesn’t change who I am. Just because I happen to be more interested in one gender more than another at some points doesn’t mean that I’m not bi anymore. But there’s still sometimes this little voice in the back of my head that makes me feel insecure about that.

I tend to think that a lot of these feelings come from internalized biphobia. Growing up, I didn’t hear a lot about bisexual people, but the things I did hear weren’t very flattering. I’d heard people say that bisexuals were just attention-seekers. That there was no such thing as a permanent bisexual (“it’s just a phase”). I’d heard people say that bisexuals were indecisive or would never be able to be faithful to a single partner. That they were just straights who were trying to be cool and alternative by imitating gay people.

These messages and stereotypes still affect me to this day. Even though I know intellectually that they’re just stereotypes and aren’t necessarily true, it’s still as if I am afraid that they will come true anyways. That I’ll suddenly become this indecisive, unfaithful person. Or that I’ll “turn straight” because it was “just a phase”. I have no reason to believe that these things will come true, but yet a small part of me still fears that they will. I still feel afraid of losing part of myself.

I wonder whether gay and lesbian people ever feel this way. Do they feel afraid that their “gayness” will disappear or afraid that the stereotypes they’ve always heard will come true for them (despite no evidence that they will)? Afraid that they went through the emotional struggle and stress of coming out for no reason?

I’m not gay or lesbian, so I don’t know. I wonder what other people think about this.