My story is that I'm a bi guy out for 6 years, with an identity that's strongly queer. Some people are even visibly shocked when I mention a girlfriend, and I guess that's because I identify so queer. I socialise on the scene. I'm active with Bi-Irish. I'm out at work, and with most of my family. I do occasionally sleep with people who identify as straight, but very rarely, and the last one was a man.

In some ways, the hardest part about being bisexual is talking about it to non-bi’s (Not because I'm in any way confused about it - I'm not. Nor because there's so little so say - there's lots). The problem is that bisexuality is many different things to many different bis, and to explain it away in a few lines is next to impossible. Most of my friends are bi, yet I can't think of 2 who are bi in the same way. Every answer has to be prefaced by "Well, it depends on the person". No wonder so many people just say they're gay or straight!

So why identify as bi ? What's so important? Why classify? All very good questions, and often asked by people who are bi in practice but not identity. For me it's an assertion, mainly political, but also social. My last straight (in both identity and practice) girlfriend was and still is a wonderful woman, and put up with a lot from me, our relationship having started 6 months after I came out. I would still describe her as homo-friendly, and a very supportive person. However, about a year after we split up I mentioned that I'd started going to Bi-Irish meetings. She reacted with "That's just stupid! Surely you're straight when you're with a woman and gay when you're with a man." Its times like this that I realise how different being straight and queer are, and what they imagine sexual identity is. (this sentence needs clarifying)

For me, either of the monosexual identities are worlds apart from mine. That's not to say that I can't identify with the sexual appetites of member of such worlds. Nor is it to say that there are no limits to my appetites - that they are in some way the sum of hetero and homosexual desires all rolled into one person ! It's just that a person's gender doesn't make me more or less attracted to someone. It's like the straight guy who fancies someone and then finds out it's a drag queen. Or the gay guy who fancies a lad and crosses the dancefloor to talk to him, only to find it's a butch/boyish looking woman. Both men (so the script goes) are likely to recoil with varying degrees of horror or squeamishness. If they don't, they have more than a little explaining to do with their mates the following morning. But for me, there's no reason in the world it should matter, and that's something I choose to celebrate.

Identifying as bisexual does not mean that I am attracted to one sex more than the other. Nor does it mean I don't end up in relationships with one more than another.(need to clarify this sentence)~ I assert that when I'm with the 'less frequent' sex, that it's not some sort of an aberration, that it's as valid in my mind and heart as any other person I've been with. It asserts that being with a member of the opposite sex in no way dilutes my 'queerness', that my feelings for men remain as strong. It means telling my gay friends that I don't believe that my attraction towards men should impose new limits upon my desires. It also means telling my straight friends that no, that girlfriend doesn't mean I'm 'cured', or 'through with that phase". It's me being me, not some prescribed behavioural pattern.

Is it equi-distant between the hetero and homo worlds ? Well, sexually it can be anywhere along that continuum, depending on the person. But politically it's queer as fuck. Just as someone from a bi-racial background suffers racism as much as other members of the black community, homophobes hate bisexuals as much as our lesbian & gay brothers and sisters. In many ways, we're worse. We're even more stereotyped as hypersexual superswingers, more interested in emissions than emotions. We “could” live the straight lifestyle. We have to be awkward, and upset their worldview even more by crossing borders, and 'spreading' this evil into 'their' community (as if such a thing exists!).

The current Blood Transfusion service ad at bus shelters announces that "It's your type we're after." Bis, as much as other queers, know that they're not talking to us.

by Darragh Doherty