Can't this post wait? Why now.

I share a monogamous, mostly happy relationship with my wife, have a young child, and by all appearances am a privileged straight white male. But I've thought a bit about my last post and WHY I was so unhappy in college and really for years afterward, and more immediately, I heard an interview on NPR by Julia Shaw, the author of a new book called "Bi" (followed by a lengthy and irrelevant subtitle), which I bought on audiobook and have been listening to on my commute, and I'm feeling inspired to just acknowledge here for the sake of visibility that I'm Bi, even though I appreciate that that label is simplistic and often misunderstood. 

This isn't a grand announcement; the people who have had a need to know have always known, but I made it more widely known in college and suffered so much from stereotype threat, double discrimination (from both straight and gay people), and internalized fear of being defined by a label that most people don't understand and that I myself didn't always feel sure of, that I basically went back in the closet when I moved on to law school. I still dated both girls and guys (under the radar) until I met my future wife (we talked about it on our second date), but I never felt like I could get beyond it with most people who knew and really be accepted. It colored their perception of me, whether they were male or female and whether they were straight or gay, or at least that's how it felt in my head most of the time. And not just in being thought of as bisexual first and other things second, but in people not understanding what that means to me. Thinking that I couldn't be monogamous, or that I was really gay, or really straight, or not someone to invest in for whatever other reason. It's also why I've never participated in LGBT affinity groups or listed myself as a minority in our firm's annual HR survey, opting to "prefer not to say" in the bind of not wanting to lie but not wanting to wear that badge at work (I thought maybe I would acknowledge this more directly after making partner, or maybe a few years after that when the old guard had moved on and I had nothing to fear for my career and could set the example for others). I just don't have confidence in the polarized world we live in that I won't be defined as "other" by at least a significant subset of people with influence over my career trajectory right now. Even though I work at a rather progressive law firm and my fears are probably overblown, it just feels like an unnecessary risk and burden.

But I acknowledge all this because Julia Shaw's book has made me feel less alone and has taught me a lot about others who have experienced the same things I have, and I wanted to encourage you to seek the book out, whether for your own interest or to better your understanding of me and others like me. To be clear, it only reinforces what I've found to be true about the reasons bi people are more likely than even gay people to stay closeted and to experience mental health issues and discrimination and other harms from both straight and gay people. But it also gives me hope that maybe someday I can feel more understood and less hidden (let's go Gen Z!), and maybe someday someone will feel empowered by my being visible to be visible themselves, the way this book has made me feel (in small, incremental measure).