Of Undertows & Lifeguards
The Fraught Reality Of Trying To Find Queer Community & Connections Late In Life
This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter focused on the late blooming queer experience, the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.
Up until I was in the third-grade, my family took vacations to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Lots of miniature golf, lots of souvenir shopping and, of course, lots of time on the beach.
Being from the Midwest, I found the beach and the ocean mesmerizing. Yes, the Midwest is largely flat and you can see for long distances but to truly see all the way to the horizon, to hear the crash of waves, was on par with a spiritual experience. I spent a lot of time just walking along the shoreline, letting the tide wash over my feet, watching the sand swirl in the current. And I spent a lot time wading into the water and letting the waves rock and lift me.
Once, I was in the water and suddenly realized I was further from shore than I was used to. I started to swim back but I couldn’t seem to get any closer. I didn’t know what a rip tide was but I know now that’s what I was trapped in. I was starting to get tired and the waves were beginning to push me down and I began to panic. No one saw me struggling and no one was close enough for me to shout for help, much less would I have been able to as saltwater kept getting into my mouth. There were no lifeguards on duty because, well, it was the late 80s.
I don’t know how, but I somehow started to make my way closer to the beach. Once I could feel sand under my feet in the shallows, I started to calm down. I trudged out of the water and realized I was further down shore than where I started and I began walking, looking for my family. When I came to where we’d laid our towels and half-built sandcastles, no one asked where I had been (they had been focused on my two younger siblings) and I didn’t say anything about what had happened. I felt so alone. And so ashamed.
February 2023.
So, I said to myself, I’m bi. Or queer. Or Gay+11. Whatever, I’m not straight. So…what do I do now?
It’s hard enough coming out when you’re a young adult, teenager or even a pre-teen. As much progress has come in the years since Stonewall and the AIDS crisis, since public perceptions of queer folks and their rights have swung toward support by the majority of the public, queer folk are still not safe from persecution and violence.
But youth, at least in the West, have one advantage over those coming out when they are older: there is usually a “social moratorium” or flexibility for them when it comes to meeting society’s norms and expectations.
People renegotiating identity in adulthood, however, do not enjoy the luxury of these developmental supports and sanctions. They find themselves trying to resolve identity questions while embedded in adult relationships of economic and social interdependence and responsibility. Their spouses, children, family, friends, and colleagues share the costs of the process and have a stake in its outcome. The demands of adult life limit the time and degrees of freedom available for exploration and experimentation. They also pose moral issues: while contemporary Western cultures encourage freedom, tentativeness about commitment, and self-focus in adolescents, adults who exhibit these traits are often criticized as being selfish, immature, irresponsible, or even pathological.
-Thomas B. Swan & Suzanne Benack, Renegotiating Identity In Unscripted Territory: The Predicament of Queer Men In Heterosexual Marriages, Journal of GLBT Family Studies
You are not who people thought you were, and that can be hard to accept. Even if your family and friends are supportive of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and its rights. Even if you have no reason to believe your workplace will treat you differently. Even if your faith community, if you have one, is welcoming and affirming.
This was my predicament in early February 2023. My mind was flooded. Valentine’s Day was coming, how could I break this news to my wife now? What about my closest friends, who were all progressive but straight? Yes, I had queer friends, but they were also friends with my wife, and I couldn’t expect them to keep my identity from her.
I wanted to reach out to others in the queer community where I live but I was scared of being outed, even if accidentally (“Ty? What are you doing here?”). There aren’t a lot of queer-positive spaces in my community and while there is a gay bar, I’m not into the bar scene and also wasn’t in a space where I wanted to be seen as looking for a hookup.
My circumstances were further complicated by the fact that I was identifying as bisexual, a sexual identity both straight and queer culture struggle with, as Charles Blow shared in a New York Times column last year.
Those of us with identities that don’t fit the gay-straight, cradle-to-grave paradigm are persistently the focus of suspicion, including among other queer people, constantly being asked to explain, ever in danger of erasure.
I didn’t know where to turn.
So I dived into the Internet.
It is not hard to find bisexual spaces online.
Search “bisexual” on Facebook (yeah, I’m an old) and these are just some of the groups that come up.
Google “bisexual support groups” and you’ll get 52 million results with top hits being for the websites of the Bisexual Resource Center, LOFT LGBTQ+ Center, GAMMA, Husbands Out To Wives (HOW) and countless others.
The more official groups with dedicated websites and resources were enticing but I live in a relatively remote medium-sized metropolitan area that is about as red as a baboon’s ass and so seemed incredibly unlikely to have chapters in my community.
I joined a few of the Facebook Groups that came up but I first had to wait to be approved, introduce myself and get up the courage to engage. Then there was the worrying that anything I posted could inadvertently show up on my personal profile, outing me to all my connections.
I searched Reddit for subs serving bisexuals, queer and questioning men (ho boy is that a double entendre). You don’t have to be approved to join a sub, you can just click through and look at every question, statement, image and more that has been submitted and commented on. You can just jump in and start a conversation. And best of all, unlike Facebook, you’re likely using a pseudonym for a handle and some iteration of the Snoo mascot as your avatar, rendering you some precious anonymity.
These online forums provided my first exposure to other men like me. There were so many stories about how guys had come to accept their queerness, from it arising gradually before suddenly becoming unavoidable to those who had always known but had repressed it. Many were married, but not all. Some had cheated but not all, though there was often discussions and debate around whether something was cheating or not (Is masturbating cheating? Is looking at queer porn? Is camming?). Some were contending with hostile extended spouses, families, workplaces, faith communities, yet some also had supportive people in their lives.
But it didn’t take long for it all to feel overwhelming. To start pulling me down.
Keeping up with every new post and thread. Hearing about the worst things happening to guys, from crumbling marriages and bitter custody battles to ostracization from their church community, their friends, their family. Then there were the less forthright interactions. The bawdy compliments on the selfie you posted. The confessional "would you be offended if I said you are very handsome?” messages. The requests to share other photos, or even videos, or even to video chat “if you’re alone.” The questions about whether I had been with a man, did I want to be with a man, do you want to meet up…
I was back on that beach, surrounded by people but utterly alone. And then there was the shame. After all, I posted the selfie, just like I had waded too far into the waves. I had invited all this on myself.
But this time, there were lifeguards.
Some guys reached out, said what I had shared resonated with them. And we began asking how we were doing each day. Listened when we needed to vent or fret about something that we had stewing in our heads about our newfound identity and its repercussions. Joked about which male celebrities made us realize we are queer (Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans and Tom Hardy). It was a Redditor who personally invited me into HOW, which provided me my first access to remote and then in-person support meetings that were a bastion of care and camaraderie in those first months of being a baby queer.
And when one of us didn’t respond for a day or two, we’d reach out. Just to say hello. That we are thinking about them. That we know this is hard. I clung to as many ring buoys that were tossed at me as those I threw out. None of us were told to watch out for each other, we just did.
I don’t want anyone to come away from this piece thinking that online spaces and resources for bi folk, or queer folk in general, aren’t safe, helpful or important. For some, that may be the only window they have. It’s all about making those spaces the best they can be and accessible. From my perspective, that means we need to follow two rules:
Don’t be judgey (of someone’s past choices, journey, identity, etc.)
Don’t be creepy (as in, don’t use these spaces like you would Grindr)
Some of the groups were better to interact with than others, had a greater focus on trying to support men through accepting their identity, navigating the challenges it could present, and keep the seediness of some members in check.
Here are the bi-specific or -supportive spaces online I have benefitted from (your mileage may vary):
To the broader queer community, the L’s and the G’s, those who maybe have been out for most of their lives, please be there for your B siblings, especially us late blooming bi’s. Many of us didn’t understand what we were feeling when we were kids, and even if we had, we likely didn’t have anyone around us who could help us, much less accept us. And that’s all we want, acceptance.
Last Week Today
My subscriptions boomed this past week after I shared a newsletter with one of the bi/queer groups I’m in. Again, welcome to all and I’m humbled that people actually sign up to read my writing. I hope you stick around.
New York’s “Intelligencer” column had a powerful deep dive into the debate around gender-affirming care, especially when it comes to trans youth. Andrea Long Chu writes its not just the intellectual dishonesty and irrational fear of anti-trans activists that have led to the current situation—so-called supporters of trans rights have made missteps or are themselves guilty of poorly framing the debate.
Fantastic news out of Florida: The ludicrous “Don’t Say Gay” law has been all but defanged following a settlement with Gov. Ron DeSantis limiting its application. In celebration, here is my oldest daughter putting on a puppet show years ago based on an excerpt from A Day With Marlon Bundo.
Speaking of draconian and small-minded lawmaking,
shared this piece about anti-trans legislation falling flat and dying before it even comes up for a vote in state legislatures. But there are still dark spots, including the shameful passage of a “Parent’s Bill of Rights” in my state. Parents already have substantial control of their children’s education and what they are exposed to, this legislation is a thinly-veiled attack on academic freedom and the ability of youth to develop into critically thinking, affirmed and independent people in a safe environment.From
: Is Honest Writing The Next New Thing In Journalism?- wrote about her grandfather, which prompted me to think about my grandparents and the things they’ve given me, tangible and intangible.
- with The B+ Squad isn’t posting much to Substack but they recently shared this writeup on their understanding of transphobia and biphobia: folks aren’t threatened by what our identities say about us. They’re threatened by what our identities say about them. She also tried the bisexual Oreos. For science!
In next week’s newsletter…
I reflect on the day I told my wife I’m queer. And that was when I truly began to understand what love and trust really are.
For the uninitiated, “Gay+1” is an identity where a man feels only attraction to men except for his female partner.