A note to the reader: I use queer in this passage as a way to express that we are all different in our sexualities, but similar in our differences. I am not sure what I would label myself as in this part of my sexuality journey, and that word helps me to feel included and seen, while still allowing me the space to figure it out. I do not mean to offend anyone with the use of the term. I also use gay as an umbrella term in certain parts of the passage, mostly as an opposition to straightness, as that is how it is understood by my parents. However, neither of my siblings nor myself are necessarily by gay by definition, we’re just all not straight.

It’s true. And I hope he never reads this and finds out, cause that might change a lot of things for that man.

My father is so loving, helpful, and warm. One of the best guys I know. But, he’s a product of his environment. An upper middle class, straight, cisgender, white catholic man who grew up in the 60s and 70s. Issues that do not ‘directly affect’ him, are not his issues. So when I was growing up, it wasn’t uncommon to hear gay jokes, or an overall negative narrative surrounding the gay community and just gay things in general. “Bisexual people aren’t real, they’re just greedy,” was a COMMON one. I remember so many slick comments coming from both of my parents, but mostly my dad. And when I was a younger child, I didn’t really think for myself. I went along with what they were saying, because aren’t your parents always right? Don’t they know everything? 

Life started getting a little, confusing for me, to put it lightly. I couldn’t tell if I just REALLY enjoyed hanging out with my best friend, Courtney, or if I just REALLY LOVED Courtney. It was the ladder. It took me years, and I’m still working on coming out and even understanding my own sexuality. But for some reason I’ve always felt like my siblings would understand me. My sister, my best friend in the whole wide world, was the first person in my family that I came out to. I vividly remember crying on her floor feeling ashamed, having words filled with cement come out of my mouth. “I think I’m bisexual.” And her tears and arms flowing around me telling me “she knew.” That didn’t offend me, or make me feel too seen. If anything I felt validated, I was right about how I felt. I wasn’t the only person that noticed that I wasn’t straight, and I wasn’t just making my feelings up. 

My brother was always a terrific example, in my eyes, on how to be secure in your sexuality and “manhood.” He was always okay with making the gay jokes, or being more affectionate towards his other guy friends. I loved and respected that so much (I still do). But once I began to understand my own feelings, I started to understand his a little more, too. We’ve never been very close, my brother and I, but I knew that there was something more we related on, besides just being stubborn. When we sat on that beach in Southern France, and I worked up the courage to spill out those cement words all over again, I was expecting a little more. I was ready for him to tell me that he was too, and then we could talk about all the ways our parents’ narrative was damaging when we were younger. And how we figured it out and what it was like being bisexual. I had no one to look up to at that age. I didn’t know how to be gay. But I never got that; it was selfish of me to assume that he was ready to share that in that moment. I know it’s true though, for a fact. There has never been a doubt in my mind that my brother was not straight, and I’m right (trust me on this one).Fast forward to a couple months ago this year, ⅔ confirmed queer kids in the family. Two days after I made a joke to my partner about my dad not being able to handle having 3 queer children, my sister came out to me as pansexual. 3/3; a perfect round. And I am so fucking proud. Despite all of the negative narrative, and the barriers, and the lack of support to explore ourselves, or a role model on what it would look like to be gay, we’ve all figured it out. We had all taken the time to understand that we are not constrained to that tiny, boring box that our parents so lovingly built us as children. And although we never talk about it, the three of us together, and we’re not all equally out to each other, I think we’ve all always known that we relate in a gay way.