Though I am loathe to silver lining a week spent in a hospital ICU, watching a loved one in a coma, the one bright spot of my past week was seeing how readily, how immediately, my friends and family and community members showed up for me. There was the friend who insisted I meet her for coffee the day after I got the call, when I was still figuring out my next steps; the couple who had me over for dinner and a movie when I was reeling and barely able to eat. The friend who took care of my cat while I was away, who also paid for my last minute plane ticket to Buffalo and covered a night in a hotel. The friends who talked on the phone with me as I paced the hallway by the elevators, the rabbi who let me unload my torrent of emotions in her texts at 7am one morning. The hundreds of dollars in DoorDash credits that amassed in my account in a matter of days, to ensure that I would not have to think too much about what to eat while I was away.
There are few things I’m certain of right now, in this moment when the end result of this painful journey is still unclear. But one thing I feel very confident in is the strength of my community. I am loved, my family is loved, there are people who will go to great lengths for me when I am in my direst hour of need. As a person who went into therapy a few months ago largely because I didn’t know how to ask for help, didn’t know how to express my needs, there’s something really wonderful about seeing that, yes, people do want to show up for me.
And so given this experience — given this very literal demonstration of community support at work — it is interesting to think about what we’re actually talking about when we talk about the “queer community,” and specifically bisexuals’ place within it.
As other people have pointed out, the very idea of one singular “queer community” is bizarre. There are hundreds of millions of queer people around the globe; to toss us all into one bucket of “community” makes very little sense. “Community” as a way of referring to a marginalized population — not just the queer community, but the Black community, the Jewish community, the Muslim community, and so on and so forth — suggests an automatic familiarity among group members that rarely exists; this particular usage feels more euphemistic than literal, a polite way of referring to a marginalized group.
If we want to talk about community in the way that I experienced it, then we must recognize that there is no “queer community,” but instead communities of queers. For various reasons — discrimination, a search for romantic and sex partners, horrific crises like the AIDS epidemic and recent assaults on trans rights — queer people have felt the need to self segregate and bind together, to create supportive networks among people who understand one another and can be there for each other in their times of need. Queer community mattered during the height of the AIDS crisis, when many HIV+ men were unable to lean on their birth families for support as they grew sick and died. Queer community matters for trans people who must quickly figure out how to navigate a healthcare system that is rapidly criminalizing their basic care.
So what, then, is queer community to a bisexual?
Many of the people who showed up for me this past week were queer, because many of my closest loved ones are queer. But straight people showed up for me too: the friend who took my call late at night last Monday, who talked me down from the panic attack that had me shaking uncontrollably, is a cishet man. I’m fortunate to have a diverse group of people who show up for me, I am fortunate that — unlike many queers of past — my queerness has not lead the straight people I know to abandon me, has not made me untouchable.
Which is not to say that I don’t need a community of queers, however. The reason why so many of my friends are queer in the first place is because it’s been queers, and often bisexuals in particular, who’ve been able to understand me the best over the years. It has been queer people who have created spaces where I feel the most comfortable, where I feel most able to be me. The Queer Community™️ at large may be fraught with biphobia; but the queer people I know who love me, who see me, have been the ones who’ve granted me the space I needed to be myself.
I think that is what so many bisexuals are looking for; that is why it hurts so much when other queers make dismissive comments and cruel jokes at our expense. And yet you cannot find community with people who refuse to see your humanity — and attempting to force your way in is simply banging your head against a door.
You can only look for people who get you, people who accept you, and form relationships with them; form the strong bonds that will buoy you in your time of need. Chances seem good that many of those bonds will be with other queer people. But even if they’re not — so long as you have community, period, you are a fortunate person indeed.
What we talk about when we talk about community.
I first want to acknowledge and give you, Lux, my thin support of words. I truly hope you weather this difficult time with all the support and comfort of a community that you worked so hard to create.
For me, community is about the resource of people you trust. That some of those people are more in tune with sex, sexuality and gender issues, so much the better. In the end, we are humans wanting to been seen, supported and even celebrated.
The rhetorical question is: do we want a community of supportive people, some of who happen to be LBGTQ+++, or a specific community of LBGTQ+++ people? I know that I want support and a place to express my sexuality in all it's forms, both because I have work to do accepting my own sexual desires and yearnings, and also because it's juicy and fun. NEVER do I lose sight of the fact that no matter how horny, kinky, vanilla or asexual this theoretical group might be, they are still people and sexuality is but one part of a much larger whole.