No more hiding.
Tyler Omichinski has struggled with how to come out – to family, friends, and colleagues. And he’s decided that the time to stop hiding is now.
I am a bisexual male. Most of my friends know it, but my colleagues and many other people might be surprised to hear it. I am not the most forthcoming about it, but I also don’t really keep it a secret. I’m involved in the community and probably share more than my fair share of pro-LGBT statuses on my Twitter and Facebook accounts. The way I’ve structured my life is that it isn’t that hard to find out I’m bisexual, but I’m not going out of my way to make sure everyone knows. My frat brothers don’t know, most of the time when I’m applying for a job I don’t include any information about it, and generally it isn’t something I make it a point of people knowing. I’m getting tired of that, though.
I’m just finishing law school and looking at applying for what’s going to be the start of my career if everything goes according to plan. In case you haven’t heard, the job market isn’t looking good for recent law graduates. The legal community is generally quite conservative. Tattoos, having a beard (literal, not figurative) and other “alternative” lifestyles are not that common. Everyone is told to dress a certain way, not just in a suit but a conservative one with a conservative tie, and so on. It’s the type of career that, when discussed with strangers, elicits the assumption that I lead a certain type of lifestyle – “one of those.” It’s surreal that, like being bisexual, people can condense the profession into a single variable. I don’t keep my bisexuality a semi-secret because I’m worried about blatant prejudice. I’m worried about the more subtle side of things.
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My fear is of people treating me differently because of what is, relatively, a small part of my life. Everyone has a sexual orientation, even if it is asexuality, and the vast majority of us do not make it the defining feature of who we are. I worry so much about it becoming my defining feature that I don’t always celebrate it. This fear of being treated differently goes both ways; I don’t want to be treated better (or worse) because I am bisexual. Being bisexual puts you in a weird position. When you come out some straight people, some, men especially, can be incredibly bizarre about it. They become uncomfortable around you and get concerned that you’re going to try to sleep with them. Coming out to the LGBT community is sometimes easier, but not always. The first time I tried coming out to the LGBT community in my hometown, I was informed that I wasn’t actually bisexual. I couldn’t be. There was no such thing for men; I was either on my way to gay, or just trying to co-opt the culture. I know this isn’t the experience for a lot of people, but it was for me.
I am almost certain I have gotten jobs in the past as a result of colleagues knowing or suspecting that I was bisexual. I have also gotten jobs that I am positive I would not have gotten if the hiring committee had known I was bi. Both of these situations felt weird at the time, and they still feel weird now. I want to be judged on my merits, but I don’t know how to respond when that isn’t the spectrum I am being judged on.
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I have been lucky in that my bisexuality has not been a major concern yet, though I have lost some friends and colleagues along the way who weren’t comfortable with my bisexuality. All of this amounts to me being extremely anxious about being out and simultaneously trying to build a career in law. There is a community of members of the bar association I hope to join who are out. Despite this, I am still not entirely comfortable being ‘out.’ I am white, I am male, and I was born to an upper middle class family. I got by with quite a few systemic advantages in my life and I am worried that part of my fear stems from a fear of being ostracized, a fear of being outted, and maybe even a fear of being challenged.
I am unsure how I am going to act once I begin the practice of law. My fiancé, a female, says that people shouldn’t assume a sexual orientation when they first meet each other, but I’m pretty sure that they will. I’m also pretty sure they are going to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Because I am engaged to a woman I can essentially get away with continuing to have it an out-in-the-open secret. I could even essentially slink back into the closet and not have anyone know about it. I am not comfortable with that though. Just because I can get away with it does not mean I should.
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So, with this, I am going to come out. I can do my part to make the road easier for everyone coming after me to travel this path. Even if what I do is really minor and small, I need to do it. Not everyone is going to be in a position where they can do something about the problems with the system. Just because I can deal with the problems that exist in the world, doesn’t mean other people can. So here it is. That’s my real name attached to this piece. I still won’t go around advertising to the world that I’m bisexual; it won’t be part of my introduction to people, but I’m not hiding. I’m right here.
Follow Tyler on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tyler_roi
You can also find him on: igamer.ca or fishlaw.org
—Photo Tim Daniel/Flickr
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The post I Am a Bisexual Man appeared first on The Good Men Project.