So many of my friends are queer that I’m mildly surprised when a new person turns out to be straight.

I'm Married to a Man-and Yes, I'm Still Bisexualīut I hadn’t, and why? After all, I live in San Francisco, which, for all its wild dystopian inequities, still qualifies as a queer haven.I wished I’d started talking about this part of my life a lot earlier than I had. 'I’m not a therapist, I have no training, but here are places where there are people trained to talk, and listen.' 'You’ve helped me feel less alone,' they said. I tried to cause no harm: 'Thank you for telling me this,' I'd say. So many people-strangers-told me they’d never previously spoken with anyone about being bisexual.

I tried to reply to everyone I hope I did. I spent a lot of time, over the next several days, smiling while tearing up. And the bulk of these messages were, to an overwhelming extent, loving, joyful, and supportive. My inboxes, both on social media and email, were full of messages, mostly from other queer people. By the time I landed, the tweets had over a thousand replies, with quickly climbing numbers. You’ve helped me feel less alone, they said. Increasingly, and especially as a marginalized writer, I found I wanted to be more transparent about not just my favorite sheet masks, but also the central aspects of who I am.and who I hope to be. What’s more, people showed interest in parts of my life that had nothing to do with my novel-which hand sanitizer I used, for instance. “There aren’t a lot of public examples of us” is a viewpoint I often heard. Korean people thanked me, Asian women thanked me. With the publication of this book there came a gradual, bewildered realization that in some ways I was becoming-or at least being seen as-a more public person, one whose visibility could have an effect on others.Īt readings and other events, people thanked me for existing. Several months beforehand, in July, I’d published my debut novel, The Incendiaries. So last fall, when I started speaking online about being bisexual, some confusion ensued.

I’ve fled the faith, but not that reticence even now, attraction isn’t something I’m able to talk much about, especially not in public. In conversations with friends, I was more likely to rhapsodize about my passion for God. I grew up so religious that, until I left the faith in high school, I thought I’d be a pastor, perhaps a missionary. In part because of my upbringing, it took until years after college for me to understand who and what I’m drawn to, and that my attraction to some people-including women-can go beyond the limits of platonic connection.

The incendiaries ro kwon