In my wardrobe hangs an incredibly comfortable playsuit in all of the colours of the rainbow. When I put it on, I feel like I’m putting on a superhero’s cape, or an alternative identity. It’s as if this simple item of clothing is expressing a part of myself that sometimes I can’t, or don’t feel like I should.
I suppose to an extent I was ‘out’ at the university where I did my undergraduate degree. I wasn’t part of the LGBT+ association, nor would you see me at Pride with purple, pink and blue glitter stripes on my cheeks. I dropped it into conversation, I set my Tinder to ‘Men and Women’ for the brief time that I used it and matched with a few female friends, I shared one stolen kiss with a girl in Birmingham’s largest gay venue in my final year. But I still never really felt entirely comfortable in my bisexual shell.
Whilst I was at university, I also came to faith. If being unsure about my sexuality was confusing, this was even more so. When you fall in love with a religion but at the same time uphold something about yourself that that religion views as incorrect, it can send your mind to a dark place that it can be difficult to get out of. I sometimes started to question my feelings, shying away if I ever began to like a girl and refusing to discuss my faith and my sexuality in the same conversation. It was a tricky time, and I got through it, but safe to say I felt like I was being denied any kind of comfort within myself.
When I came to Durham, not only was I having a fresh start for university, but I felt like it was time to have a fresh start for myself. Not quite a ‘shave my head and change my name’ fresh start, but maybe this was a time for me to open up more about who I was. I started going to a local church with a friend from my MA program and was introduced to an inclusive, highly LGBT+ friendly Christian group where some of the members I spoke to had upheld the same kinds of feelings and insecurities. For the first time since my sexuality and my faith collided, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was able to so easily stand up and say that I’m a bisexual Christian; there was no need to continue hiding behind my heterosexual relationship, or just acting like my feelings didn’t really matter. I’d found people who were in the same boat as myself, and that’s made me feel so much stronger.
So now, I’ll walk down the Bailey in my superhero’s cape, my alternative identity. But I’m now in a place where I can embrace it so much more. Durham has become my home and slowly, with baby steps, I am building a home within myself and reaching the point where that alternative identity is simply ‘me’; I’m ready to really be myself.