25 years ago, at the age of 25 (see what I did there?) Ispy came out for the first time. This revelation didn’t make one iota of difference to her lifestyle at the time, but it felt a little bit like adding a missing jigsaw piece to a life’s work puzzle.
Confused as a teenager by her feelings towards girls and women in her life, Ispy found it difficult to align herself with the butch stereotype of a girl who fancied girls. Feeling that she also fancied boys didn’t help to clear up the confusion and growing up in rural England there were few reference points to work from!
This was tricky when feelings ran high for platonic girlfriends. Ispy took the easy option, keeping intimate relationships to boys and avoiding making the first move with girls. However, the romantic feelings still developed for some girls with many an unrequited love lost and infatuations gone unspent.
Then in 1994 came that scene in Brookside where Anna Friel kissed her girlfriend, and neither of them were butch! Shortly after this the term ‘lipstick lesbian’ was being banded about, thus validating Ispy’s self identity as a woman attracted to human beings regardless of their gender.
Drawn to lesbian main characters in film and literature, Ispy began to develop her own personal sexual identity which quietly nestled in her own psyche. Novels by Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters allowed silent entry into a world that Ispy did not feel welcomed to join.
1995 was the year that Ispy, having already qualified and been working as a registered nurse, enrolled on a full time degree and entered an entirely different world to the small town provincial Britain that she was familiar with. Meeting and engaging with learned working class academics in the post polytechnic era enabled Ispy to glimpse other possibilities and grasp them with a sense of belonging and ownership never felt before. This environment provided the relative psychological safe ground to tentatively express desires and preferences never previously verbalised.
Not being aware at the time that biphobia and bi-erasure were growing concepts and beliefs in both straight and gay culture was probably an advantage to Ispy.
Once graduating, and having spent some time trekking in India, Ispy settled back into the mundanity of life; working full time and surrounded by predominantly heteronormative culture she defaulted to the seemingly straight conformity that was socially expected of her.
Biological timing further impacted on this leading Ispy to become married and pregnant at the age of 33 in a straight relationship with the brother of one of her earlier potential girl crushes.
Embracing motherhood provided an alternative identity for Ispy to immerse herself in and the marriage lasted 18 years. Not the easiest nor happiest of relationships, this became untenable when, last year and during a global pandemic the marriage ended leaving Ispy age 50 and with a whole new world of possibilities ahead of her.
It was now so much easier to be open about her sexuality with new people and connections made predominantly online, a situation created by the lockdowns of the Covid age.
Easy when they have no preconceptions of who Ispy is, and was becoming, as an independent and increasingly resilient 50 year old woman. New friends and relationships who were trusted and mutually nurtured were aware of the place on the spectrum of sexuality occupied by Ispy.
This left an issue for Ispy…
How do you tell people who have been part of your life for years, only ever knowing you as ‘straight’, that you are in fact far from it?
Well the honest response is that it’s an awful lot harder to do than it should be! In one weekend Ispy told her closest female friend and her oldest male friend that she was likely to soon be dating women. Fearing that the friendships would be lost or damaged in some way Ispy felt anxious and vulnerable outing herself.
The first outing was greeted with a hug and the words “I love you just exactly as you are”.
The second outing went like this;
“I’m posting another blog later but I wanted to give you a heads up. It’s something I wanted to tell you last week but I chickened out 🤦🏻♀️
With social media, these days everything is so much more public about our private lives. I told you I have joined a dating app but I didn’t tell you that I may be dating women as well as men.
It’s not easy telling someone I’ve known a long time as it feels like I’ve hidden something from them but it’s not like that, it’s just never been necessary to say anything before.
Anyway, that’s it! I’m still exactly the same crazy, little hippie chick I was back then and still am now!!
Hope your day has panned out well xx
The response, quickly received:
You didn’t need to be worried about telling me that – you are exactly that crazy little hippie chick and I’m glad you haven’t changed – we actually have changed, we all do, life experiences dictate that we do but fundamentally we don’t the special person inside is always there.
[…] is bisexual so don’t think I’m shocked one bit xx
Gina Battye in this video, and the transcript below, explores the difficulties and discrimination that bi identifying individuals experience in an emotionally intelligent and wholly relatable way.
https://www.vercida.com/uk/articles/bisexual-people-excluded
Things are beginning to change and Ispy believes that the future has the potential to become increasingly inclusive. Being the mother of a 16 year old girl who is diversity aware and anti-discriminatory in her nature is one of the proudest things Ispy has achieved. This child intuitively knew that Ispy was sexually diverse and has proved a constant and compassionate support. With more like her in this generation of activists and passionate challengers of the heteronormative, neuro-normative, capitalist, patriarchal and climate change denial; there may be a glimmer of hope for a brighter future for us all.
https://metro.co.uk/2017/12/29/9-things-to-stop-saying-to-bisexual-people-7190642/
IspyDystopia 