Covid Quarantine Makes Me Feel Like I’m Back in the Closet
The most important thing right now is for all of us to listen to medical professionals, stay home if you’re able, flatten the curve, and prevent as many deaths as possible in the coming months.
But once we’re all doing that — are we all doing that?? — we can’t ignore the rest of our lives, the things that were important before and will be important again. Though I am mostly focused on my relationships with loved ones these past few weeks, I also find myself thinking about my bisexuality more than usual — and questioning why the hell that’s happening in the middle of a pandemic.
Before I came out as bi a few years ago, I had been thinking about it for a long time. I had done a ton of research, talked to a lot of people, watched a lot of, um, videos. But it was all online. From blogs to dating apps to chat rooms to porn, my non-straight existence was exclusive to the Internet. Because of that, it was easy to compartmentalize my sexuality, to keep it separate from my “real” life, and to not view it as very important.
The worst part was that I got used to this and thought it would go on for the rest of my life. I was content to only date women in real life, to identify as straight among friends, and to secretly explore my other desires with the safety and anonymity provided by my computer.
Thankfully, after many years, I worked up the courage to act on those desires in the real world, and everything changed in an instant. Why? Because it was no big deal. Once I wrapped my head around the idea that gender might not be that important, that it doesn’t have to be a disqualifier in terms of who I’m attracted to, that concept played out in the real world seamlessly.
I honestly did not predict that. I’m not sure I could’ve until I experienced it. I had built it up in my head so much, convincing myself that if I were keeping it a secret for this long, there must be a good reason. But all that quickly evaporated, and I could no longer justify the stories I told myself about how this would change everything. It didn’t. I was the same person before and after. Being with a guy felt a lot like being with a girl — almost identical in the most important ways. It was so much simpler than I’d always imagined.
Soon after, I started attending an in-person bisexual discussion group in New York City, and I had a similar awakening: it was totally normal, not nearly as big a deal as I’d feared, and everyone talked about their bisexuality as if it were completely natural. Sure, people talked about their struggles — it is still very difficult to be queer in this world, despite recent progress — but no one in that room denied the existence of bisexuality.
Before that moment, I’d only experienced that level of bi acceptance and visibility online, where it’s relatively easy to find. In the real world, bisexuality is still the most invisible part of the LGBTQ+ community relative to its size, male bisexuality in particular (only about 12% of us are out). Seeing and hearing from these real live bisexual people validated my feelings in a concrete manner that could not be taken away.
Until now. Isolated in my apartment for the past few weeks, I feel a bit like I’m back in the closet. Like my identity exists only on a computer screen, inside a Zoom window. In the real world, connecting with the LGBTQ+ community requires a leap of faith, a commitment to physically putting yourself out there and existing in a queer space for all to see — now, I’m always one click away from bailing out and focusing on something else, and it minimizes my sense of connection to the community.
I’d imagine this is a struggle for everyone right now, queer or not, and we should all be supporting each other however we can. But I’m also starting to realize that the experiences shared by many queer people could be instructive during this time.
Most of us grew up in an extremely heteronormative society. We were brought up with straightness as the norm, and at some point along the way, we realized we didn’t fit into that model. The lucky ones were able to imagine a different type of world — one in which we are normal, accepted, and capable of loving and being loved. The even luckier ones found a way to step out of that imaginary utopia and find it in the real world.
This starts small for most people, coming out to individuals or small groups of friends or family, ideally extending to a local community level. But that community, and the love and acceptance that comes with it, can spread much further — and at surprising rates. An easy example: the movement for same-sex marriage was in the works for years, but once it became legal in one state in 2004 (Massachusetts), it began to snowball — two states legalized it in 2008, five states from 2009 to 2012, over twenty states in 2013 and 2014, and finally federal legalization in 2015.
Exponential growth. Something we’re becoming all too familiar with — but in this case, a good thing.
The world is a different place today than it was a few months ago. And while many aspects of life may slowly come back to “normal”, not everything will — and not everything should. This crisis exposes how fragile many of our shared beliefs and institutions are — capitalism, democracy, safety nets — just like the concept of straightness suddenly seemed so fragile to me after I began to notice the cracks.
My sexuality has taught me that anything we can model in our collective imagination is capable of being implemented in the real world (assuming we have the physical resources). It doesn’t matter if it’s never been done before. It doesn’t matter if it would require a massive change in the way most people think and view the world. For millennia, human societies have been shaped by inter-subjective myths — beliefs shared by hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people, that only become “true” because we all believe in them. Though our lifespans are normally too short to notice huge shifts in collective belief systems, history shows that they are constantly changing in massive ways.
Queer people are used to holding concepts close to their heart even when those around them deny their existence. We are used to people claiming that the way things are define the way they’re supposed to be. Collective prophecies will become self-fulfilling if we allow it. That’s the easiest outcome, but it will not produce the best results.
Whenever this quarantine nears its conclusion, those voices will be extremely loud. They will want to go “back to normal”. But to come out of this crisis stronger as a country and global society, we will need to imagine a world that doesn’t exist. One that we couldn’t imagine before this, and maybe even still can’t imagine today on our own.
But I hope we can imagine it soon, working together. Queer people have experience envisioning a better world than the one we were given, and those who are brave enough and lucky enough to come out have navigated the complex social and emotional tasks of making that world a reality. Though our sexuality may not seem like the most important aspect of life right now, it is precisely that part of our identity that gives us experience and insight to help build the new world. Though being stuck at home may trigger feelings of being in the closet, causing us to minimize our sexuality, we have to fight those feelings together, now more than ever. We shouldn’t be afraid to be visible and speak up — and straight people shouldn’t be afraid to listen.
