Isabel Mader is bisexual, married to a man, and has two children.
As a new parent, she feels disconnected from her queer identity and queer social circles.
Mader is grieving the loss of her identity and wondering if she should come out to her children.
There is grief in parenting. With each milestone your child reaches, there is a celebration and the creeping certainty that sooner rather than later, they will not exist as you know them now. Sometimes, you miss all the previous versions of your children even as you adore the ones in front of you.
Similarly, there is the loss of the previous version of yourself as a parent. "I am a completely different person now. I will never be that way again," I remember thinking one day. I've always been a proud bisexual woman who existed in queer social groups. But I feel so far removed from that past version of myself, especially now that I've been married to a man for more than five years and have two children. I still feel the loss of my queer identity with unexpected ferocity.
Once we had children, everything changed
Everything that they tell you will change when you have children has changed --- and there are some things that they didn't mention. At the top of the list of things I did not expect was the grief of feeling completely disconnected from a large part of my identity: my queerness. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I do have a theory.
Days at the park replaced nights at the gay bar. The school drop-off line replaced the coffee shop. I am no longer taking smoke breaks in alleys with the same people I go to Pride with, intensely arguing about the merits of whatever media we consumed that week, projects we're working on, or who we're sleeping with (and why it's justified). Instead, I am on the playground, being asked by other suburban moms, "And what does your husband do for work?"
Even other queer people assume I'm straight, especially when I'm with my children. On a rare night away from them at an event this summer, I was approached by people who rightfully noticed my queerness. It's the presence of children that seems to determine whether or not I am visibly queer.
But I'm far from alone in this. A recent study by the Williams Institute of UCLA found that nearly a quarter of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women ages 18 to 59 are parents. Of those parents, they were more likely to be bisexual, in a relationship with a man, and nonurban. I tick all those boxes. But I feel isolated from that community, especially since I no longer have the social validation of being assumed queer.
I know being a member of the alphabet mafia is about much more than your sexual and romantic history. I also know with visibility comes risk. "Passing" can be a privilege. But there's also the fact that since my partner is a cisgender man, we don't operate in the social circles and spaces we had before, and especially since we had children, I feel a deep loss.
Mourning my visible queerness is really mourning the version of myself I was before I became a parent
The loss of all the versions of our children we know so intimately is made all the more devastating by the risk that they will not know us --- not really.
As my children grow older, I will face a choice: Do I come out to them? Would it matter if all they see in their lives is my relationship with their father? Is that a boundary I should cross for their sake, so they have the privilege of understanding their mother as a multifaceted and nuanced human being? Or should I tell them so that they can acknowledge the experiences of people like me who feel disappeared by bisexual erasure?
I'm jumping the gun, I know. My sons are not yet 4 and 2. My oldest has decided that his identity is a magical kitty cat, and his little brother is still nursing. These are all questions that will keep.
The joy and affirmation that I and so many of us find in raising children is both the lid to the pot and the pot itself. The joy is the reason we had these children, after all. But just beneath that lid is the roiling grief of loss that is so hot, so acute, it rivals a steam burn. And I suspect it will continue to burn until I figure out how to honor the part of myself that goes unacknowledged.
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We need a LGBTQP+ community extinction button
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I may be old fashioned but why would a parent ever talk to their children about their own sexual exploits?
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Gen X listening to their parents talk about their childhoods, struggles, life experiences, adventures, and family stories
Generation Alpha listening to their degenerate parents talk about their polycules, peepee sucking contests, and doing Internet activism
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I hope my opponent isn't an LLM fan.
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media we comsumed = garbage tv
projects we're working on = internet posting for trans lives UwU
who we're sleeping with = what polycule we're currently in
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I once went on a date with a girl in New Year’s Eve and since everything was closed we had to go to the gas station. She tried to get me to go to a gay bar with her and meet her friends after but I said No and met who would become my wife like 2 days later and stopped talking to her…
She popped up on my instagram recommended friends and I saw she was married to a woman now, I like to think my gas station date was so shitty she just said frick it and became fully gay after
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After you, no other man could do it for her.
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Yep, she's a
widow now
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well done king, you definitely saved some poor goony bearded man from being entrapped in a loveless poly relationship
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I'd have fallen in love with you, Patri-sama.
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Neighbor where do you live where everything is closed on New Year’s Eve? Easily the busiest bar and restaurant night of the year
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Probably a flyover state
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It was first date so I said star bucks but they were closed, we looked for another coffee place nearby but they were all closed too… said frick it and went to WaWa
Was my fault for not checking but how was I supposed to know waives get days off
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Unironically my little brother had 2 of his highschool girlfriends become gay after dating him but since he's a great guy I'm gonna assume they're just alpha widowed into oblivion
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she’s going to
this kid to get back in her “queer circles”
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oooooooooooooooooooh yeah
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Remember, Munchausen by Proxy is recessive to the X chromosome
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I dont understand why some people are so neurotically obsessed with this nebulous concept that they refer to as an "identity". I dont wake up and think "how can I maintain my identity, what do I need to do to stay true to my identiy?" I just wake up and live my life, call me a man/woman/animal/queer/cis/str8, idgaf just dont call me late to dinner(i am punctual af). I know who the frick I am, describing me differently wont change that.
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Ages ago, in uni, I led a discussion around this phenomenon. It all boiled down to neuroticism due to a failure to achieve recognition from your peers for valid contributions to the community.
Basically, your last name used to be your profession. Extrapolate from there; it explains pretty much all post modern problems.
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Makes sense, these people are so overlooked and far from the centre of attention
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They feel overlooked because they never received the parental love they needed to develop into functional people and they'll spend the rest of their lives trying unsuccessfully to fill the void in their soul because they don't understand why it's there.
The answer is, and always has heen, daddy issues.
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Government, “the system” whatever has always been an allegory for your parents. If you get along with ones that brought you into this world and feed you, you’ll stand a good chance of being okay in life.
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youre such a little BIPOC
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What's this? Social validation? I thought queer people face ruthless oppression and the bigots are one bad day away from starting the genocide.
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She wants attention.
Bisexual foid= straight foid
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Over/under on her "queerness" being snogging her friends for attention after a few vodka crans?
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I like men and women. I told some people. I was not “validated” or “oppressed” and I feel extremely fulfilled in my hetero relationship. I fit in with others, I’m not isolated, I barely think about my “identify” like how normal people do it.
This person sounds awful, I think if you are complaining everywhere you go then you are the problem.
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Makes you wonder why someone would be upset not to be part of an oppressed class.
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Red flag added to foid:
Regret losing bisexual identity.
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There's just one red flag you need to know for a foid:
Legacy version.
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bisecxual wasnt on there? Also keep yourself safe incel
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The horror of becoming normal.
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Just masturbate to traps, or whatever the foid equivalent is, it’s what I do
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Most bisexual women maybe had a drunken lesbian kiss and that is about it.
Straightest man on rdrama can identify 400 different traps based on fempen closeups alone
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Bruh, I ignore the PP because I'm super straight
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Please identify this trap by their rear entrance:
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Imagine having to justify who you're sleeping with.
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I hope her husband doesn't leave her alone with the kids.
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Nice post, bro! I posted it to twitter.
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I've read it and to put it simply: I'm disgusted by some of the text. And especially when it was revealed that the alt-right "drama" website was involved in the research, my suspicions came true. The text is nothing but smelling coming from some pretentious intellectual dark web teenager fan-fiction writer. Unfortunately.
Snapshots:
https://web.archive.org/https://www.insider.com/mourning-queer-identity-becoming-parent-2023-1
ghostarchive.org
https://archive.ph/?url=https%3A//www.insider.com/mourning-queer-identity-becoming-parent-2023-1&run=1 (click to archive)
parenting:
https://web.archive.org/https://www.insider.com/ive-traveled-to-4-continents-with-my-twin-boys-2023-1
ghostarchive.org
https://archive.ph/?url=https%3A//www.insider.com/ive-traveled-to-4-continents-with-my-twin-boys-2023-1&run=1 (click to archive)
bisexual woman:
https://web.archive.org/https://www.insider.com/bisexual-heres-what-you-need-to-know-2018-7
ghostarchive.org
https://archive.ph/?url=https%3A//www.insider.com/bisexual-heres-what-you-need-to-know-2018-7&run=1 (click to archive)
my queer identity:
https://web.archive.org/https://www.insider.com/leaning-into-my-queer-identity-changed-the-way-i-parent-2022-10
ghostarchive.org
https://archive.ph/?url=https%3A//www.insider.com/leaning-into-my-queer-identity-changed-the-way-i-parent-2022-10&run=1 (click to archive)
the gay bar:
https://web.archive.org/https://www.insider.com/lesbian-bars-in-new-york-city-disappearing-lgbtq-queer-spaces-2022-6
ghostarchive.org
https://archive.ph/?url=https%3A//www.insider.com/lesbian-bars-in-new-york-city-disappearing-lgbtq-queer-spaces-2022-6&run=1 (click to archive)
nearly a quarter of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women:
https://web.archive.org/https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lbq-parents-press-release/
ghostarchive.org
https://archive.ph/?url=https%3A//williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lbq-parents-press-release/&run=1 (click to archive)
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From the title alone I knew a woman wrote this.
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