Essie Dennis’ Coming Out Story

Writing a coming-out story has proven more difficult than I thought. I think we expect coming out to be a one moment burst of energy but – like many LGBTQ+ people – I’ve found it to be a gradual process. As someone who is now openly queer, I am steadily realising that the feelings I had for girls as a teenager were real and valid.

“it can be easy for bisexuals to dismiss their feelings in favour of perceived heterosexuality”

No, I didn’t want to be like them. No, I didn’t hate them. I just fancied them and didn’t have the language or understanding to accept it. I don’t think I was given the option. I think it can be easy for bisexuals to dismiss their feelings in favour of perceived heterosexuality, especially if their first relationships were with the opposite sex, as mine were.

Coming out has been a very internal process for me, partly because I didn’t have much of a family to come out to. I knew none of my friends would care and they didn’t. They were the ones that mattered. I didn’t feel like I had anyone to come out to but myself.

“I wasn’t in contact with the queer side of myself”

When I started university, I was asserting my heterosexuality a little too vehemently if I’m honest (the lady doth protest too much and all that). I still can’t quite pin down why I was in such a state of denial but it took me a very long time to start considering that a lot of my dissatisfaction with my own identity was due to, in part, the fact that I wasn’t in contact with the queer side of myself.

I think I had a very specific idea of what femininity was and I subscribed to the idea of needing to be attractive to cishet men. It was only once I started accepting my own queer identity that I realised “Hey Essie, you know those days where you want to wear men’s t-shirts and baggy trousers? Those feelings are valid and you are still a woman even if you are not conforming to what people expect of you.” I enjoy being given the option to be fluid with my presentation and my sexuality, and the queer community give me that option.

“each person you date becomes your identity”

Bisexual has felt like a term that fits me best, though, I often find labels restricting in their own way. The problem with being fluid in your sexuality is that each person you date becomes your identity. I identify as gay as an umbrella term, but it doesn’t fit me in terms of who I date. There are periods in which I’m attracted to different genders more, but I don’t like the idea that if I suddenly date a woman my previous relationships with men are invalid or weren’t real.

The pressure of coming out is also a pressure of knowing exactly how you feel and being treated like you have to feel that way forever. Honestly, for me, I find labels hurt my brain. I think they are important and categorising yourself can often be very freeing and uplifting, especially when society has confined you to being cishet.

“my womanhood can be as fluid as my sexuality”

However, as I get older and know myself better, strict labels aren’t necessary for me. I like to just be me and use words that work on the right day. There are days when I love using she/her pronouns and there are days when I prefer my pronouns to neutral. Though I am a woman, I like to think my womanhood can be as fluid as my sexuality. I think I’ve just become tired of being told who and what I am by other people.

I am now surrounded by people who accept that I am who I say I am, no questions asked. That’s a beautiful experience. I always tell kids who are struggling that they will find their people, the people who accept them. When you’re queer, sometimes you have to make your own family, and I think I’ve done that. Love is all we have in the end, for ourselves, and others. Everything else fades away.