Hi! I'm excited to find this kind of supportive community. I am considering coming out as bisexual to my mom. I know she's supportive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people, so I'm not worried about her accepting me, per say. The problem is that she doesn't really believe in non-binary genders (including genderqueer, agender, genderfluid, everything that isn't straight up female/male), even though she understands and supports FTM and MTF transgender people? Although I am cisgender, I do fully understand/support/believe in people having non-binary genders and I include the possibility for attraction to them in the way I understand bisexuality. *Note, I don't use pansexual because that term suggests that I feel attraction regardless of gender which is definitely not true. I feel different attraction, in different ways, in different levels, for different genders.* Anyway, how do I talk about this with her? If I say I'm bisexual, and she assumes that means girl/guy, is that being dishonest? I know if she asks me to explain, I don't think I'll be comfortable saying that it means I'm attracted to guys and girls without also mentioning non-binary people (even though I haven't actually been attracted to a non-binary person, I imagine I have the potential to feel that attraction). But at the same time, I'm afraid it'll confuse her and make the conversation worse. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Hi! Welcome! Its awesome that you have a mom that you know is accepting and I don’t think you should worry about having to explain the technicalities of your sexuality with her just yet. I’m bi too but I think I have the capacity to fall in love with anyone, nb, ftm, mtf, etc. I just prefer the label bi. If you want to come out to your mom I don’t think you should be held back bc of the fact that she doesn’t understand certain parts of the lgbt community. I think that understanding will come with time and you can have more conversations with her in the future about it if you want her to understand or maybe in the future you will potentially have a partner who identifies with one of those genders. If you think it will make your coming out more difficult and confusing then I would suggest not bringing it up until later. Coming out may be enough of a shock to her as it is and it may be difficult for her to understand everything in the moment so it may be better to not overwhelm her. I haven’t come out to any family yet but that is just my personal opinion. Hope this helped in some way. Good Luck!
