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"I'm no faggot; I'm bisexual"

Returning for his last year in a Catholic high school, our diarist runs into a clique of students trumpeting their bisexuality. Are they for real?
An Advocate.com exclusive posted August 31, 2006

Satre is a senior at Notre Dame Academy, a private Catholic high school in Middleburg, Va., and the founder of the Virginia LGBT activist group Equality Fauquier-Culpeper. He writes journal entries for The Advocate.

Please excuse my tardiness in delivering a few words to you all, but I have found myself consumed in the reality that is the SATs and college applications. I awoke today realizing how much I missed the discussions I have had with several readers of The Advocate online, and I decided it was time to take a break from the mess we call life and make yet another ruthless observation.

School started for me this week. This is my final year of Catholic school. For the past 10 years I have been bordering on insanity and Catholicism with what they call a disease with a big H. I walked into school the other day to purchase some of my overly priced books for classes—AP biology, AP U.S. government, and politics—when a group of my classmates caught my attention.

“Yeah, me too,” said one of the girls. She was shorter than I am—again, I'm 6-foot-4, and everyone is shorter than I am. Her hair was bleached platinum blond. Her skin was painted tan, and her teeth reflected the entire room. “Yeah, I am bisexual too.”

What? Is my hearing that bad? Bisexual?

“It’s cool,” one of the other girls continued as she placed a pin on her fake Versace bag. “I am proud to be bi.”

More and more, young adults—I’m sorry, I mean kids—my age are finding it trendy to be "bisexual." It is no wonder I am asked over and over again if bisexuality is fact or fiction. Many young people today have used the term to make a fashion statement and create a different kind of clique, and it is these same people who are going to influence the way we think, act, and live in society.

I am an advocate for all people in the ever-growing acronym that labels our community. I truly believe that bisexuality is an innate trait just as homosexuality and heterosexuality is. What I do not believe is the growing number of teenagers identifying as bisexual.

I am an advocate for youth who so often do not get the opportunity to be heard, yet it is tarnished and abused by people who will use an adjective like bisexual to identify with the in crowd and turn around and call me "faggot" in the same sentence.

You can contact Satre at tully@tullysatre.com or via his MySpace page at myspace.com/whitedeosil.

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