Finding acceptance, promoting awareness: Junior recounts experiences with bisexuality

“Just pick one.”

The out-of the-blue comment took a few seconds to register in then-eighth grader Ruby MacRae’s mind. She had been hanging out with her friends behind the school cafeteria during a normal lunch, enjoying herself, laughing with her friend. But now, she found herself on the defensive.

Offended, MacRae turned to the friend next to her for support, but her friend remained silent and made no effort to help.

MacRae asked the boy to stop, but he continued, calling her a “slut” and saying, “God, it’s just so weird. You’re so gay.” Hearing his insults, she felt ashamed of her identity.

“His comment was the first negative comment I had received about [my sexuality],” said MacRae, now a junior. “I felt mad, depressed and uncomfortable, but what disturbed me the most was that my friend was still dating him.”

Today, MacRae, who is bisexual, is proud of her sexuality and wants to bring awareness to the bisexual community, but it was not always this way.

Coming to terms with her bisexuality

At age 11, MacRae began exploring her creative interests through painting, writing and acting. She performed in drama productions, but she said her acting was a mask. Inside, she felt conflicted: She realized that she was attracted to girls when she developed a crush on her close friend in middle school.

From sixth to seventh grade, MacRae identified as a lesbian. While she liked boys too, she rejected her feelings toward them, believing that she could only be attracted to one gender. During her elementary school years at Woodland School in Portolla Valley, which MacRae said had a conservative and judgmental atmosphere, she started to feel uncomfortable with the thought of being homosexual.

“There were a couple people who were really outwardly homophobic,” MacRae said. “It wasn’t that they tormented me or made rude comments. [They] made me feel incredibly uncomfortable.”

In sixth grade, MacRae attended The Girls’ Middle School in Palo Alto, which she said was more accepting.

There were same-sex couples in MacRae’s grade and her drama teacher made her feel comfortable. He told her about an alumnus who, after middle school, came to terms with being transgender.

“I always felt like I could be open there, no matter what,” MacRae said.

In seventh grade, MacRae transferred to Redwood Middle School. Early in the year, she created a Tumblr account and enjoyed spending her free time scrolling through Tumblr blogs, which embraced different sexualities and educated users about them.

One of the terms that caught her eye was “bisexuality”: romantic attraction to both males and females.

At the moment, everything clicked.

“I wasn’t a freak — I was normal,” MacRae said. “It just made me feel more comfortable because I knew that I wasn’t straight.”

Soon afterward, MacRae wanted people to know about her true gender identity. She never “outright came out”; instead, she dropped hints to her family and friends, commenting on how attractive actress Kristen Stewart was or how she had a crush on singer Siouxsie Sioux.

A few months later, MacRae, still in eighth grade, started dating a girl. When her friends and family asked, MacRae told them that she was bisexual.

Her parents were more concerned MacRae dating than the fact that the person she was dating was a girl. MacRae’s father had little reaction when she told him she was bisexual, while her mother told her, “I love you no matter what.”

Some of MacRae’s peers were not as understanding. MacRae said that when she was with her girlfriend, they would look down on her, sarcastically commenting, “That’s so cute,” or “Awww.”

“[My relationship] was invalidated because they didn’t take it seriously,” MacRae said. “It was very condescending.”

A few of her friends even asked her, “How does [being bisexual] work? Do you have a crush on me?”

Instead of being rude about it, however, MacRae explained to them that though she was attracted to both boys and girls, she wasn’t attracted to all boys and girls. Eventually, her friends became comfortable around her.

Finding acceptance in Saratoga

Last April, at Junior Prom, the DJ played a love song, and couples started to slow dance. Their arms rested on each other’s shoulders and waists while their hips swayed.

Many of the couples occasionally glanced over at the only couple sitting in the back of the room: MacRae and her date, senior Melissa Rogan.

Rogan and MacRae were good friends and had been casually discussing the idea of going to prom together since MacRae’s freshman year. When Rogan asked MacRae to prom as a gesture of friendship, she accepted. Yet on the dance floor, the questioning gazes of straight couples kept them from slow dancing.

“I felt a sense of judgment going around,” MacRae said. “People would later come up to me and say, ‘You went to prom with Melissa? A girl?’”

Although MacRae enjoyed prom, she still struggles in the face of judgment by others. She, however, has found a measure of acceptance in Saratoga. During her freshman year, she befriended another bisexual girl.

“I have to work to make sure that all my friends are kind and appreciative of me, not because of my sexuality, but also not in spite of it,” MacRae said. “My bisexuality is not something that people are inclined to accept as a part of my identity.”

In January of this year, one of MacRae’s close friends started to post Facebook statuses questioning his gender and bisexuality, statuses that received derogatory comments from one boy.

MacRae, standing up for her friend, messaged the boy on Facebook: “As a queer individual, I don’t appreciate the way that you are talking to him because it is really hurtful to him and other queer people.”

MacRae was surprised to see that he apologized for his actions, saying that he “didn’t know that what [he] did was really hurtful.”

“It made me feel really happy because I was actually able to teach him,” MacRae said. “He didn’t choose to ignore LGBTQA.”

MacRae also turns to her friends for support. One friend who has been particularly supportive is sophomore J.T. Hulme.

“It doesn’t matter if [MacRae is] transgender or gay or bisexual,” Hulme said. “She’s still my best friend. I still love her, and I give her all the positive support that I can.”

Hulme said that he always stands up for MacRae whenever someone confronts him about her sexuality.

“[If] someone would ask, ‘Isn’t she bisexual?’ I would say, ‘Does it really make a difference whether or not she likes men or women? It’s her thing, not a you thing,’” Hulme said.

MacRae has many diverse interests, Hulme said. Besides drawing, taking photos and writing poetry, MacRae is involved in performing arts. She takes singing lessons once a week and is working on starting a band with her friends. At school, she is mostly involved in drama, having starred in productions such as “The Importance of Being Earnest,” in which she played Lady Bracknell. Drama teacher Sarah Thermond awarded MacRae with Best Comedic Supporting Actress for her performance.

Misconceptions about bisexuality

According to MacRae, Saratoga High is a relatively accepting campus, but many other communities reject bisexuality.

Homophobic politicians and students who make unsupportive comments hurt her, but it is the lack of support from LGBTQA groups that stings the most.

“Gay rights companies claim to support LGBTQA rights as a whole, but do not support bisexuals, pansexuals or asexuals,” MacRae said. “Pride festivals and parades tend to be covered in rainbow flags [representing homosexuality], but you don't see any pink, purple and blue flags [representing bisexuality].”

MacRae explained that straight people often assume that bisexuals are simply gay, while gay people believe that bisexuals are just straight people seeking attention.

MacRae said another misconception is the belief that when a bisexual begins a relationship with a person of the same gender, he or she becomes gay, and vice versa.

“I have been told before on multiple occasions to ‘just pick one [gender],’” MacRae said. “People don’t understand that [bisexuals] can’t change their sexualities according to their partner’s gender. All these rude misconceptions lead to people not supporting the [bisexual] community.”

MacRae is thankful that, aside from the fact that she has so many people who support her, the bisexual community’s recognition is growing.

When her older sister attended Redwood Middle School seven years ago, MacRae said people who did not identify as gay or straight, such as bisexuals, asexuals or transgenders, were “unheard of and disgusting.”

“I think that there are still uncomfortable notions around different sexualitites, but it’s not as ‘disgusting,’” MacRae said. “It is something that people are understanding, and people are open and willing to talk about it, too.”

Reaching out through social media and beyond

MacRae became an inspiration not only to her circle of friends, but also to many other students when she was featured on the “Humans of Saratoga High” (HOSH) Facebook page last fall.

The post showcased MacRae and her views on the lack of bisexual recognition. Many people who saw the HOSH post approached MacRae, admitting that they did not know about the struggles she described.

Since the Coexist: SHS Gay-Straight Alliance club’s officers are all about to graduate this year, MacRae wants to start a new LGBTQA club that welcomes a broader range of gender identities. She hopes that members of the club will be encouraged to come out to their parents, learning to embrace their identities rather than reject them.

MacRae also believes that education is critical to correcting the misinterpretations that people have about bisexuality.

“I think it is incredibly important that students are told what different sexualities are in their freshman health class,” MacRae said. “A lot of the stigma against bisexuality comes from the vast lack of knowledge about it, [which] the school should work to fix.”

As of now, MacRae is content with who she is as a person. When she walks around campus, she can be recognized by the dark-colored and men’s fashion-inspired outfits she wears. She likes to dress in clothing designed for all genders in order to break down conceptions of the gender binary, a societal conception that she contemplates often.

Having come so far, MacRae hopes for the rest of the LGBTQA community, including bisexuals, to feel accepted as a whole.

“To anyone who is struggling with his or her sexuality, I would advise coming out,” MacRae said. “Anyone who won’t accept you for who you are doesn’t deserve to be a part of your life. If you are happy, then that’s all that matters.”