I don’t know who coined it, but the phrase “sexuality is a spectrum” really resonates with me. 

On paper, I’m cisgender and straight: I identify as a woman and am married to a heterosexual man. But in reality, the term “heteroflexible” is much more my speed. The word recently had a red, squiggly line under it, denoting it’s lack of legitimacy, but when I came across it a few years ago, I had a very real sense of its appropriateness for my level of queerness: I am mostly straight, but am also somewhat attracted to women. I’ve known this for decades; it just didn’t have a term this specific at first; people who had been attracted to both sexes were labeled bisexual. 

So now, as Pride month comes to a close, I feel it’s time to make it plain somewhere other than private Facebook group chats and the like. But is that even necessary? Who needs to know? Who cares?

I feel like the addition of a rainbow flag emoji on my Instagram profile would be questioned. I definitely get the sense that my queerness has an asterisk; like I’m straight-passing or something of the sort.

I know that this quandary is somewhat pointless and yet, it crossed my mind a lot this month. Society’s obsession with putting folks into neat little boxes makes it harder for people to exist in the gray areas shamelessly. I hope one day those of us who do feel like we’re in a gray area feel more comfortable taking a step out of the shadows, even if it’s just in small ways.