A few weeks ago, I was dancing with some very sassy ladies whom I am privileged to call my friends at one of our favorite bars, Lucy’s. For those of you who don’t already know, Lucy’s is a dyke bar in St. Paul. There are many good qualities about this bar, such as relatively cheap drinks, Top-40’s-ish music that is wicked fun to dance to and it’s 18-and-up, so you can drag along underage friends and make them drive you home.

Another thing I personally love about this bar is that there are virtually no straight men there. I don’t have anything against straight men (some of my best friends…) except when I’m trying to dance with my girlfriends. Drunken straight men in straight clubs like to think that they can grab my hips, stroke my back and generally invade my personal space without any invitation whatsoever to do anything of the sort. The women at Lucy’s don’t do this, and my theory is that women who like other women probably understand better than anyone just how much it sucks to have your personal space violated in such a manner. Anyway, I always feel totally comfortable at Lucy’s with one exception: I dance in fear of one thing happening, and when I was there a few weeks ago, that one thing that I fear finally happened.

This very cute girl sort of appeared near me and my friends, and politely waited for some signal that it was okay for her to dance with me. (No, I do not happen to fear attractive people, smartass.) I smiled at her, we were dancing and it was just lovely. She told me her name, where she was from, where she went to school and all that jazz. Then this very cute girl, whom I shall call Miss L, did the thing I fear: she asked, “So are you full lesbian or bi?”

Shit! Shitohshitohshit! I stall, saying, “Does it really matter?”

“Nah, I’m just curious,” says cute Miss L.

Now the moment of truth from me: “I’m bi,” I confess. I can barely spit the words out. I considered lying. Then I blathered on for about five minutes attempting to justify my sexual orientation to a girl who had been a total stranger mere moments before. I said stuff like “Oh, you know, I guess it just depends on my mood, or the day of the week, or the phase of the moon…” I tried to make light of that fact that I wasn’t a “full lesbian” like Miss L.

Miss L danced with me for a couple more songs, and then we went our separate ways. But she made me think. And the next day, I thought about it some more. And I got mad. I always feel the need to somehow defend myself for being bisexual, like I’m Diet Queer or Queer-Lite. Definitely not a “full lesbian.” Part of my feelings about being an inadequate member of the queer community are because I grew up in the South, where I was familiar with several members of the queer community. Let me tell you, it is HARD to be gay in the rural south. Whoa. Thus group membership there is pretty strict, and bisexual people are considered “flaky” or unreliable. Diet Queers. One of my dearest friends at home, a homosexual man who engages in several activist-types of events with his drag-queen husband, keeps hinting that I’m just confused right now, and that’s okay with him. He’s really trying to be supportive. I always feel like I don’t belong at “queer” events. If I say I’m queer, I feel like a liar. But I like women! I’ve kissed women and dated women and I have to say, I think women are pretty fabulous. Straight girls don’t like other girls, so we can scratch that sexual identity off the list. But then I also like men. Basically, clichéd though it may sound, I just like who I like. Gender is important, sure, but it’s not the most important thing to me when I’m thinking about people who are hot.

Why do I feel like my appreciation for men devalues my appreciation for women? There’s no real reason for me to feel that way. There’s also no real place in society for people like me, a woman with a boyfriend who dances in lesbian bars. We’re not equipped to think about people outside of the gender binary. “Straight” and “gay” do not have to be incompatible sexualities. I’m both. It’s really not all that complicated. I also like chocolate ice cream and coffee ice cream. My favorite colors are purple, red and blue. I like to dip my Oreos in milk. I like Ani Difranco and Snoop Dogg. I own skirts and jeans, high heels and sneakers, t-shirts and sweaters. Is that okay with everyone? I’m not at all confused, flaky or super-horny. I don’t require threesomes to get off like the bisexuals in Internet pornography. I’m tired of feeling like bisexuality is an identity I have to constantly question and defend. I’m tired of feeling like I’m not “queer enough.” So no more Queer Lite for me. I’m bisexual, and that should be enough.