How Queer People Came Out While in Cis/Het Relationships

Sexuality and gender are both giant spectrums that everyone from Kinsey to Lady Gaga has attempted to define.

As good as it feels to know where you “fit” on those spectrums and spend every weekend screaming “Born This Way” at the top of your lungs in a room full of your closest queers’n’peers, not everyone is lucky enough to be able to find their place off the bat. 

And sure, maybe you don’t want to dance around to Miss Germinotta’s discography and you’re more into hunting or accountancy – but there’s a place for you where ever you fit in the spectrum of the girls, the gays and the theys  – and sometimes it takes being in a straight or cisgendered relationship to become aware of your own queerness. 

Realising that you’re queer can come with a whole load of change and some daunting choices – a lot of it internal, some of it external – and if you’re in a relationship when the joyful flower of self-discovery blooms you have a whole separate set of change and choices to deal with. 

VICE spoke with 3 queer people, who’s understanding of their own gender and sexuality developed while in cis/het relationships, about their experiences. From how they shared it with their partners and whether it affected those relationships, to how they feel now.  

Here’s what they had to say.

VICE: Before coming out, how had you previously identified?

Kate: I thought I was straight lol. 

Can you tell me about the relationship you when in when you came out as bi?

We met in 2020 at halls and spent the first 6 months in halls basically living together. We were together for a year before I came out. 

When we met he told me he’d been homophobic in the past, like at high school, but he changed his views on it around 15-years-old. I still felt there was a bit of discomfort around sexuality but mostly around gay men and then some internalised transphobia that he was working on unpacking.

How did you end up coming out to him?

I didn't sit him down and talk about it. I kind of realised when I was talking to my flatmate about her experiences sleeping with women and I realised that it wasn't "straight" to be attracted to women and I kind of just thought everyone was. 

It was a relatively short process, when I told my family they were like "yeah we knew". My partner wasn't surprised, but I just don't think he took it seriously.  

He just said it was cool and didn't change anything, but I felt like he didn't really believe me or believe that it was a real thing. I remember him saying that he didn't care if I hooked up with women because that wouldn't be cheating, like it was just a sexual, meaningless thing that he could get pleasure from, rather than people who I genuinely was attracted to or could see myself being with. 

I didn't hook up with anyone while I was with him because I saw it as cheating, but it felt really weird and uncomfortable that he was so okay with me seeing people who weren't men, but was so overprotective when a man talked to me or even looked at me. It's like he didn't see anyone except men as a threat.

Did it change anything about the relationship?

It changed my comfort level. I felt like there was a part of me he didn't understand or respect. A couple of times I tried to unpack it all with him, but he never really got it or wanted to delve into it. It just felt like something he saw as unimportant, even though it was a big deal for me and a big, newly realised part of who I am.

There's a lot of sexualisation in a relationship, anyway, and when I came out I feel like it amplified that – we had kind of talked about group sex before, but it became more on the table when I came out. I didn't feel like he saw that as something we were equal partners in. I think he saw it as more of an opportunity for him rather than something we could potentially enjoy together. 

Were you afraid that your coming out would end the relationship?

I wasn't afraid that would happen, but we did break up, and once we had broken up I kind of reflected and realised that the way he talked about it was really invalidating for me in my sexuality and I wish I had left sooner. 

How is life different for you now you’re out as bi?

I feel so much more myself. Like, I can be authentically me and just be with the people who make me feel good and who's energy I like. I feel proud to be bi and I’ve now slept with people who aren't men which has been liberating and, honestly, lovely. I’ve also been able to realise through casual dating that there are people who don't fetishise my sexuality and I know I deserve better.

VICE: How had you previously identified?

Ruben: I didn't really identify any which way, because I grew up with four gay parents. There never felt like, a pressure to identify as any which way. I hadn't really thought about it. But it just so happened that my first partner was a girl.

What was that relationship like? 

We met when I was 13, and the relationship continued til the end of high school.

It wasn't actually that positive of a relationship. It was pretty one sided, I guess… A lot of me needing to support this person through hard emotional and mental times. 

And when, along that journey, did you start realising that you were maybe a bit more interested in men?

I was probably 16, because we started to have a more sexual relationship. And I liked that, but also felt like there was something missing or something else I wanted to be a part of.

Did you tell them that?

Yeah. That was hard because I came to a point where they were kind of expressing wanting to settle down more and be more of a monogamous committed relationship. 

But that was also a turning point for me to be like: this is not what I want.

So I told them that and it was pretty hard, but at the same time, they were super great about it. Like, they were obviously sad but it didn't actually end up affecting our general relationship long term. So that's pretty sexy.

So did that cause you to break-up or you still stayed together?

Basically we didn’t go into a further commitment or further the monogamous relationship with defined labels. We stayed really good friends and kept sleeping together. So it kind of opened the relationship and made it something that worked better. 

Were you ever afraid of being open about your sexuality with them?

I was never afraid to share it, per se. But I guess I definitely felt the pressures of living in a heteronormative world. And like, knowing that to be that way is to be different. But I didn’t feel any judgement from them.

I never worried that I would be judged because of being gay or whatever. It was more like the other aspects around the context of the relationship and how it can be helpful.

How did you feel once you had fully expressed how you felt and kind of “come out” for want of a better word?

It definitely felt like a huge relief. I'm sure that's pretty cliched but it's true. 

I'm definitely the type of person that internalises my feelings or internalises my relationships and how what I do affects people I care about and yada yada, and I feel like to have everything out in the open was a big weight off in that sense, because I’m not internalising so much. 

But I don't know. Again, it's kind of tricky with me because I never really “came out” and I feel like I'm constantly coming into being more comfortable with whoever I am. 

Like, that's growing all the time. But for that specific moment, sharing my feelings with them, that was super, super freeing because it also meant that our relationship could move forward to a better place.

VICE: Before coming into a better understanding of your gender how did you identify? 

Nikki: So I identify as a femme non binary agender person. Before that I identified as, what do you call it, as a cis girl. I don't think I ever even used “woman”. The word makes me uncomfortable when used for myself… Very weird. That was probably a good clue actually, a good starting clue.

Also I'm a bisexual. But I think I’d kind of known that before I'd known my gender identity. I knew my sexuality, like Bi in like a pansexual way, if that makes sense. I just liked the word Bi. 

Can you tell me about the relationship you were in when you were realising your gender identity?

I actually had two different relationships that ran through me coming to terms with my identity. I was in a long term relationship. It was a bad relationship with an abusive partner. That was five years long. 

About three years, four years into that relationship, I started to question my identity and look into how different people identified who felt similarly to me. And that's when I came across the concept of being agender. And I was hesitant to tell my partner at the time, but I did. He’s a cis male and he didn't get upset with me about it, but he just was kind of like, okay. I didn't really feel supported throughout that. 

Once I left that partner, because he was abusive, I got together very quickly in a bit of a rebound relationship. And that is kind of when it got more problematic because this person that I got with was not like, I don't know how to say it… He has some really problematic opinions about the LGBT community. 

I know that my gender identity, that was flourishing at the time, really made him uncomfortable. That was very awkward for me to have debates about my gender. 

How did you cope with being with someone who didn’t accept you?

In that second relationship, when I was kind of flip flopping back and forth about identifying, I just went back to using she/her pronouns the whole time. I was definitely uncomfortable with myself for doing that. It didn't end the relationship, it probably should have, but I wasn’t able to fully identify myself and my gender until after that relationship had ended.

I think there's definitely an element of me that did it to keep the peace, so I kind of went back in the closet. Not fully, because I was always bisexual, but just the fact that me stating, Well, you're not with a girl, by the way, made them very uncomfortable. And I think I put their discomfort before my own discomfort in identifying myself, which makes me sad to think about now.

Being with someone who wasn't as open definitely made me start to have problematic thinking. I went to some dark places. And I went back and forth on my gender identity for a really long time thinking like, oh, maybe it's just a phase. Maybe it's just a coping mechanism. Maybe I'm not androgynous enough to call myself a gender. 

I think a lot of people feel impostor syndrome, but with your own gender identity. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? 

It was during a time when “trans-trender” was being thrown around as a dirty word. And so I definitely didn't want to put myself in that category. I was like, if I say that I have a different identity, then am I actually doing harm to the “real” trans people? But honestly, over the years, the trans community and my trans friends have been the ones who are the most open and accepting and understanding of me and just like loving and super awesome people. And that was just so cool.

How did you explain your identity to people when you were “coming out”?

I don't even really remember how I came out. I think I just kind of told people, and I started by using they/them pronouns. I use any old pronouns now, but I was initially like, No, I want to only use they/them pronouns. And I think that was a struggle for my partners, they just didn't want to do it. Which is a big red flag.

But I also had a lot of friends who were very surprised, because they were like, But you're so feminine? But femininity and masculinity doesn't have to be linked to gender. They’re presentations. That's what I like about it. It's just a fun little way to play.

Has being open with your gender identity changed anything for you?

I don't think life is super different. Now that I'm out it just opened conversations with a lot more cool people.

I love being in this community because of the super cool humans that I get to interact with and finding a lot of common ground and being excited to find people who think similarly and can feel celebrated, because there's so many places where you don't feel celebrated. So it has made me much happier to be like, I see you and you see me and I celebrate you and you celebrate me. I think that's super important. 

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Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa.