The first time I had a crush on a boy, I was 5 years old. It was my best friend from pre-school, Justin Gutierrez. My brother found out about this crush, presumably by reading my diary, and made a relentless drawing in Microsoft Paint that still haunts me to this day. It was of a big, fat, snowman-shaped person with a conversation bubble that said, “hey, I’m Maggie and I love Justin G.” He printed it out and hung it on my bedroom door and I was mortified. If he hadn’t crashed our home computer by downloading LimeWire several years later, maybe it would still exist and I could show it to you. But alas, it has been lost with the early 2000s HP computer that sat in our “computer room.” Anyway, after months of being besties with Justin G., digging up worms in the dirt together, and inviting him to my birthday party at McDonald’s, I tried to kiss him on the playground at recess. He pushed me away and said “Stop! I can’t do this! I love Amanda!” My little heart was broken and I proceeded to hate Amanda (in retrospect, she was probably a lovely girl). I remained friends with him until he moved to the faraway land of Racine, I started grade school, and I developed my next crush on Nick R. I would continue to mistake friends for love interests several more times throughout my life, but those are stories for another day.

My first crush on a girl was when I was 16 years old. This was not a Justin G. type of situation and I never actually held a conversation with this girl. It was a couple of years after Katy Perry’s debut single, “I Kissed A Girl” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 7 consecutive weeks. The gross, misogynist trope of men fetishizing lesbians—without actually supporting them or their rights, only existing to fulfill their fantasies—was all over TV and movies. The term “girl crush” was being thrown around by straight women who thought that other girls were pretty. That girl is beautiful and is really confident and I can’t tell if I want to be her friend or just be her? I have a ✨girl crush✨on her! So, as it seemed like the thing to do, I wrote this off as a girl crush. A term that became so popularized that Little Big Town then released a song about it in 2014. When a rumor that I was a lesbian went around my high school, I was angry and embarrassed and did everything I could to quash it (as if the worst thing I could possibly be is GAY! 😮).

Fast forward to last summer, a trip to Mexico with my best friends (I use this term interchangeably for all of them. Please do not ask me to rank my best friends; they are all the best) to celebrate our 30th birthdays. There’s something about the combination of bottomless drinks, Cabo, and friends that you’ve had since you were a preteen that creates a perfect environment for oversharing. And before you get too excited, no, this is not going where you think it’s going. I did not mistake friendship for love and try to kiss them by the pool. Instead, as we sat at a cabana with a mudslide in hand, one of my best friends straight up asked if I’ve ever been into girls. And that was the first time I ever told a loved one that I’m bisexual. Or maybe pansexual is a more accurate term, but I’m still learning how to self-identify. I told her before I even told James! The guilt of him not knowing this about me crushed me so much that I blurted it out almost immediately when I got home to Seattle. I had known for some time that my 16-year-old, so-called “girl crush” and any subsequent “girl crushes” were actually just crushes. On girls. And then crushes on women. I knew in the same way that I knew I had a crush on Justin G. when I was five.

Since I’ve met the person I love and have started building a life with is a man—the best man I’ve ever known—I never thought I’d “come out” so publicly. If my best friend hadn’t asked me, I don’t know how long I would have kept it a secret. I saw a meme a couple of years ago that said “i’m never coming out to anyone ever again. if you can’t tell I’m a little gay then that’s on you.” I laughed and resonated with that wholly. I didn’t want it to seem like I was just another woman in her 30s looking for attention, and it also just seemed easier to let people believe that I’m straight since I’m in a heteronormative appearing relationship. I’m also pretty sure that everyone close to me already knew. I mean, the amount of times that my mom tiptoed around conversations about men and marriage? She had to have known. When I was single in my early 20s and exhausted with dating, she once started a sentence with “If you ever get married…” and when I got upset she adjusted it to something like, “you know, if you marry a man! I don’t know, maybe…” And of course, I got mad at her for implying that I was a lesbian. But she knew I was a little gay before I accepted that part of myself. And I know she’s reading this, so I’m sorry, mom! You were right!! I don’t know what it was that had me in denial for so long. Perhaps it’s the stigma that still exists for LGBTQIA+ people, the Catholic guilt, the desperate need to “fit in.” But I wasn’t living my full truth, so now here I am, half a life later, embracing it.

Not too long ago, in the workplace, a well-meaning colleague about 15 years my senior asked me and a new colleague a bit younger than me, “you don’t have to answer this because it’s a personal question, but I noticed that you both use the term ‘partner’ when you talk about your boyfriends and I’m wondering why that is?” And to that I said, that’s a great question, and went on to explain that I use the term partner for a lot of reasons. I respect however people want to be labeled, but this is why “partner” feels like the best label for me. My partner and I have an equal relationship. He is truly my partner in life. We split everything evenly, including housework, who earns and spends money (although he does make more than I do, which we are still adjusting to!), who drives the car, who does home repairs, who takes care of the cat. We don’t tend to follow societal norms and expectations surrounding masculinity and femininity. Terms like “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” feel juvenile and outdated to me and enforce gender stereotypes that we don’t wish to follow in our relationship. There was a time when I wasn’t sure if I would ever want to get married, so “partner” feels a bit more official without having to be legally married. And lastly, normalizing the use of the word “partner” makes it so that people who do not want to be outed in certain spaces do not feel pressured to share that part of themselves where it doesn’t feel comfortable and safe. The older colleague was respectful and accepting of this, and the younger colleague mostly agreed with my reasoning. But we had only just met and she said something that really irked me. “I’ve actually read that straight people using the term partner isn’t preferred by the LGBTQ community because it’s seen as queerbaiting.”

Queerbaiting. As defined by the OED: “The practice of incorporating apparently or potentially LGBTQ characters or relationships into a film, television show, etc., as a means of attracting or appealing to LGBTQ audiences, while remaining deliberately coy or ambiguous about the characters' sexuality; (more generally) the practice of trying to appeal to and capitalize on LGBTQ audiences or customers in a deceptive or superficial manner.” Queerbaiting in media is problematic, sure. Taking money from the queer community without actively supporting them despite all of the hardships they face, particularly queer and trans people of color, is exploitative. But telling a person that they’re queerbaiting is not cool. LGBTQIA+ people should be able to express themselves as they see fit and should not have to come out in spaces where they aren’t ready. Let people go at their own pace. Gender and sexuality are deeply personal and not stagnant. People in the queer community are just trying to figure out themselves and what they need is acceptance, not shame. There are countless examples of celebrities who were forced to be outed against their will after being accused of queerbaiting, which is unfair to the person who has to live with the label. Labels can change as people discover who they are and how they want to define themselves. It is fluid. And it should be up to the person themselves when and how they want to come out, if at all. Some people are out among their friends but not in the workplace because they don’t want to face discrimination. Some people aren’t out with their family because they worry that their relatives won’t accept them. Some people (me) are out in one city (Seattle) but not another (Milwaukee) until they’re ready to be, if at all. I was damn sure not going to come out for the first time in the workplace out of spite for this colleague. I said, “respectfully, just because someone is in a heteronormative appearing relationship does not mean that they are heterosexual. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.” We moved on, and I’m sure they knew without me having to say it that I’m queer.

After that experience, I knew that I didn’t want to have to pretend anymore. I don’t want people to accuse me of queerbaiting when I am, in fact, queer. I was planning on slowly telling people in conversations when it felt natural. But it never felt natural to bring it up. So I guess I wrote this because I want to live my full truth and because I know how powerful it can be to share your story. This community is under attack, especially trans people and queer people of color. Knowing and loving more people in the LGBTQIA+ community helps us understand each other better and brings us closer to a world without homophobia and transphobia. We need more voices standing up for this community. We are literally just people trying to live our lives and discover our identities. Sometimes this discovery is a process that takes time.

What we need people to understand is that being queer is not a decision, but an identity. I didn’t suddenly become bi since I moved to Seattle. I’ve been bi, but living in a community where LGBTQIA+ people are not only accepted but celebrated helped me feel more comfortable expressing this side of myself. I’m not any less bisexual because I’m in a relationship with a man. I can only speak to my own experiences, but many queer, trans, and non-binary people don’t just suddenly decide to be gay or to identify with a different gender. It’s more likely that they have been feeling this way for a while and have not felt aligned with their truth. I’ve been making an effort in my own life to understand trans peoples’ perspectives better and have only just scratched the surface, but James and I attended a talk earlier this year by Schuyler Bailar, who is a great resource for education. I read the book Pageboy by Elliot Page, which describes one trans person’s experience in great detail, and I’ve been listening to the podcast A Bit Fruity by Matt Bernstein, another great resource for education and queer perspectives, from queer people. I think that at the heart of the problem with bigotry is a lack of understanding, and i just want to encourage as many people as possible to seek out diverse perspectives and find some common ground and understanding. It’s hard to form a true opinion about LGBTQIA+ people if you don’t have any friendships or interactions with them. But most of all, just let people live their damn lives for Pete’s sake! Unless you’re in a relationship with someone or trying to be, their sexual orientation and gender identity have nothing to do with you! :)

I wouldn’t have had the courage to come out if it weren’t for the stories that my friends have shared. I’m grateful to have a supportive community around me with friends, family, and a committed partner who love me. I love you all so much. This doesn’t change anything about me, my love for my people, or my commitment to James. It’s just a part of me that I kept hidden that I now don’t feel like I have to hide anymore. I may have lived my whole life with this secret if I didn’t know countless others in heteronormative appearing relationships that are actually bisexual or pansexual. If this essay encourages just one closeted queer person to feel less alone, then I’ve reached my goal. If just one person knows that they can talk to me about it, then I’ve reached my goal. If you are bisexual and you’re in a relationship with a straight person, you are still bisexual. If you are queer but you haven’t told anyone but yourself, you are still queer. You are valid. You are loved.

All of this to say, I’m excited to share that I was selected to design two murals for Pride month at Amazon headquarters. They are temporary murals that were painted in collaboration with Urban Artworks, meaning I designed them and a whole group of us painted them together. This is my first time designing a commissioned mural and I’m so excited and proud of it! Given the current political climate, I wanted to make sure that it was loud and proud. DEI programs are being slashed, there is an attack on trans people, books about LGBTQIA+ people are being banned. We are not going away, and this assault on the community is a sign of fascism. Each of us individually cannot fix everything. But with a bit of resistance and effort from everyone in areas that you can control, change occurs. So, I’m using my art as resistance and calling on large corporations like Amazon to support the LGBTQIA+ community. Seattle has such a large and strong population of queer people and corporations need these people and all of their diverse perspectives in order to succeed. Now is the time to embrace queer people, not isolate them.

In these murals, you’ll see a wave of colors from the Progress Pride Flag, created by Daniel Quaser, which has a white, pink, and light blue stripe to represent the Trans community. The black and brown stripes represent communities of color, and the black stripe is also a nod the thousands of individuals that the community lost during the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1980s and 1990s. The hearts are grouped in colors that represent other subcategories of pride flags, like lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, non-binary, asexual, demisexual, polysexual, intersex, genderqueer, aromantic, genderfluid, and neutrois. These murals will be up at the staircases outside of the Day 1 building (next to the spheres) and Path To Yes building on Terry Ave at the Amazon Global Headquarters in Seattle for the month of June.

If you’re a close friend or relative and this is how you’re finding out, please don’t take offense. I literally have no idea how to casually bring this up in conversation, so unless you asked me my sexual orientation (which probably would have been an inappropriate question anyway), I likely haven’t told you yet. I hope this doesn’t change what you know to be true about me and our relationship. If this is challenging for you, please call, text, send me an email, or chat with me in person so we can have an open discussion. I hope that I can be a safe person to talk to for anyone who wants to be seen or heard. All my love. HAPPY PRIDE! 🏳️‍🌈🩷💜💙🌈

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Coming Out of My Cage and I've Been Doing Just Fine