Being a Bi-sexual Indian Girl

It's not the easiest thing in the world to be a bi-sexual teenager. It's even harder when you're also an Indian girl. I was 15 when my world was flipped over and I fell in love with a girl. She was beautiful, funny, and radiated confidence. She was a freely out bi-sexual, while I tried to maintain the charade of being an obsessed, boy-crazy teenage girl like most of my friends. It's not that I didn't like boys, I did, I just happened to like girls too. My crush asked me out and while I opened my mouth to say, “Yes”, what actually came out was, “No, I'm straight.” I was deeply conflicted for the months that followed. I was scared and confused and kept everything to myself. After regrettably seeing my crush move on, however, I accepted the fact that I liked both boys and girls. I was fine admitting it to myself, but the thought of telling everyone else in my life scared me.
I kept my feelings to myself for over a year, until one day I broke down and told my aunt. I'll remember that day forever. I was secretly in a very complicated relationship with my previous crush. The popular term would be “Friends with Benefits” and I was upset with the fact she was seeing other people. I was relaying my problems to my aunt when I finally told her that I was in fact talking about a girl and not a boy like she assumed. She asked me if I was bi-sexual and I admitted I was. The only thing she said was, “Okay.” Then, she continued to give me the same advice she had been giving me five minutes ago when she thought I'd been talking about a boy. It was her acceptance that led me to come out to my best friend, a conservative Catholic, and she took the news surprisingly well.
I didn't feel the need to tell everyone I knew, but I was open and never hid the truth from anyone, besides my family. This is where the traditional Indian culture that revolves around my family came into play. My parents and my family are Punjabi and followers of the Sikh religion. In my experience, I realized that Punjabi people are very traditional with the views they hold, and that extends to my family who are deeply conservative. While I do consider them to be quite modern in some of the ways of society, their social conservatism weighs down on the issues that matter the most. They do not approve of inter-racial marriage, pre-marital sex, or homosexuality. I will always remember the day I was watching TV with my mother and we saw a woman kissed her girlfriend. At this time, I had realized even though I was bi-sexual, I preferred girls over boys. My mother's face was frozen in pure disgust as she told me how disgusting and abnormal gay people were. I already knew how the rest of my family felt about gay people, and looking at the horror in my mother's eyes that day, I realized I would never be accepted.
I'm 16 now and still out to everyone besides my family who remain clueless. I admit that even though I don't want to hide who I am from my parents, I'm very happy. I've been able to accept

myself while being raised to believe in the ridiculously outdated views of a conservative Indian family. It's very hard to be a secretly bi-sexual Indian girl hiding one of the most important facts about my life from the people who've seen me grow up. But, personal acceptance and love comes first. I know the day I come out to my family I'll do it with my head held high. I'm queer and very proud of it! When my family shows a decent amount of respect for homosexuals, I will respect them enough to tell them the truth.
Anita, Ontario