Hello and welcome to the Cosmic Nomad.
I'm your host, Bailey Rushlow, and this is a space for the
curious and the heart lead where we explore the human experience
through travel and nature, spirituality and real life
transformation through beautiful conversations.
As I discover my way of living what I call an inspired life, I
share the practices, stories, and perspectives that have
helped guide me back to myself. Hello beautiful people.
I am so glad that you're here. Honored to have you in this
space and grateful to be sharing it with you.
I am in London and I have been so excited to share this episode
with you. For a while I didn't know where
exactly I was going to place it in the outline of the episodes,
but lately we've just been kind of going with whatever is coming
up to be shared. And today, am I queer enough?
A bisexual journey. I'm going to take you through my
journey as a part of the queer community, what that looks like,
how it felt, especially being raised in evangelical
Christianity, where being queer was not even not an option, but
not even talked about or discussed.
Like, yeah, we've come a long, long way.
So get comfy, pull up a chair, go for a walk with your dog.
You know, whatever feels good to you in this moment.
This is going to be a really expansive journey to listen to,
so I hope you're ready. And yeah, let's get into it.
I grew up not knowing that women could be queer.
My first introduction to queerness came through the
Bible, as it does for many people who are raised in
evangelical Christianity. And it was not gentle.
It was Sodom and Gomorrah, you know?
It was the idea that queer people were destined for hell.
And because the Bible only talks about men being gay, I didn't
even know queer women existed. I had never heard of people
being lesbian or bisexual until I was really old.
Like, I don't know, late teens, like 1819.
I mean, it was old and it felt like queerness was something
really just, it was just underground.
Like it was something kind of shameful and, and according to
my conditioning, it was a choice.
It was a sin. And you know, it's, it's just
like stealing or, or cheating or adultery or being queer, right?
Like it was all a choice. It was all a sin.
It was all frowned upon and it was all something that you would
be sent to hell for. It's crazy looking back, because
I had so much judgement in my heart, like deeply rooted,
conditioned judgement toward people who are queer, because to
make an exception for queerness would have meant questioning
everything that I believed about sin, about Scripture, and about
the character of the God that I was raised believing in.
And I remember seeing people growing up who were like a
little bit more openly queer. Maybe they dressed colorful.
Maybe they were just a little more flamboyant.
Maybe they're a little more, I don't know, whatever you, you
just looked at them and you're like, there's something
different about you, you know? And I remember feeling that
judgement of like, you're choosing this sinful life.
And it just like, it crushes me to remember that judgement.
But also I, I don't know how I could have felt any other way
about it, you know? And my parents weren't
homophobic. They weren't teaching me to,
like, hate the gays at all, but it was simply a societal
conditioning and a religious conditioning that was like,
they're living in sin and that was all that I knew about it.
And the hypocrisy, which just runs rampant through evangelical
culture. And I've mentioned this in other
episodes like I was homeschooled birth through high school
graduation. I was raised in and out of
church, in and out of homeschool communities.
And, and I'm really, I'm grateful for a lot of thought.
There was some beautiful things that came from it.
Truly. There were also a lot of things
that were not so beautiful and that kept me very much
conditioned and indoctrinated in a certain way of being and
believing and thinking and being curious about the world.
And there were also things that were not so great that I have
had to deconstruct as an adult. And a lot of them involved the
control around being indoctrinated into a religious
system from a young age and having a lot of your curiosity
stifled by that system and having so little compassion for
other people in other walks of life.
And it's not even that I was outwardly showing them my
judgement. It was an internal, holier than
thou kind of moment. I remember when the TV show
Modern Family first came out and the way that it was talked about
in Christian circles because some of the main members of the
cast are openly gay on the show. And it was one of the first
times that a gay family with with two dads had ever been seen
on TV before. Like it had been a couple here
and there, like there's a lesbian relationship and friends
that you see a little bit, which was revolutionary.
It was one of the first on TV, you know, and I just remember a
lot of the Christian circles being like, this show is trash.
Don't watch it. It is normalizing and
celebrating homosexuality. And I, I had never seen it, but
I was like, oh, damn, like that sounds really evil.
And like, this is the state of the world that we're in, you
know, that this is becoming normalized.
I was a little bit curious to, to watch it, but I, I didn't, of
course, until many years later. It's actually one of my favorite
shows. What really did it for me was
watching Glee. I think I was 21 maybe.
And I watched it in secret late at night on my phone because I
knew that my family wouldn't approve of me watching this, you
know, secular TV show about choir kids and musical theater.
But there was some really profound coming out stories.
If you've seen the show, then you remember when Santana's
character comes out. And that shook me.
That was the first time I had ever seen a character in a movie
or TV or in real life, like anywhere, come out like that.
And it, it's like it lit a fire within me and I, I couldn't name
it. I just felt like I was
witnessing a part of myself that I didn't know existed.
And it scared me and it made me curious.
And it was like overnight I realized I don't think I'm just
straight. And I've always just been
straight. And in my mind, that's the only
thing I'm allowed to be. And now I have doubts and I have
questions and I feel a little bit concerned and a little bit
thrilled and I have no idea what this means for me.
And I just kind of let it simmer.
I didn't do anything. I didn't tell anyone, I just
wanted to sit with it. And I did.
And during that time, more and more representation started
showing up online, more people started sharing their stories,
and the conditioning in my mind started to loosen its grasp a
little bit. And I started to notice this
like quiet fascination, like a hum in the background.
I had no language for it, no examples, no one in my world who
was openly queer except for this one guy that worked in our
little flower shop in our little southern town, and my one friend
that had came out to me that had, you know, a year before,
made me feel so sad. And now I didn't feel sad about
it at all. In fact, I felt a little bit
embarrassed that I had felt sad and that I couldn't have shown
up for my friends more authentically.
And I remember even then, you know, that my, my kindness
toward queer folks, like, even with all my conditioning, even
with all my indoctrination, I was never mean to anyone queer.
You know, I was never rude. I was never like calling people
out or making fun of them or anything like that.
But in my heart I carried this subconscious agenda like maybe I
could win them over to Jesus If I'm really nice to them, you're
like, maybe I can make them see that like Jesus loves them and
I'll guide them on the right path and maybe they'll like not
be gay eventually. I just, I didn't understand
anything and I was holding on to my beliefs so hard because they
did just they felt like life or death.
There's a moment actually from my childhood that I remembered a
few years ago. I was maybe like 9 or 10 and I
had this little Playhouse in my backyard and I had a friend over
and I remember that we would literally just kiss behind my
Playhouse and I did not know what sex was.
I had never seen porn. No one had ever had the talk
with me. I had no reference for anything
other than just following what felt good and what was natural
in my body. And somehow, without even having
the language for it, there was already this quiet shame meter
in my body. Like I knew not to tell anyone.
I knew not to tell my parents or my friends.
It didn't feel wrong in my body. Like to me it felt right, it
felt good, but it felt like it would be wrong out loud.
And that memory stayed locked away like a little time capsule
in me, forgotten, until many years later when I started
exploring my queerness and it hit me, Oh my God, this has
always been here. I just didn't know how to
recognize it. And for so long, I'm being queer
just felt like the thing that only existed in faraway places,
like other people, like celebrities would come out in
magazines or like Glee, you know?
But not here, not not in my family, not in me.
That wasn't the way. And I carried so much judgement.
And in the process of seeing that judgement, recognizing it,
calling it out in myself, I began to see my hypocrisy and my
judgement as intrigue, curiosity, maybe a little bit of
jealousy, even part of me that longed for that kind of freedom.
And I think that is the medicine of jealousy, is that it shows us
something in us that maybe we want to experience or to explore
and maybe we don't feel like we can.
And we then project judgement toward the people who do
experience it, judgement toward the people who we do see
embodying certain things. And it's funny to be on this
journey when you start looking back as most queer folks do.
At some point, you go, where was my queer awakening?
You know, and I think it was Santana and Glee for me, for
sure. But looking back even further, I
think, wow, I had this strange mix of fascination and jealousy
toward girls a lot of my life. Like I used to feel this twinge
when I saw certain girls, like the way they laughed, the way
they moved, the way their hair fell.
I'd be like, why do I want to be her?
Why does she make me feel this way?
But the truth was I, I didn't want to be her.
I just, I wanted to be close to her.
I wanted her to see me. I want her to like me and took
me years to understand that what I was calling jealousy was
actually attraction. And I realized, Oh my God, I
felt like I was turning a light on in the room that I didn't
even know was off. Trying on the word bisexual was
really weird for me. I felt like an imposter.
I felt like I don't know if I can call myself that because
I've never had any queer experiences.
And it feels unfair to people who have been queer and, and,
and fought for their rights and been through bullying and been
through all these crazy experiences and journeys and
been excommunicated from their families.
And like, I was like, I don't have any of that.
So do I even have the right to consider myself gay?
Like, and then what does that mean for me?
And I don't know. It was, it was awkward
internally. Of course, no one in my external
world knew this. My, my parents, my friends, no
one. I think I, I remember telling
one friend like, hey, I actually think I am attracted to women.
And she was like, yeah, I kind of guessed.
I was like, excuse me, She's like, I just, I just kind of
felt it. I was like, wait, it was obvious
to you. She's like, well, I just know
you really well. And I just felt like, that makes
sense for you. And I remember being stunned.
I was like, wait, how did you know?
And I didn't even know. And I remember coming out to my
dad. I walked in the kitchen and I
literally blurted out, I think I'm attracted to men and women.
I just thought you should know. And he looked at me totally
unfazed, and he was like, yeah, well, women are beautiful.
I mean, I'm attracted to them, too.
And I was like, no, no, like, sexually I'm attracted to women.
Like, I don't just think women are beautiful.
I'm bisexual. And he like paused and blinked
and was like, oh OK cool I guess that's interesting.
He didn't know what to say. He handled it well.
Poor, poor dad. I really just kind of sprung it
on him. I did not give him a second to
process. I literally just left the room.
I'm really lucky that my parents never let this be an issue for
them in our relationship because I have many friends in my life
where that is absolutely not the case.
But I remember telling my mom that I was bi a few years later
and she was like, oh, but you're but you're dating a man.
I was like, yeah, she's like, how does that work?
Like if you're if you're bi? And I was like, if a nun
realized that she was a lesbian, would she not be a lesbian
because she had never had sex before?
Like, do you have to have had sex with someone to know that
that's your preference? Or do you just know who told you
that you were straight? And it fascinates me because
there's this thing and you find it in straight and queer spaces,
this unspoken doubt about bisexuality.
In a straight space, people assume that you are just
experimenting, that your sexuality is defined by the
gender of your current partner. Like if you're with a man,
you're kind of straight now, you know, And if you're with a
woman, you have quote, switched teams, right?
And your identity is only real if it's visible and only valid
if it's active. And then in the queer space,
there's fear too, especially in the lesbian community of dating
bisexual women, because for so many, bisexuality has been used
as this mask for experimentation.
Like, people have been hurt by women who didn't know for sure
if they were queer, and then they left relationships after
realizing that they weren't actually queer.
And I understand that fear. Like, I have so much compassion
for that. And it creates this tension
where you start asking yourself, like, am I queer enough?
Like, will anyone take me seriously?
Do I even belong here? And there's this feeling of not
belonging, like being too queer for straight spaces and not
queer enough for queer spaces. And it's like a really weird
place to sit. But for anyone listening that
needs a little encouragement, queerness is not just about who
you date or how visible it is to others.
It's actually about how you see the world.
And what changed everything for me was finding community.
And it did not happen overnight. At first I tried looking for
like meetups or events or pride stuff, you know, anything that
would just remind me that I wasn't alone.
But where I was living there really wasn't much.
So I literally posted on a local Facebook group in my area.
Hi, are there any queer events happening anytime soon?
And people responded like no there's not really anything but
if there were something it would be really cool.
We would love to come. I was like what if I started my
own thing? So I made a post on a local
Facebook group and I said hi, I'm Bailey, I am looking for
queer friends and community and I would love to suggest that we
all meet up sometime this week, maybe on Sunday for a brunch.
Here's the link to a WhatsApp group who wants to come post.
And I was like like threw my phone across the room was like
OK it's done. And a few days later, 10 women
showed up to our first queer brunch, and we sat in a circle
and we ate food and we shared our stories and the tender parts
of our journey. And over time, that group became
like a little family for me. We have movie nights, we go
swimming in the ocean, we have picnics and game nights, and we
celebrate each other's breakthroughs and heart breaks
and we laugh all the time. And queerness stopped being
something that I had to prove, and it started becoming a lens
through which I see the world. For me, it's colorful, it's
soft, it's radical, it's expansive.
It's about rejecting the boxes and the binaries and the lies
that say we're only worthy if we fit neatly into categories.
And heteronormativity and queerness is actually really
ancient. Like long before colonization
there were people all over the world living outside rigid
gender and sexuality norms. It is not a modern trend.
It is not something people invented because of social media
or because this generation is confused.
It is memory. It has been here for as long as
humans have existed, and it's woven into cultures and
communities all over the world. And people in these cultures
were not hidden, they were not shamed.
They were often celebrated and revered, even seen as healers
and spiritual guides. For example, in Turtle Island or
so-called America, there were two spirit people, individuals
who embodied both masculine and feminine energies.
They often held special roles as artists and mediators and
shamans, and the word to spirit was created in in the 90s to
describe these identities. But the presence of these people
goes back thousands of years. We see a similar story across
South Asia and ancient Mesopotamia, where priests and
priestesses served in the temples regardless of gender
norms. Even in Greece and Rome, same
sex love was not seen as unnatural.
It was documented. It was celebrated in poetry, it
was normalized in many relationships.
And then we ask ourselves, how the fuck do we get to where we
are now, where people who are queer are being targeted,
bullied, unalived all over the world, where in many cultures
and countries it's not even legal.
You can be put in jail for being gay.
And it brings us full circle all back to colonization, right?
It brought with it a very specific idea of gender
sexuality, and it spread heteronormativity.
It erased the fluid and expansive ways that humans have
existed for millennia, and it tied queerness to shame and to
sin. When we talk about reclaiming
our queerness today, it is not just a personal act.
It is an ancestral remembering and it's not unnatural.
It's nature itself. It's diverse, it's adaptive,
it's infinite. It's wildflowers growing where
they're not supposed to quote supposed to.
It's rivers carving new paths through the land.
There's an amazing book called Queer Magic by Tomas Prower, and
there's a quote that says the witches burned were often the
queer ones, the wild women, the men in dresses, the gender
nonconforming healers. The witch hunts weren't just
about fear of magic, they were about enforcing conformity.
And that stuck with me, because when you zoom out, you realize
that the shame, the suppression, the erasure, it didn't begin
with us here today, in this system.
It began with colonization. It began with rigid religion,
with systems that feared anything too free or too alive.
But we survived anyway, in secret, in art, in the quiet
tenderness between people who loved, in the ways the world
didn't understand. But we've always been here, and
queerness isn't just about who you love.
It's about how you see the world.
It's about community. When queerness stopped being
this thing, I had to prove it started feeling like a lens,
like I was putting on glasses that showed me beauty in places
I had never noticed before and became an active rebellion and
an act of self love and an act of joy.
There's a another quote from Queer Magic, the book that I
really recommend and love that says queerness is a sacred act
of resistance against systems that want us smaller, quieter,
easier to manage, and every queer joy is a spell of
liberation. But the first time that I kissed
a woman as an adult, that was its own kind of spell.
Oh my God. I remember being really nervous,
but also I knew this is something that I want.
Like this is something that I don't believe is wrong anymore.
I remember that I had just started dating women a few
months before and I was a little bit nervous, like getting on the
apps. And I just, I was really scared
that people would think that I was not really by like, I was
just trying to use them to experiment or explore.
And that's really not what my heart was at all.
But I was kind of scared of that perception because it's such a
common fear, you know, and I've been trying to learn, like the
delicate balance of coming from only dating men into
experiencing dating and relationships and romance with
women. What's different?
How are the gender roles like, who pays for the check?
Who opens the door? Like, you know, all of the
little nuances of physical touch and flirting.
And I just, it was an entirely new world for me.
And it was tender in ways that I hadn't expected and really
affirming and in ways I didn't know that I needed.
And I found myself still wrestling with the question of
like, am I queer enough? I don't think I'm really visibly
queer. And I had never had
relationships with women before. And I typically had been in
straight passing relationships with men.
And I just had so many voices in my head being like, you're not
really part of this community. Like you don't really belong
here. You're just curious or like,
it's too late to claim this part of yourself.
You know, I remember there were moments with other queer people,
specifically this this one lesbian, I remember asking me.
She was like, oh, have you ever been with in relationships with
women? And I was like, no.
And her face kind of like softened into something polite,
but like, distant and uninterested.
And she was just a friend. Like, we weren't interested in
each other or anything. But I felt that in my chest.
And I felt like, oh, like I failed some kind of test.
Like somehow my queerness wasn't real, quote real until someone
else validated it. And what I know now is that you
do not have to prove to others, even to yourself, because it's
not defined by your relationships or your
experiences or your visibility. Like if you feel it in your
bones and in your body, it's real and it's enough and you're
enough. You've always been enough.
It's not something you have to earn either.
OK, so back to the story. I have been On this date with
this wonderful woman. She was Irish and we just had
the best time. Like we had the most wonderful
conversations. It was easy, it was flowing and
I knew like I want to kiss her. And we were on her rooftop pool
talking and just, like, swimming, having a nice time.
And there was no one else up there.
And we were really close. And she, like, pulled me in.
And I think she asked, like, can I kiss you?
And I was like, yeah. And that kiss was so magnetic.
I felt, like, lightning through my entire body.
And I knew in that moment everything that I have known
about myself that I've been wondering and curious and
thinking about myself and my role in this whole community.
Not that I needed the validation of being like, OK, yes, I am
actually attracted to women. But in that moment I remember
feeling like, Oh no, it was it's all real and it's all valid.
And it, it did give me this sense of affirmation in
everything I had been wondering and curious about for so long.
And I kissed, changed my life. I'll forever be so grateful for
that, and for the incredible and intelligent and powerful and
beautiful women that I have had the opportunity to know and
experience and date since then has been so transformative.
That memory will be so alive and vibrant in my mind forever, as
will the first time that I ever held hands with someone or took
a nap with someone, literally just slept next to each other.
And like the peace and quiet and safety that I felt in my body
and dying laughing with a woman on on dates or whatever.
And you're just like, Oh my God, this is everything.
And of course, the first time that you, you know, ever have
sex and ever in an intimate space with another person of the
same gender is like, so transformative.
Opened my heart and my mind, my body in ways that have changed
me forever. I actually wrote a poem about
all of this that I'm going to read at the end of this episode.
So stay tuned Until then. Right now in the world, it feels
very heavy and scary for so many people, and I think about how
sacred it is to just be here. To exist, to love, to laugh, to
hold hands in public, to be seen.
Right now, for so many people around the world, simply
existing isn't safe. 65 countries in the world still
criminalize same sex relationships, and in 12 of
those being queer can even mean a death sentence.
And even in countries where queer relationships are
technically legal but face threats like homophobia and
bullying. There are some amazing ways that
we can support queer lives and community.
Like buying from queer owned businesses and artists because
their work is resistance to supporting creators on platforms
like Patreon, Instagram, sharing queer stories, books, films,
music, podcasts to amplify their voices.
Also don't hesitate to call out homophobic or transphobic
comments even in jokes like it's not funny.
And vote for policies and leaders that protect the rights
of queer folks. Something small you can do that
often goes a long ways. Creating visible safety, like
you have a sticker or or a sign in your shop window that signals
inclusion and acceptance, can actually go a long way and make
a bigger difference than you think.
Supporting queer people isn't just about showing up in big
ways. It's also in the small, quiet
ones too, like speaking up in conversations when harmful
things are said, creating space where people don't have to
perform or explain their existence using people's correct
pronouns. If you're part of this
community, remember please that your joy is resistance, that
your softness is power, and that you do not have to earn your
place here because you already belong.
Maybe you've felt the weight of the shame, maybe you're just
trying to figure it all out. Whatever it looks like, however
it feels in your body, it's enough.
And there is time for things to develop and to unfold, and you
don't have to rush anything. You know everything will unfold
and it's perfect timing and there's nothing for you to
prove. So just continue working on your
relationship with yourself and figuring out what it is that
makes you excited in this life, What it is that turns your mind
on, what it is that makes you feel alive.
So I would love to invite you to ponder these questions.
What part of myself have I hidden away because the world
told me to? What would it mean to show up as
more of myself today, this week, this year?
How can I hold space for others to do the same?
You know, as I reflect on my own journey growing up believing
that queerness was wrong and sinful and even dangerous, it
makes me think about how many of us are just living inside of
stories We didn't write stories We inherited.
Stories that taught us to fear difference, to shrink our own
truth, to believe that there's only one right way to love or to
live or to exist. But who benefits when we believe
those stories, when we don't question them, when we don't
trust ourselves enough to explore what's true for us
individually? I think about this all the time,
how much my own liberation came from learning to hold
discernment, to question the systems and the narratives, not
just from a place of rebellion for rebellion's sake, but from a
place of curiosity. What if they were wrong about
being queer? What else might they be wrong
about? And what opens up in our lives
when we stop outsourcing our truth to systems that were never
built for us? So maybe this is an invitation
to yourself to ask, what have I been taught about love and I
didn't and the LGBT plus community?
What actually feels true in my body?
What would it mean to let others live as if they are enough?
The world wants us to be small and compliant, but your joy and
your curiosity and your courage to question things is actually a
medicine. It's how we build a more free
world. So this poem is for every part
of you that is learning to trust yourself again.
Her hair smelled like coconut and I was intoxicated from the
first moment I hugged her. Crystal blue eyes that sparkled
like the sea that we sat next to, laughing, talking, tracing
each other's tattoos with sandy fingertips.
She spoke like a poem, half finished, all mystery and
warmth, like the universe had kissed her cheek and told her to
go gently ruin people in the best way.
We ate dinner twice because we couldn't stop telling each other
stories. Her hand brushed mine as we
walked and I felt electricity go through my body like a
Technicolor psychedelic wave. After dinner, we wandered to the
park barefoot and laid ourselves across the grass like offerings
to the stars. The city pulsed somewhere around
us. We were in our own world,
trading past life stories like secrets we'd only just
remembered. Her fingers grazed my leg mid
sentence and I forgot every language except the one where
mouths became prayers and kisses mean.
I remember you. Falling asleep next to her is
everything. Her fingers intertwine with mine
even when she's asleep, and I think to myself, I can't believe
I spent my life thinking this was a sin.
I watch her breathing and I realise this is not forbidden,
this is holy. And maybe God was never angry,
just misquoted. And maybe God was just a girl
after all and love with all she created and that was the
original sin. And if loving her was my fall
from grace, then I'd gladly fall again and again because in her
arms I didn't lose heaven, I remembered it.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
If you enjoyed this and you want to hear more queer stories, send
me a message. I always love hearing from you.
Thank you for your support, for your encouragement.
I'm so grateful to those of you who listen and and write to me.
It makes me feel like we're all in this together.
And if you're interested in going deeper in this journey
with me, I have launched my Patreon and I would love to see
you over there where I have behind the scenes updates,
things that are going on in my life, poems, voice notes and
monthly meditations. I'm doing one meditation per
month, all centered around a different theme because they're
really empowering, impactful, and yours to download and to
keep forever. So if you're in a place of
desiring a little more stillness, mental clarity, quiet
in the inner landscape of your life, I would be honored if you
check out the meditations I have available on Patreon and would
love your support there to be able to keep the podcast going.
I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day and until next time,
open heart, open mind, stay carries and queer.