LOUIS SHANKAR, 19, CAMBRIDGE
I’m not really sure you could say I ever ‘came out’ per se. That certainly wasn’t the biggest hurdle. What came hardest was coming to terms with being bisexual. I still don’t know if I’ve always felt this way and repressed it or if I went through a genuine period of change; it definitely felt like the latter, as a few years ago I’d rarely have looked twice at a guy. Then came what I can only describe as a sort of jealousy/attraction: ‘That guy’s really hot. I wish I looked more like that’.
It was quite a while before I found myself genuinely drawn towards men and then I thought it was just a phase that would soon pass. Looking back I’m slightly ashamed I felt like that, as if there was something wrong with it. If anything, it was only from being brought up surrounded by heteronormativity that it felt abnormal to not be straight. And then, of course, the alternative was to be gay, yet I was still attracted to women too, but where were the bisexual role models?