I was in college when I finally understood that I was bisexual, and that there was a word for people like me. It was the early 90s, the Internet was new, and I vividly remember going to the LGBT section of a Barnes and Noble in New York city and reading a book about bisexuality. In my college library I found human sexuality journals, I learned about the Kinsey scale and reached the realization that I was neither alone nor particularly strange (despite the fact that I wore army issue combat boots). Many times I was told to pick a side, that bisexuality wasn’t real, that it was just a phase or an excuse for being promiscuous (in fact I am a monogamist, not that it matters). Both straight and gay people put me down for not being like them so I learned to shut up about it and not say anything.

That’s why it matters when celebrities come out and that’s why we’re covering Evan Rachel Wood’s speech at a Human Rights Campaign gala last weekend. EWR was given a visibility award for being open about her bisexuality, like other celebrities who have come out as bisexual including Anna Paquin, Bella Thorne, Amber Heard and Maria Bello. I wish these amazing women had been around when I was growing up but they’re here now. Evan told the crowd that it was a celebrity identifying as bisexual who helped her realize that there was a word for these feelings that she couldn’t explain. I’m going to excerpt some of her speech but the video is also below and is well worth watching in its entirety. Her speech is powerful and moving and I don’t know whether to high five her or give her a hug.

I thought women were beautiful… [but] I also thought that men were beautiful. I had no way to put what I felt into words. I had no role model, no one I knew was talking about. The only thing that I knew was fear, confusion and loneliness. How can you be what you are when you don’t understand what you are feeling? The more I kept silent, the more my self esteem [lowered].

Then one day I heard an actress say the word “bisexual” and I thought “what the hell is that?” When I found out a lightbulb went off. The word didn’t make me feel marginalized, it made me feel less crazy. It made me feel less alone. It gave me hope. An actress just said a word but it made a world of difference in my life and in my identity.

As an actor my job is to look at a stranger and find myself in them. To have such empathy for a character that I can read someone else’s words and be moved to tears… it was the best therapy and outlet for my silenced voice. I can throw on a mask and say all the things that I wanted to say and never could. It wasn’t until I saw the effect that it had on other people that I really started to see how powerful allowing your most vulnerable parts to be seen was.

I saw another side to what I did and it was the power of visibility. I see you, you see me, we aren’t so different. Through that connection the healing begins.

[From video via The Daily Beast]

Evan later discussed the shame associated with being bisexual and how she could relate so much to the statistics released by the Human Rights Campaign last year, which indicate increased rates of suicide among bisexual people and the fact that we’re more likely to be involved in abusive relationships. She explained her decision to record this video last year discussing her bisexuality and the misconceptions around that (she had come out prior to that) and it was released just two days before the Pulse nightclub attack. In that video she reveals that she attempted suicide when she was younger and that Fairuza Balk is the actress who helped her by publicly identifying as bisexual.

Evan is both an empathetic person and an incredibly talented actress and this speech made me get teary. She also gave a shout out to her parents in the audience and to her fiance. I really liked this quote she gave near the end and would like to end with this, which is in part a quote from Nina Simone. “At this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate and every day is a matter of survival I don’t think you can help but be involved. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times? That to me is the definition of an artist… Visibility matters.”

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