Michelle Visage explains why she won’t identify as bisexual despite past hook-ups with women
The Drag Race judge has opened up in a new interview, and explains why she doesn’t consider herself bisexual
By Tim Heap
RuPaul’s right-hand woman and long-time LGBTQ ally Michelle Visage says she wouldn’t doesn’t comfortable describing herself as bisexual, despite having hooked up with women in the past.
Speaking to The Guardian, the 51-year-old Drag Race judge explains that despite being attracted to men and women and, in her New York club days, sleeping with both sexes, the term “bisexual” isn’t something she’s ever identified with.
“When I grew up [bisexuality] wasn’t really a thing,” Visage says. “If it was, it was gay boys who would come out as bisexual first because it was easier for them.
“It was just if I saw a pretty girl and I was attracted to her, why not?”
When pressed on whether saying she was bisexual would make it easier to answer those who say she doesn’t belong in the LGBTQ community, the former Strcitly star replies: “It would be easier, but I don’t feel like the easy way out is always the right way out.
“I don’t want to take anything away from somebody who’s truly living a bisexual lifestyle.”
Visage, who’s set to front a new eight-part BBC Three series offering life advice and guidance, doesn’t elaborate on what she means by a “bisexual lifestyle”, but says that she does feel like a part of the LGBTQ community and that people have only recently start to question if she belongs or not.
“I have been an ally for 30-plus years,” she says, speaking of her time in New York’s ballroom scene where she was a member of drag house the Magnifiques. “So I do consider myself part of the community.
“I know how hard the community has struggled to get where we are today,” she continues, “so now is not the time to start saying you can’t sit with us. We should be inclusive.”
Visage isn’t the only person to have same-sex attraction and relationships but shun the bisexual label – read our article about the men who have sex with other guys but still identify as straight.
‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ season 12 continues this Friday 27 March on VH1 in the US and the following day on Netflix in the UK.