When Brooke Lindley was 13 and first came out to her family as being attracted to both boys and girls, she didn’t even know the term “bisexual.” It was 2003, and her parents responded dubiously. “Just wait ’til you get a boyfriend,” she remembered her mother saying.
A few years later, Ms. Lindley did get a boyfriend, but she found she was still also attracted to women. She would print bisexual fan fiction and read it at night, thinking to herself, “This is totally me.” Still, she said, her father told her she was just confused.
High school friends who had come out to her as gay didn’t believe her when she told them that she was bisexual, citing her past relationships with men.