“I have been out as bisexual for three years,” blogger Travonte Harris writes in a new op-ed published by The Current. “A downside to being bisexual is the fact that no girl will date me because I’m openly bisexual.”

“As if it wasn’t enough,” he adds, “now I have to deal with racism from my own people.”

Harris says it all started shortly after he joined Grindr.

“Before I came out, I never had a problem with racism,” he says. “I could get black girls, white girls, some mixed girls. But in dealing with trying to go after my dream guy, I was met with opposition.”

He continues: “I saw a lot of posts on the dating apps like ‘Anyone but black,’ ‘No blacks allowed,’ and I had to stop myself and think, ‘Am I in the 60s or is this reality?’ … I questioned, ‘Am I unattractive? Am I not good enough for them?’”

He quickly learned that, no, he wasn’t living in the ’60s, this was reality, and that many guys didn’t want to date him simply because of the color of his skin.

Harris says he quickly grew frustrated by this, and eventually took to social media to voice his outrage.

“I started saying really offensive stuff on Facebook,” he says. “I was starting to hate the LGBT community and hate myself for being a part of it. I found myself being just as closed-minded as the people I hated.”

He continues: “But after much backlash from friends and family, I realized that hating them would solve nothing.”

Harris says he’s now focused on opening people’s minds to the racism that exists within the LGBTQ community.

“Recently I went into a gay club and there were a lot of people—mostly couples,” he writes. “The few single people who were there were out of my league. But I walked up to a guy, and his friend, a girl who said, ‘What do you want?’ in the rudest voice possible, like she was superior to me.”

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

“All I wanted was a dance,” he says.

“I have gay friends who are black and they only date black people because it has been an issue trying to date a white guy,” he continues. “I hope that this article helps people become more aware of their racism.”

He conludes: “This should not be a world where people kill themselves because they are lonely or because their own LGBT social group will not accept them. I hope that reading this article causes readers to consider how their actions might affect other people, whether intentional or not.”

__

Original article appeared at Queerty. Reprinted with permission.



Photo credit: Getty Images