Freddie Mercury
Our Bisexual South Asian Queen
Farrokh Bulsara, better known as Freddie Mercury, is a man well known in pop culture and adored by all. The lead singer of the sensational Queen, his incredible songwriting and talented vocals helped produce some of the most well known songs of an entire generation and gives him the status of rock icon. His legacy is something that will be remembered for lifetimes. However there is another legacy he is known for, his queerness. Freddie is a well known icon within in LGBTQ+ community and his life comes up often within these spaces. From his flamboyant stage persona to his tragic early death due to AIDS, Freddie left a mark within the LGBTQ+ community. However when discussing his life, there is one detail that often gets misrepresented. You see, Freddie is often labelled as gay when he was in fact bisexual.
Freddie was in a long term relationship with a woman called Mary Austin. Whilst this relationship didn’t last, Freddie was eternally in love with her. He was often quoted as calling Mary the “love of his life”, even after they had split, and dedicated songs to her. In his will he left the majority of his estate to Mary, stating it would have been hers anyway as he essentially thought of her as his wife. He was known as a sex machine and after, possibly even during, his relationship with Mary he was known to have had sex with just about everyone, of all genders. He had romantic relationships with multiple people of different genders.
So calling him gay here wouldn’t make any sense. It would erase all of the experiences he had with women and other genders as well as his relationship with Mary. Of course there are plenty of gay men who have had relationships and sex with women whilst remaining closeted. This fact is often brought up and with it the statement that he never called himself bisexual. However, that isn’t strictly true. Mary Austin has stated in an interview that Freddie came out to her as bisexual, not gay. And whilst there are occasions where Freddie answered affirmatively to the question on whether he was gay, gay was (and still is) commonly used as an umbrella term for all queer identities.
This is especially true during Freddie’s lifetime, where most LGBTQ+ spaces weren’t labelled LGBTQ+ but “lesbian and gay”. Bisexual people often used these labels themselves as well as bisexual, and a lot of the political movements were centred around the gay and lesbian labels, which bisexual people also found themselves in. However bisexuals also often found themselves removed or unwelcome in those spaces, especially when using the label bisexual. This is an issue that has gotten better but sadly hasn’t gone away. This means that, quite clearly, Freddie is bisexual. This is often when people descend into biphobic discourse, stating that Freddie came out as bisexual to disguise his gayness, making himself more palatable to society and live an easier life.
As someone known for their flamboyant persona, with striking outfits and visuals (he even dressed up in drag in a music video), the idea that he was trying to disguise his queerness is ludicrous and being bisexual doesn’t make you less queer. Stating that his reasoning to come out as bisexual was to protect himself is nothing short of biphobia. Bisexual people do not have it any easier than lesbian or gay people.
In fact, Stonewall produced a series of reports in 2018 which touched on a variety of topics such as mental health. These statistics were split up into categories; gay, lesbian, bisexual men and bisexual women. It showed that bisexual people are more likely to self-harm, suffer from anxiety and have suicidal thoughts than their gay and lesbian counterparts. The discrepancy between bisexual people and gay and lesbian people often isn’t discussed. It is important to talk about, not as a game of who has it worse or a form of oppression olympics, but because bisexual people don’t get the support they need within LGBT+ spaces due to the biphobia.
And it is this biphobia and bi-erasure that means bisexual people are less likely to come out. In another Stonewall report, it was seen that only 14% of bisexual men were out to their whole family, compared to 59% of gay men. 46% of bi men were not out to anyone in their family, compared to 10% of gay men. The comparison between bi women and lesbians follow the same trend. Maybe this was why Freddie often avoided answering the question or restating his bisexuality to people.
When Freddie came out to Mary, she told him he was gay. This shows exactly the experience bisexual people have when coming out to loved ones. That experience may have left a mark on Freddie and made him realise that society won’t understand him. He could come out as bisexual time and again, and people will still ask for clarification. Because, even to this day, bisexuality is treated as some sort of in between state, a stepping stone, a pit stop on the way to gay town. He likely realised this, and would see it reflected in the way the media continually questioned David Bowie on his sexuality.
But what does that mean for young queer people? Is their identity not valid until they’ve had sexual experiences? Are gay people’s identity not valid until they’ve been with someone of a different gender and realised it’s not for them? Why do bisexual people have to prove their sexuality in a way that no one else does? The fact that Freddie’s experiences may have skewed towards men doesn’t mean his bisexuality is any less valid.
The idea that he is actually gay but in denial is to inject your narrative onto him. Plenty of gay people go through that journey of knowing their sexuality, but being too afraid to admit it. And it often leads to them getting involved with someone of a different gender in order to disguise their sexuality. This is an experience that many gay people go through, but this doesn’t automatically mean that that’s what Freddie went through. The insistence that he was more likely to be “gay in denial” is to place that narrative as more valid than him being bisexual, which is a biphobic take.
People may ask why all of this is so important. Apart from protecting Freddie’s life story, it is important to ensure that we do not let bi-erasure simply pass us by. It is something that happens so frequently that we find people’s whole identity erased, subsumed into either gay or straight. This means that there are no bisexual icons to look up to, which can make it that much harder for bisexual people to come out when they can’t seem themselves reflected in world around them. Just like gay men and lesbians have historical figures, bisexual people as well as others within the LGBT+ community deserve the same.
Freddie is a Bisexual, South Asian Queen. This fact needs to be remembered.
