{"id":1473,"date":"2022-06-06T05:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T05:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/?p=1473"},"modified":"2022-06-06T13:46:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T13:46:15","slug":"ayse-zeynep-kamis-undergraduate-department-of-bioengineering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/2022\/06\/06\/ayse-zeynep-kamis-undergraduate-department-of-bioengineering\/","title":{"rendered":"Ay\u015fe Zeynep Kam\u0131\u015f, Undergraduate, Department of Bioengineering\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h3>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been empowered to be proud of my sexual identity because of Imperial.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Part of <\/span>Shifting the Lens: A celebration of cultural diversity at Imperial<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As well as my Turkish culture, being bisexual is also an important part of my identity. I came out after I moved to London to study at Imperial. I\u2019ve been empowered to be proud of my sexual identity because of Imperial. In Turkey, it was always assumed that I was heterosexual. It was never an option to be anything else. You are an outlier if you’re openly gay in Turkey unless you are in a safe community.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I discovered I was bisexual, I used to blame myself. I would think: “Maybe you’re trying to make yourself more interesting?” But it’s just something that you are. Coming to London, I saw how sensitive people are and how they embrace different identities and celebrate them. So I thought, if I\u2019m living here, I will embrace myself for who I am.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My brother was the first person I came out to. We were on the beach and I told him: “I might be bisexual.” And his response was, “Well, good for you!”\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel I can be myself in London. I really enjoy playing football, and our football club is quite queer, which I absolutely love. I play for the Imperial women\u2019s 2nd team as a centre back. It\u2019s a safe space and no one cares if you\u2019re bi, straight or gay. They\u2019re such a nice community. We all wear rainbow laces on our football boots.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read Ay\u015fe\u2019s full profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ve been empowered to be proud of my sexual identity because of Imperial.\u201d Part of Shifting the Lens: A celebration of cultural diversity at Imperial\u00a0 As well as my Turkish culture, being bisexual is also an important part of my identity. I came out after I moved to London to study at Imperial. I\u2019ve been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1013,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}