A city council member tells Newsweek about her life and relationships in this exclusive essay.
To come out publicly as non-monogamous as an elected official—especially a queer, brown, non-binary, Muslim elected official in the South—is not a small thing. I was elected to the Atlanta City Council in December, 2021. My partners, Kris and Sarah, and I spent almost a year planning how we would come out before we did so in September, 2022.
I've always known that I was non-monogamous, and I think this is because of some of the marriages I saw growing up. Most of the people in my family were not happily married. I never wanted to be in that situation, where I was putting that much pressure on someone to be my be-all and end-all. To me, that just didn't seem sustainable.
Liliana Bakhtiari with her partners Kris and Sarah . They have been in a relationship together since 2020.Kris and Sarah are both the best partners you could ask for. I enjoy our relationship because I get to live with and love my two best friends. We can do everything from a cross-country road trip to sitting at home in complete silence, in our pajamas, watching Schitts Creek, and be completely happy.
It wasn't easy, and it wasn't fun. It took some getting used to, especially for Sarah. At political events, I would introduce them as Kris and Sarah, and it was hard not being able to say who Sarah was. I've been with Kris for almost 10 years, and she ran both of my campaigns, so people are very familiar with her. So if I was with Sarah and someone asked,"Where's Kris? Where's wifey?" or something like that, it was difficult because Sarah was right there.
We also wanted people to know about our relationship because we feel we have nothing to be ashamed of. We're super proud of our relationship. It's a completely valid way of living: it's loving, it takes a village to raise a child anyway, and it is very possible to be in love with more than one person. We want to de-stigmatize non-monogamy for other people as well. Whether you recognize it or not, many people are involved in non-monogamous relationships.
Some of my constituents wrote just to tell me how happy they were for us. A lot of people who are in monogamous, hetero relationships wrote to tell us:"I'm just happy you're happy."
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