Biphobia - Blog Posts
Internalized biphobia is a bitch
Every time there's something about "straight passing" couples being not experiencing homophobia then bi people get pushed further away from their rightful community. Also this idea that trans men can perfectly pass and gain all privelages of a cis man.
People really need to take a good look at how much emphasis they place on the supposed "privelages" that someone who appears more cis and straight or male has over other LGBT people.
"Passing" in any way is entirely conditional and can be taken away the instant something slips or a stranger scrutinizes you enough. Walking on eggshells and hoping you aren't found out and risk facing violence is not this great privelage you may think it is.
Remember the trans panic defense? That realizing a sexual partner is trans is used as a defense to murder them? So they "passed" until they didn't, and it actually led to them being killed. Passing did not protect them.
Also there's this idea that any couple that appears to be man + woman will never get clocked as queer. That they can never be queer. That bisexuals don't have the same level of queerness as a lesbian woman or a gay man. But they do. They can be flamboyant, butch, femme, anything that any other queer person can be.
Every time there's something about "straight passing" couples being not experiencing homophobia then bi people get pushed further away from their rightful community. Also this idea that trans men can perfectly pass and gain all privelages of a cis man.
People really need to take a good look at how much emphasis they place on the supposed "privelages" that someone who appears more cis and straight or male has over other LGBT people.
"Passing" in any way is entirely conditional and can be taken away the instant something slips or a stranger scrutinizes you enough. Walking on eggshells and hoping you aren't found out and risk facing violence is not this great privelage you may think it is.
Remember the trans panic defense? That realizing a sexual partner is trans is used as a defense to murder them? So they "passed" until they didn't, and it actually led to them being killed. Passing did not protect them.
Also there's this idea that any couple that appears to be man + woman will never get clocked as queer. That they can never be queer. That bisexuals don't have the same level of queerness as a lesbian woman or a gay man. But they do. They can be flamboyant, butch, femme, anything that any other queer person can be.
The Similarities Between Biphobia and Transmultiphobia
I am a multigender bisexual. Before I began to focus my efforts into transgender and multigender activism, I was BIG into bisexual activism. But, because of this, I’ve noticed something peculiar… Something that other multigenders have noticed too.
A lot of modern-day transmultiphobia (particularly those directed towards those who are both male and female) is, quite simply (and I mean this in a very literal way), repackaged biphobia from the peak of biphobic discourse.
This includes, but isn’t limited to:
The “fence-sitter” perspective. Multigenders and bisexuals are seen as sitting on the fence of the binary. We can belong in both communities (gay and straight, male and female). But because of this ability to be in both, we are not allowed into either.
This is because of us being seen as “tainted by the other gender,” or as an “invader”. Both the idea that bisexuals are less “purely” WLW or MLM than their gay counterparts, and the “men vs non-men” dichotomy that we’re seeing be put up, are evidence of this. When it comes to discussion gay and lesbian M/F multigenders, this comparison is very apt. I mean, “your association with men / women has made you unable to belong with us” is VERY on the nose.
The view that it’s “just a phase.” Both existence as a bisexual and as a multigender, from my experience, is seen as something you will go through before you “choose a side”, before you “settle down” with a real, PROPER choice. One of the two choices that you’re given, rather than both.
Making people angry because of how we make them insecure. “If this person attracted to men and women can belong in the queer community,” wonders the biphobe, “What does that mean for the state of my queerness?” And likewise, the transmultiphobe asks, “If this person is both a man and a woman, then what does that mean for my attraction?”
I believe that this is because bisexuality and multigenderism both have… “Both.” In a world, with a binary, that expects — DEMANDS — that you pick either/or, saying “both” (or, heaven forbid, “both, and…”) will always be met with extreme rejection and isolation.
Multigender and bisexual activists could learn a lot from each other. We are so often told to hide or cut off one part of ourselves in order to fit into some sort of (any sort of!) set of norms, and to conform to the male/female binary. We fuck with people’s views of sexuality and gender merely by existing, and we are nothing short of revolutionary for that reason.
We talk a lot about how it’s homophobic to tell lesbians that they need to be open to dating males.
But by focusing on on how harmful this is to lesbians, we leave bisexuals behind.
Many trans people have an attitude of “If lesbians/gay men don’t want me, at least bisexuals do.” And that’s just not true, and not fair to bisexuals. It leads to a culture of expecting bisexual women to be okay with any configuration of biological sex, hormonal status, and body parts.
Bisexuals are therefore framed as a group of women who are supposed to be available as a potential partner for anyone who wants them.
So it’s not just homophobic, it’s part of rape culture. Because it aims to teach (mostly) women that they’re not allowed to form their own feelings about their sexuality and their attraction. It teaches women that their sexuality isn’t for them. Their sexuality is a political statement, and there is a right and wrong statement to make.
The fact of the matter is that no one has to date someone they’re not attracted to. No one has to try to develop attraction for someone they’re not innately interested in. No one has to “examine their preferences” when it comes to who they want in their bed. This includes bisexuals.
Yes, women standing up for ourselves does lead to a lot of lonely mtfs who can’t get dates. No, that is not women’s problem.
This affects all of us, but it affects bisexuals in a unique way that’s worth talking more about.
This is very accurate.
assuming bi youth only experience marginalization and oppression when they’re in same gender relationships makes as much sense as assuming that gay people only experience marginalization and oppression when they’re in a relationship
it doesn’t
Hell yes to all of this.
So goddamn annoying that bi women can’t talk about our issues without some donkey insisting we are purposely pitting ourselves against lesibans and sympathizing with our “straight oppressors.”
Maybe if y’all quit calling us degrading names like breeders and handmaidens and quit telling us we deserve to be raped because of our attraction to men, or trying to remove us from lgbt spaces, and using our trauma as a means to bully and harasss us, we wouldn’t have to constantly bring this shit up.
Pointing out shitty, phobic behavior perpetuated by political lesbianism doesn’t make us the villains. You’re still a monster if you subscribe to those ideals, you’re still a biphobe. Your gold star sexuality does not exempt you.
Seriously, it is not lesbophobic to rightfully object to your identity being erased. Would it have been that hard for the person taking the pictures to call it a queer wedding, a bisexual wedding, a wlw wedding, or even a same gender wedding?
"Lesbian can be used as an adjective for wlw duh." But also "Don't you dare use lesbian if you're bi/pan!"
Heaven Forbid the bisexual brides feel their sexuality is invalidated by being known as "sword lesbians" online when they are both bisexual. Can y'all just say you hate m-spec women and go to hell?
Bisexual Men
Just a thought but bisexual men (and m-spec men in general) are:
-not gay in denial
-don’t deserve to be your scapegoats for the AIDs crisis
-valid mlm regardless of whom they date (and stop insinuating that their girlfriends are their “beards”)
-can be polyamorous
-can be asexual and still valid
-can be aromantic and still valid
-awesome in general!
Front page of North Bi Northwest (Oct/Nov, 1995)
❝ Why I Am Bisexual ❞
To add, even back in 2009, there was a push that "bisexuality is transphobic," something that was designed to both attack anyone that dared to think about science (because bisexuality is being able to be attracted to both women and men), and also to wear bisexuals down.
Even on a website where bisexuality was defended, even back in 2009 when that page was published, bisexuality as a sexuality was already massively weakened, where bisexuals were so broken down that they were already tying themselves in knots to not be seen as transphobic.
Bisexuals in general are the absolute worst at defending ourselves and our sexuality, thanks to just how prevalent biphobia is everywhere. It tends to be so much easier for bisexuals to latch onto an entirely different label to try and obfuscate the fact that they're bisexual - both to themselves and others.
What isn't talked about enough is the intersectional bigotry that bisexual women face. A bisexual woman is seen as hypersexual and is presumed to have zero boundaries, so if she dares have any then she's a lying tease who can't be raped because she always wants it, who is both the hateful, lying and homophobic straight woman looking for male attention, but also the closeted self-hating lesbian as soon as she dates a woman and needs to admit to being a lesbian already because denying it is selfish and she needs to think about other lesbians, but if she dates a man after breaking up amicably with a woman, then she suddenly and finally becomes the evil, abusive bisexual lesbophobe that preys on unsuspecting lesbians to use them and deliberately lies to use lesbian culture.
Is it any wonder that bisexuals made up a whole bunch of nonsense labels to avoid accurately being called bisexual, when there's both so much entitlement to our time and bodies purely for existing, and also so much hatred of us?
We talk a lot about how it’s homophobic to tell lesbians that they need to be open to dating males.
But by focusing on on how harmful this is to lesbians, we leave bisexuals behind.
Many trans people have an attitude of “If lesbians/gay men don’t want me, at least bisexuals do.” And that’s just not true, and not fair to bisexuals. It leads to a culture of expecting bisexual women to be okay with any configuration of biological sex, hormonal status, and body parts.
Bisexuals are therefore framed as a group of women who are supposed to be available as a potential partner for anyone who wants them.
So it’s not just homophobic, it’s part of rape culture. Because it aims to teach (mostly) women that they’re not allowed to form their own feelings about their sexuality and their attraction. It teaches women that their sexuality isn’t for them. Their sexuality is a political statement, and there is a right and wrong statement to make.
The fact of the matter is that no one has to date someone they’re not attracted to. No one has to try to develop attraction for someone they’re not innately interested in. No one has to “examine their preferences” when it comes to who they want in their bed. This includes bisexuals.
Yes, women standing up for ourselves does lead to a lot of lonely mtfs who can’t get dates. No, that is not women’s problem.
This affects all of us, but it affects bisexuals in a unique way that’s worth talking more about.
Calling a canon bisexual woman a lesbian becuase she has a female love interest or is in a wlw relationship is bisexual erasure and biphobic!!!!
Edit:
And ra/df/ems :)
The ideas of "some girls are just too good to be with men" and "if a bi-girl chose you [a man] over all the girls it's a real love" as toxic as imposed cis-/heterosexuality
And I'm tired of pretending it's not
biphobes are like "It's disgustingly misogynistic to base a woman's entire identity around men/her relationship with a man and assume that all things she does is for men and that she has zero identity outside of the men around her. but it's perfectly fine to do that to bi women of course ❤️"
I'm not gonna lie I'm not really a fan of when people who aren't bi make slutty bisexual jokes unless it's with friends who they're comfortable with like that is. a thing that we are stereotyped for and it is actually a thing that makes people hate us and puts us in danger. so.
I’m not ace myself, so I’m coming at the whole acephobia thing from an outsider’s perspective, and as such, it’s not my place to speak to the experience of those on the receiving end of it.
However, as a bisexual dude, I can observe that many of the arguments that are employed to establish that ace folks have no place in the queer community are strikingly similar - indeed, at times practically word-for-word identical - to the arguments that were for many years (and in some circles still are) employed to establish that bisexual folks have no place in the queer community.
It’s enough to make a guy suspicious on general principle, you know?
also stated that it’s ’less a bi woman makes a relationship queer, and more a straight man makes the relationship straight’
so (not @ OP) that's fucking gross and frankly misogynistic as hell; it also goes back to how often bi women are seen not even just as conscious perpetrators/enablers but simply inherent extensions of men. like that's basic level textbook misogyny, to see an average couple that can be safely assumed to have an equal partnership and decide the man's legacy has more power & worth somehow, and it couldn't be more obvious.
I saw a post from someone who was talking about how lesbians and bisexual sapphics have differences in what they are, not what they do, for example both lesbians and bisexual sapphics dating women and other sapphics is something we do together, but they then went on to talk about how a bi woman in a relationship with a straight man is not as queer as sapphics who are living within ‘queer relationships’
and while it is true to a degree that society has differences in how they treat and react to different types of relationships but i have to wonder, do you guys think that cis bi woman in relationships with straight men cannot have a meaningful and DISGUSTINGLY queer life (/pos) simply bc of their proximity to a straight man???
do you think these bi women cannot go out and participate in queer culture without their man?? do you think that bi woman are chained into the position of lesser queer bc they have a straight male for a partner??? do you think that they cannot contribute to the health and well-being of queer communities??
the person who posted the original post which got me thinking about this also stated that it’s ’less a bi woman makes a relationship queer, and more a straight man makes the relationship straight’ and i cannot tell you how fucking upsetting it is to see the resurgence of this rhetoric, bc this is what gets bi women abused and killed.
our oppression as the bisexual community is not hinged or limited to who we fucking date or how we present to society and i’m so tired of people assuming our queerness based on the gender and orientation of our partners.
Recently I’ve been thinking about different components of sexual orientation, and how it is effectively formed of both internal identity and external behaviour. It’s interesting that, without a detailed conversation with other individuals, we can only assume their orientation and identity on the basis of their external behaviour, which is all that is visible to us.
For example, if someone is in a long term, committed, monogamous relationship with a member of the opposite sex, they are assumed to be straight, and their behaviour is interpreted as representative of heterosexuality. But they might be bisexual. If someone is in a long term, committed, monogamous relationship with a member of the same sex, they are assumed to be gay/lesbian, and their behaviour is interpreted as representative of homosexuality. But they might be bisexual.
In this context, what external behaviour could someone exhibit that would lead to the assumption they were bisexual, and therefore that their behaviour is representative of bisexuality? They’d have to be engaging with the same sex and the opposite sex more or less simultaneously in order not to be assumed to be straight or gay/lesbian. How might that work?
They could be having regular sex with multiple people of both sexes (bisexuals are promiscuous, bisexuals are easy, bisexuals are sluts). They could be having multiple concurrent and short term relationships with people of both sexes (bisexuals can’t commit, bisexuals will leave you for a member of the other sex). They could be having sex with people of both sexes at the same time (bisexuals are kinky, bisexuals have group sex, bisexuals want to have threesomes all the time). They could have a committed relationship with a member of one sex, and affairs with members of the other sex (bisexuals CHEAT). They could be non-monogamous and having various relationships with members of both sexes (bisexuals can’t be satisfied with just one person).
So. In order for other people to recognise you as a bisexual person, you have to be engaging in some form of stigmatised and nonconforming sexual activity, all of which just happen to be typical stereotypes about bisexuality. The only way to be perceived as a bisexual person is to conform with bisexual stereotypes. A bisexual person who doesn’t conform to a single bisexual stereotype cannot be perceived as a bisexual person, and therefore cannot disprove or undermine those stereotypes in the mind of the person perceiving them. Because if they don’t conform to a single bisexual stereotype, they are perceived as heterosexual/homosexual, and their nice, conforming, virtuous behaviour is ascribed to that perceived monosexual identity. Even if they had previously exhibited bisexual behaviour (bisexuality is just a phase, they’ll eventually pick a side).
Alternatively, they could verbally assert their identity regularly enough to offset the assumptions others make on the basis of their behaviour (bisexuals are self-obsessed).
There is no way of being consistently perceived as a bisexual person, in the current landscape, without reinforcing bisexual stereotypes in the minds of those perceiving you, because if you don’t align with and reinforce those stereotypes you are unperceivable as a bisexual person.
Controversal opinion, I don't think it's really ever appropriate for people to theorize about groups they're not apart of.
That's how you get things like "non binary people aren't oppressed" and "trans men are exactly like cis men in every way and therefore have male privilege" and "asexuals aren't LGBT" and "bisexuals have straight privilege" like maybe like, include the group you're theorizing about to talk about their experiences because it always ends up exclusionary otherwise.
The other side of the token of the repost yesterday (the "Why bother write characters in heteronormative relationships?" One). This was created by one of my favourite bi content creators on YouTube. I don't agree with every single detail, but I agree on the essence.
Controversial take (that shouldn't be so controversial)
OK, this applies to average people/normies, celebs and sometimes fictional characters alike (I debate these latter ones in a different manner). You know, sometimes I suspect someone is bi, but if I find out they are/identify as gay (or even straight, but this is less frequent), I just say "Oops, OK," shrug and move on. If it's someone I like, I don't stop liking them. But when someone shows queerness and I -and others- suspect them as bisexual (or multiple gender attracted), some people get angry, offended even. They just read "heterosexual" when multiple genders attraction also include queerness; homosexual (and scoliosexual) attractions; the possibility of preference for similar genders/same sex and/or the other possibility of ending up in the queer pairing you can feel represented by. It's as if some people feel threatened or discredited by someone identifying as bi/pan/queer; or use no labels but acknowledge or at least seemingly show attractions to different genders. As a bi woman, I have had past relationships with women and I feel happy when another woman in a same-gender relationship identifies as Multiple-gender attracted. That might be why it bothers me when people who insist these women are "gay all along and lying" get mad at me for the mere pointing out at them talking about their bisexuality. And as a normie example, I have a friend who after a lifetime of dating men she ended up marrying a woman and for her, while comphet affected her in the way it affects all women, it never affected her in the way it affects lesbians. Her attractions and love for these men were genuine to her.
Also, it seems that nowadays some people in Social Media seem to get a pass to men who had girlfriends or casual sex with women as long as they identify or are perceived as gay. Granted, some gay identified men do that for a variety of reasons, but how about those who make obvious their attraction to women as well as men, and acknowledge attractions? I have also come to the conclusion that how you identify your sexuality might be a personal thing. I know people who identify as gay because they are not attracted to all genders equally; or they base it on who they prefer to have romantic relationships with. And there are people in these same situations who identify as bi/pan/queer... And that seems to offend those who identify as gay. Maybe take a closer look and see what their reasons are? Same with bisexuals being offended at someone who identify as pansexual. Or viceversa. Maybe there are particular reasons for each to identify the way they do? Sometimes I admit I struggle with that, or with Multiple gender attracted people who choose not to label themselves, but I don't let that bother me. I'd rather live and let live and listen to individual experiences. Anyways... I am just pondering as I go.
Bi women aren’t secretly straight. Bi men aren’t secretly gay.
the things that a lot of y’all assume are “lesbian only” feelings and experiences and tag with “non-lesbians don’t touch” rlly reveals a lot of assumptions u have abt what bi women feel and experience. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, lesbians and bi women have far more in common with each other than not, and the differences should not be defined without input from bi women themselves
Reclaimed Trope Flags
Depraved Bisexual
A flag for bisexuals who reclaim the Depraved Bisexual trope.
Alluring Intersex
A flag for intersex folks who reclaim the Intersex Allure trope.
what does febfem mean?
@bai-xue-lives and @prismatic-bell both asked me the same question, so here goes nuffink
Febfem: On Bisexual Radfems, Facts Don’t Care About Feelings, and Lesbians Essentialism
Radical feminists describe ‘febfem’ as a bisexual female* who, by choice. exclusively dates females. It arose out of a specific subset of radfem tumblr, which holds some ideas about gender, sexuality, and identity to be self-evident. these facts include:
lesbian refers exclusively to homosexual females. words like bisexual and lesbian are not identities but statements of fact. any person who self-identifies as a lesbian must be a female homosexual. if you’re not a female homosexual for any reason (you’ve dated men in the past, you were assigned male at birth, you’re bisexual but only date women) then you cannot be a lesbian. you need other words.
females who are exclusively attracted to females are the most oppressed group. everybody else needs to protect them; their terminology, and their spaces. they are inviolate. an attack upon them is the greatest crime. bisexual women are their oppressors because bi women benefit from heterosexuality (what these benefits are is unclear)
lesbians are allowed to call bisexual women anything they want, including slurs like cockslut, bihet, handmaiden, etc. a lesbian referring to bi women using these slurs is venting about her trauma at the hands of her bisexual oppressors and is above question or reproach. bisexual women are not allowed to vent about their trauma at the hands of lesbians because they have privilege over lesbians and it would be lesbophobic.
bisexual women are untrustworthy rapists who want to invade lesbian only spaces and abuse lesbians. [please note that in this case, “bisexual women” also refers to trans-inclusive lesbians.] all bisexual women are untrustworthy, cheating cocksluts until proven otherwise.
Bisexual radfems who want to have access to spaces that keep them safe and people who don’t treat them like cocksluts who are only waiting to cheat on the nearest lesbian, must find some way to signal their virtuosity. “Look at us!” They say. “We’re good bisexuals, unlike these other bihet handmaidens. Please allow us into your safe spaces, and make room for us in your rhetoric. We promise to hate ourselves for being attracted to men, constantly apologise for oppressing lesbians, and allow lesbians to target and bully us whenever they like. Look, to make it easy for lesbian radfems to tell when a bisexual is one of the Good Ones, we’ll put this handy word that we just made up - Febfem - in our bios, so you know precisely how to find us.”
It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for them. If you go through the febfem tag on tumblr, a lot of posts talk about the importance of not talking over lesbians, not infringing on lesbian-only spaces, and not appropriating lesbian terminology, and reiterating constantly that lesbians don’t owe bi women anything (Just be grateful they didn’t call you an abusive slut today!). Of course, all this ground is won at the cost of bisexual women who aren’t female-exclusive, trans-inclusive lesbians, and trans lesbians. So I don’t really feel sorry for them. Except when I do, cause hyperempathy is a bitch that way.
also, they hate mogai tumblr even though they’re literally the radfem version of mogais
*Note: I use female when talking about AFABs (as radfems use female) and women when talking about people who identify as women regardless of AGAB.
sorry, and i mean this lightheartedly, but the article title is so fucking funny out of context bc of the wording of “use” instead of “reclaim”
use this reaction image when ur bi bestie starts making jokes and it makes u biphobic 🫵🤨 /j
Bi Dykes have my whole heart + check out this amazing article I read explaining bi sapphic’s (aka selenic’s) reclamation of the slur dyke!
a snippet from the article I adore :3
We have a language philosophy who focuses on slur reclamation on our side. Twitter biphobes who insist selenics can’t reclaim dyke have like no research on their side <3
we have reached a new level of hatred for bi women even i thought unimaginable. you're criticizing fascist cops? yeah well, you like bi women and that's obviously more harmful. gotcha!
like, i haven't even watched TLOK so maybe there's something i'm missing about a certain aspect of their relationship (i honestly don't know, maybe @bisexual-coala could confirm), but instead of choosing to point out something that might be legitimately problematic, your discomfort is with bisexuality...
and as one of my twitter mutuals pointed out, this is one of the few times i've seen korassami not get erased as lesbians ─ because now it's apparently bad to like them instead of the actual les4les couple*!
don't ever tell us prejudice towards bisexuals always has a reasonable, founded basis again. 🖕
*this is not me sharing my opinion on caitvi or claiming you should(n't) like them. however, it's usually a good idea to be critical of certain elements in media.