posi-pan

[posi-pan]

yungblud recently discussed his pansexuality 💗💛💙

“i am the pan man — i’m the fucking saucepan,’ the 27-year-old told us. “because it’s the [label] that allows me to be who i am; it’s the one with the most room for manoeuvre. do you know what i’m saying? i do feel like i am less insecure about it.” the star furthermore addressed discourse around his sexual orientation, calling it a “fucking simmering pan” and adding “the hardest thing [is] to have my authenticity questioned, because i’ve only ever been myself.”

[posi-pan]

jojo siwa has discussed her sexuality recently and said she's pansexual! 💗💛💙

“when i first came out, i identified my sexuality as pansexual. then over time, i thought maybe more bisexual, and then over time, i thought maybe more lesbian, and over time, i thought maybe pansexual. i realized maybe a year ago that i am definitely not lesbian, i’m definitely pansexual, but i just wasn’t open about that yet again.”

(jojo has also recently said she's queer!!)

sexuality is fluid for a lot of people, and that is even more true for the labels we use for our sexuality. there is nothing wrong or harmful about someone who at one point came out as x label coming out again as y label. it’s worth interrogating honestly why when jojo went from identifying as pansexual to lesbian, no one cared, but when she went from lesbian to queer/pansexual, people had an issue.

we need to allow queer people the space to grow and change and discover themselves, we shouldn’t be prioritizing our desire for iconic representation or perfect spokespeople over genuine, honest self-discovery and expression.

[posi-pan]

pan headcanons → demipanromantic asexual derek hale

[posi-pan]

hi, i genuinely mean this in a nice way—why is the borrow a boyfriend club by page powars on your pan representation list? the author has stated that both main characters are bisexual:

https://x.com/pagepowars/status/1743705123572879586

hi, the author has also stated a few years back that that book was one of two upcoming books that have a pan main character. i only add characters to the pan rep list that are confirmed in the source material or that i've seen the creators describe as pan. sources are also provided for anyone curious or doubting a character's place on the list.

[posi-pan]

you are still pansexual if you...

are in a different gender relationship

have a preference for different gender relationships

have only ever been in different gender relationships

are in a same gender relationship

have a preference for same gender relationships

have only ever been in same gender relationships

have never been in a relationship

never want to be in a relationship

don’t describe your relationships based on gender

don’t feel your gender neatly fits the same/different binary

and you belong in queer and pride spaces! 💗💛💙

[posi-pan]

Since it’s now officially Pride Month, here’s some reminders for y'all:

If you’re “neutral” on ace/aro discourse, you’re on the side of ace/aro exclusionists.

If you’re “neutral” on trans and nonbinary discourse, you’re on the side of transmeds/truscum, TERFs, and other trans-exclusionary people.

If you’re “neutral” on pan discourse, you’re on the side of pan exclusionists.

If you’re “neutral” on queer discourse, you’re on the side of queer exclusionists.

If you’re “neutral” on any discourse about whether or not a gender identity, sexual orientation, or romantic orientation is real, valid, and part of the LGBTQ+ community, you’re on the side of the oppressor.

You either believe these identities are part of this community, which, historically-speaking, they are, or you don’t.

You can think and say discourse on these identities is “stupid” or “pointless” or whatever else all you want, but to the people who consistently have their identities debated, it’s not stupid. It’s not pointless. It matters to them, and it matters to those who support them. Thinking and saying stuff like that only further invalidates those people, tears them down and hurts them, and creates an even bigger divide in this community, in their community, in our community!!

It’s Pride Month! This is our time to celebrate our identities, to be proud of who we are as members of the LGBTQ+ community!! This is not the time to alienate and invalidate your fellow community members. By doing so, you’re blatantly denying queer history, our history. So please, keep your gatekeeping to yourself. Let us be proud of who we are! Our queer elders fought for our rights to be treated equally, to be seen, to be recognized, to be accepted, to be validated. They didn’t fight for y'all to go around hurting other members of this community because you refuse to accept them for their LGBTQ+ identities. By doing this, you’re basically slapping our queer elders in the face, and for that, you should be ashamed.

This is our month. We are here, we are queer, and we will not be erased!!!

[posi-pan]

lily gladstone calls themself pansexual, among other labels 💗💛💙

gladstone calls herself queer, pansexual and straight. “i can’t put a label on it,” she says. “one of the big things that tipped me to my queerness is i don’t have the draw to motherhood the way a lot of women have. there was a period of my life when i thought i might be asexual because i had no sexual attraction to anybody. i had a romantic attraction to everybody but no sexual desire. then the word demisexual came into play, where it’s, like, i don’t feel sexual stirring at all unless i actually care about this person, no matter who they are.”

[posi-pan]

pansexual-specific research 📑

what better day to highlight the (very small pool of) research that specifically takes a look at pansexual people, identity, and experiences than pan visibility day?

specific to pansexuality:

Gonel, Ayisigi Hale. “Pansexual Identification in Online Communities A Queer Sociological Study on Sexual Identification.” Lund University, 2011. (pansexual author)

Gonel, Ayisigi Hale. “Pansexual Identification in Online Communities: Employing a Collaborative Queer Method to Study Pansexuality.” Graduate Journal of Social Science, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2013. (pansexual author)

Belous, Christopher K. and Melissa L. Bauman. “What’s in a Name? Exploring Pansexuality Online.” Journal of Bisexuality, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2016.

Green, Ashley. “‘By Definition They’re Not the Same Thing’: Analyzing Methods of Meaning Making for Pansexual Individuals.” Expanding the Rainbow: Exploring the Relationships of Bi+, Polyamorous, Kinky, Ace, Intersex, and Trans People edited by Brandy L. Simula, J.E. Sumerau, and Andrea Miller, 2019.

Hayfield, Nikki and Karolína Křížová. “It’s Like Bisexuality, but It Isn’t: Pansexual and Panromantic People’s Understandings of Their Identities and Experiences of Becoming Educated about Gender and Sexuality.” Journal of Bisexuality, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2021. (pansexual co-author)

Haylock, Charlotte. “‘Obviously People Haven’t Heard of Being Pansexual’ Pansexual Peoples’ Experiences of Pansexuality: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.” London Metropolitan University, 2021.

Peña, Brisa and Eman Tadros. “Exploring Clinicians’ Knowledge, Beliefs and Clinical Experiences Related to Pansexual Youth.” Journal of Bisexuality, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2021.

Pismenny, Arina. “Pansexuality: A Closer Look at Sexual Orientation.” Philosophies, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2023.

Harvey, Emily and Keely Abbott and Samuel Parker and Mariel Marcano-Olivier. “‘Context and Safety Are Everything’”: Exploring How Pansexual Individuals Mark and Express Their Identity.” Journal of Bisexuality, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2024. (pansexual lead author)

pansexuality in relation to or in conjunction with a single other identity, such as queer or bisexual:

Flanders, Corey E. and Marianne E. LeBreton and Margaret Robinson and Jing Bian and Jaime Alonso Caravaca-Morera. “Defining Bisexuality: Young Bisexual and Pansexual People’s Voices.” Journal of Bisexuality, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2016. (these pansexuals also identify as bi, as identifying as bi was part of the inclusion criteria)

Morandini, James S. and Alexander Blaszczynski and Ilan Dar-Nimrod. “Who Adopts Queer and Pansexual Sexual Identities?” The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 54, No. 7, 2016.

Greaves, Lara M. and Chris G. Sibley and Gloria Fraser and Fiona Kate Barlow. “Comparing Pansexual- and Bisexual-Identified Participants on Demographics, Psychological Well-Being, and Political Ideology in a New Zealand National Sample.” The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 56, No. 9, 2019.

Galupo, M. Paz. “Mental Health for Individuals with Pansexual and Queer Identities.” The Oxford Handbook of Sexual and Gender Minority Mental Health edited by Esther D. Rothblum. Oxford University Press, 2020.

i haven’t read all of these yet, but i look forward to it! if anyone knows of pansexual-specific/focused research that isn’t listed here, please let me know!!!

[posi-pan]

Happy Pan Visibility Day!!! Thank you so much for your consistent effort and time spent running this blog, it really is a bright spot in my world and I'm so glad these resources exist for us. You're a gem <3

aw this is so sweet, thank you!!!! i love running the blog and putting together resources, so i'm so happy it means something to you. happy pan visibility day 💛💛

[posi-pan]

PS just wanted to let you know, the first link on this page of the Inclusion tab of your Pan Stats carrd is dead, it goes to a 404. The PDF is archived on the Wayback Machine if you want to replace it with that. I'd link it but tumblr won't let me :<

thanks for letting me know!!! 💕

[posi-pan]

happy pan visibility day to you beautiful, inspiring pan folks!!! i love y'all and hope today treats you well!!! 💗💛💙

(obligatory reminder that i have some resources where you can learn some pan history, find some pan representation, and discover pan statistics/research!!!)

[posi-pan]

happy pan visibility day!! 💗💛💙

anyone who identifies as pan in some way, on its own or in addition to other labels, all the time or only sometimes, for your attraction or gender, today is for you.

on days like this, i urge everyone to take the time to learn actual pansexual history. if you don’t know where to start doing so, check out my detailed (but non-exhaustive) timeline of pansexual history.

pan people deserve so much better. we deserve to be taken into account and included in things that concern us. we deserve to be treated with the same kind of respect that others get. we deserve support, understanding, love, and fair treatment.

anyways, i hope all pan people are having a lovely day and i hope all non-pan people are treating pan folks well. be kind to yourself and others. 🌈💕

[posi-pan]

tanner adell has come out as pansexual! 💗💛💙

during our conversation, adell confirms, “yes. i’m pansexual.” she has alluded to her sexuality in her music, and fans really began to take notice in “strawberry crush.” “it’s funny when people ask me my sexual orientation, but i feel like you should be able to hear that in my music,” she says. “there’s more of that coming.” and the community is certainly showing up for adell! “when i have shows, the gays bring it,” she gushes. “the gays bring it every time. there’s so many assless chaps, and that's exactly that’s exactly what i dreamed of, you know?”

[posi-pan]

Anon needs to get on the level of "using whatever label pisses off the person they're talking to the most," it's severely underrated and incredibly funny. I highly recommend; there's nothing more satisfying than making a guess based on a person's vibes, telling them you identify as pansexual, and them then responding with "I think that label's actually pretty pretentious," it's truly glorious.

that's petty as hell and i admire it

[posi-pan]

aromantic pansexual fairy girl

[posi-pan]

Is it pan phobia or internalized pan phobia if I feel like I should just label myself as bi because of the history? I know pan has history as well though.

I just feel like I’d be more respected online calling myself bi? Because of pan misconceptions

i'd argue it could be internalized panphobia if you're feeling like you shouldn't identify as pan, even though you feel you are pan, because of how people (read: panphobes) might perceive you. it's worth remembering that not using a label isn't a disrespect to its history. labels are about us and how we feel and how we want to express ourselves.

your label is your choice and ultimately, you shouldn't feel bad about it. even if you avoid the pan label because you don't want to deal with panphobia, that's your right and maybe it's what you need at the moment and maybe you'll come to change your mind down the line when you become more comfortable and secure in being pan, or maybe you'll even grow into truly identifying with the bi label. who knows.

labels are messy and complicated and deeply personal. just go with what feels right for you in the moment. but i will say that if your only hesitation about using the pan label is about experiencing panphobia (rather than questioning if you're pan), then please know that there is nothing wrong or bad about identifying as pan, and that there will always be people who will have an issue with something and misconceptions will always exist about everything, so trying to live your life appeasing them is never ending and not worth it. there is a whole community of people, pan and not pan, who love and support pan people and they definitely outweigh panphobes in both quantity and importance.

[posi-pan]

very interesting read! and so many good points made!!! i love when people talk about the parallels between pansexuality and queer. it’s such a fascinating conceptualization of pansexuality as an anti-identity or anti-label that defies categorization, definition, binaries, and normative and conservative understandings of and restrictions on sexuality and gender. pansexuality is always dismissed as being “bisexuality for people who want to be different,” so it’s nice to see deeper and more nuanced looks at it that actually take it seriously, just like texts (be it academic articles or essays published in books or blog posts) do with other queer identities.

i’m kind of blown away by the insistence that the only way to conceptualize pansexuality is a subset of bisexuality (or “bi+”), and i think it’s due to a misunderstanding of what pansexuality is.

bisexuality is used primarily as an orientation identity, conceptualized in alignment with lesbian and gay identities, as a simple description of the gender(s) one has the capacity to be attracted to; all of which of course implicitly includes trans women, trans men, and various people with nonbinary genders.

pansexuality, however, isn’t quite following this pattern - it’s conceptualized as politically centering trans and nonbinary identities, and explicitly takes the desirability of trans and nonbinary people as a given. it also de-centers gender as a primary metric for attraction, and explicitly disregards the gender binary altogether in regards to both the subject and the object of the attraction being described. pansexuality essentially makes no attempt to fit in with the pre-existing frameworks of “gender A attraction to gender A”, “gender B attraction to gender B”, and “attraction to genders A & B”. in many ways it has more in common with the queer label than it does the bi label, as it can function similarly as an anti-label signaling political affiliations over acting as sexual taxonomy. no surprise then that it is growing in popularity among young trans and nonbinary people who seem more comfortable outside of traditional structures and categories.

of course trans bi people, trans lesbians, and trans gay men have always been in these communities, and have been partners to cis bi people. myriad people of various nonbinary identities have found places for themselves within the L/G/B framework as well. bisexuality also updated its definition to include “attraction to same & different genders”, to be more accommodating of expanding understandings of gender. and that’s certainly a commendable development that came about due to the insights and activism of a great many bi people who always conceived of themselves and their attractions as transcending binaries, despite working within the pre-existing gender-centered framework. pansexuality also emerged in part to meet the needs of people who were always uncomfortable with that earlier framework and for people who simply don’t consider gender to be at all relevant in terms of who is or isn’t attractive and desirable to them. in this regard it does overlap quite a bit with more modern and inclusive understandings of bisexuality.

but it also very clearly was developed as a refuge from the cissexism that has beleaguered the bi community since it began to coalesce. just as sapphic bi women were pushed out of lesbian spaces due to lesbian separatism, many trans, nonbinary and intersex plurisexual people have been systematically pushed out of the predominantly cis bi community by transphobic hostility and fetishization. even though aggressively transphobic bi people are very much the minority today, it is still not at all unusual to encounter many bi people who define their attraction as strictly “attraction to men and women”, “attraction to both genders”, or even specifically “attraction to males and females (of any gender)”.

if the point of these labels is to communicate effectively and join together similar people in a shared identity, then insisting that

bi people who are statistically mostly cis, who may or may not date or even personally know a trans person, and may conceive of their bisexuality as a simple description of attraction to “both” genders/sexes, and

pansexual people who are explicitly into trans people and usually trans themselves, and may conceive of their pansexuality as a kind of political anti-label, somewhat analogous to queer

… are part of the exact same community, with the same goals and needs, and are best considered cohesively as part of a “bi umbrella”, doesn’t make much sense. the idea that it’s “internalized biphobia” that keeps pansexuals from wanting to be called bi is about as offensive as calling it “internalized lesbophobia” when a bi woman in a relationship with another woman doesn’t want to have her bisexuality erased. the treatment of pansexuals as simultaneously interlopers who simply don’t understand our own identity, and traitors whose existence threatens all bisexuals, is a familiar dynamic. to then see pansexuals collectively accused of fueling any separatism and discord within the bi community is especially bleak.

if sexual identities are not bound to the circumstances of individual relationships, if they are more about describing a holistic identity that encompasses not just a clinical categorization of sexual interest and behavior but also cultural and political orientation, then it doesn’t make sense to refer to pansexuality as an orientation “microlabel” to be strictly subsumed and held within or under bisexuality, rather than an emerging identity in its own right with very intentional queer political connotations.