#including ppl that aren't either that aren't comfortable being included in lesbian or gay attraction

[pansyfemme]

i love that post about your parents. i'm not "straight passing" either. the concept of "straight passing privilege" is so insidious... like sorry but actively hiding my bisexuality is not a privilege! privilege is EASY. it's something handed to you. you're not supposed to fight to maintain it. bisexuals forced to suppress themselves and deny their self expression and censor themselves to appear straight is a difficult burden to bear. how can people say that's a privilege? great post, makes me emotional every time it crosses my dash.

ive been typing and retyping a response since i got this ask but genuinly thank you, i always love to hear that ppl enjoy the subject of my posts. at the time i was just. really frustrated with a lot of the rhetoric i was hearing about bisexuality, in particular like. on tiktok from other queer kids my age. To me, it never rlly made sense the idea of inherit privlage from being bisexual, bc like. when i ask my dad about it, who is 62 now and has known he was bi since he was a teenager, he tells me very honestly about his expereinces. experiences i feel so deeply connected to myself, even as someone who's not bi. Growing up with adult queer role models, i ended up feeling a lot more connected with expereinces that aren't identical to my own than i think a lot of other kids do. I relate a lot to, for example, my dad's story about the first time he danced with a guy. He was in colllege in boston, a punk band that i still listen to with him to this day were playing an impromptu show in a dining hall. My dad didn;t want to dance, but the guy who asked him was cute, and he didn't know how to explain that yes, he would like to hang out but not dance in a few words- so they danced. even as someone with a very small list of romantic experiences, someone who wasn't able to expereince boyhood until after puberty, and even just being someone who lives in a signifigantly different time and social climate- i still stick with that story, i still relate to it. Something i really hate about the online culture in queerness these days is this idea of total seperation of identity. I do, truthfully believe that yes, there should be spaces for different identites to dicuss only amongst themselves- god knows that every time i see a place for only trans ppl i jump at the oppritunity- but i also think that allowing yourself to dicuss amongst ppl with differing experiences is equally as valuable. ive noticed that a lot of other young gay trans men like me, especially on other socials like tiktok have this like. weird idea in their heads that they CANNOT and WILL NOT relate to anyone who is or is even attracted to women. and its like. i mean, most of these guys r freshly out and really afraid of being labeled as a woman but i think its a good example of how limiting that kind of cross identiy conversation because you believe that no one else can possibly understand ever leads to a really warped idea of how things work- and in this case, straight up homophobic and misogynistic. sorry to go on a tangent there but thats one of my biggest examples i can think of rn..

Like. in short, idenitiy is a blur. gay experiences can be trans experiences can be bi experiences can be lesbian expereinces,.. etc. i don't feel comfortable saying that bi people have an inherit privilage when theres infinate reasons that could or could not make that true for that particular person. It's simply not accounting for the wide variety of bisexual experiences out there. 'Straightpassing' as a term has always bothered me because of its non-specificity. straightpassing as like, cispassing? in that way, i would say that any couple who appears to be straight to the average person is straightpassing, which can, in fact include same gender relationships, since gender and sexuality can't be accuratly assessed by looks alone. but i know saying that, someone will be like, nonono, only m/f relationships can be straightpassing, in which i ask, okay. so is it really straightpassing, or can we just say m/f relationship. can we just say that, bc like. using the term straightpassing about every m/f relationship makes another assumption- that the parties involved in the relationship are both presenting in ways that are typically seen as gender conforming amongst other things. yeah, there are abolutly couples involving bi people that, without the bi person being out, will never be seen as anything other than a cisgender heterosexual relationship- but saying that bisexuals as a whole have some emcompasing privlage because of the possiblity of being in one type of relationship out of the infinate kinds they could be in is kinda. misinformative.

the idea that a bi person is treated better than a gay person is so far from universally true that i really don't get the argument. yes, there are people who it matters to greatly that someone is bi rather than gay, those people exist. but i can also say, that for a lot of homophobic people, when a man is attracted to men for example, the issue isn't really is if he's also attracted to women- its that inital attraction to men that is the bigger issue. there are people who prefer bi people over gay people, yes. there are a lot of different types of homophobia out there. i just, really really don't think its as simplified as people think.

if anyone tries to claim to me ever that something about a queer identity is always true and definined.. im gonna doubt it. it's just not that easy to say that every bi person experiences things this way or every lesbian experiences things that way.. its just not true. queerness is almost always part of an intersection of idenity- its not really fair to say something is inherinitly true when the labels of queer idenity aren't even rigidly defined. a lot of people belive that bi has a strict and unchanging defintion- and a lot of those strict and unchanging definitions are different from eachother. the language exists as a way to connect common ideas- the term was created because there was a need for it. it doesn't however, need people to see it exactly the same way for people to make sense of it for themselves. i think the term 'umbrella term' is a good one, but i'd argue that most terms work in a similar way- they emcompass a variety of experiences. sometimes, even people who share the same "strict" definition unknowingly have major differences in how they interpret it- the term and the language is not advanced to the point where we can read eachothers minds and 'prove' that we are queer enough. i think it's just like. cool man, like its cool to be able to share experiences, to have community with eachother.

im glad you liked my post, it was sweet of you to say hi. well wishes

[teddiebearie]

honestly it is so blatant that a lot of people boil down nb identities to just being man lite or woman lite

[loveisbraveandwild]

Okay thanks. I cant help that I'm not really romantically attracted to girls so I feel like I cant really call myself bi either even though the definition is being attracted to both boys and girls which I am. Its confusing that there's so many rules..and I guess I cant blame people but it really does make me feel less gay so I feel like I'm not allowed to even try to hook up or anything..without saying I'm using them for fetish or something. Someone called me lesbophobic in the replies and I'm not really sure why? I dont mean to be like that and this has been a problem before and I feel like people like me aren't accepted in the community a lot of the time. For me it would depend on the person too..like I haven't dated girls or boys in general..so I'm not totally against it if it happened but I live with my slightly homophobic brother or parents and probably will for a while and I'm already 25..I guess I should just wait longer..I really dont know. Sorry to talk about my problems but it's not like im still figuring out or uncomfortable with my sexuality which someone else accused me of..its just the situation.

the lesbophobic part she was likely referring to was “I feel like lesbians always have a certain idea of this and think they're superior lol” which also read as a bit lesbophobic to me. u dont have to subscribe to any labels ur not comfortable with. i also dont really think it has to be that complicated, just be honest with the people you talk to. u can talk to boys, girls, and trans folks and do whatever u want as long as it’s consensual. also theres no rush, i know it feels like that sometimes but like living at home is great, not having a label and experimenting with labels is great. u wouldnt be lying to anyone if you called urself bisexual, but also like pan, queer, gay are all labels that exist to include more ppl. experimenting with different types of attraction is also great ya know