#people don’t seem to recognise biphobia as an actual thing

[fakeshibe]

opened twitter today and literally half of the posts on my timeline were biphobia, which just kinda sucks to have the first thing you see on twitter that day be people who don’t even know me telling me i’m wrong about my own sexuality, or saying im not bi im just in denial about comp-het or blaming bi people for the biphobia they face and invalidating the homophobia they face because ‘you can just chose to be in a straight passing relationship’ 🫠

which… that’s really not how it works lol, like bisexuality doesn’t mean you just pick who you like and then get feelings for them, it works just the same as literally any other orientation and i thought that would’ve been common knowledge (although maybe i’m being too generous by assuming genuine ignorance there instead of deliberate obtuseness)

it’s not just online, people feel so comfortable being casually biphobic irl. like, i don’t get comments on it super often, but i’ve had a couple of comments made (mostly by other queer people!!) that are just super invalidating or insensitive things to say. but because they’re not being directly homophobic they don’t see it as being an actually fucked up thing to say.

there’s been a couple of things that i’ve laughed im off in the moment, or like gone away from the conversation and told someone else ‘hey listen to this funny thing my friend said’ only to realise days or weeks later that they were actually just saying something fucked up lol

just let me be bisexual in peace, im literally just chilling i don’t see what the issue is

[thedreadvampy]

You seem surprised at the reactions your getting, but it's to be expected. Aphobia is usually quiet, insidious and slow to reveal itself, so the moment someone is asked about aspecs and the answer isn't a concise "Yes I accept and support them" type thing, it's a red flag. Why would anyone who wasn't aphobic not feel comfortable saying they support aspecs? it's not uncommon for a blog we admire to turn out to be aphobic and we're pretty antsy about this stuff because it's usually brushed off.

Ok I mean I'm getting to that eventually in the Question List but like. With the best possible will in the world I think some of you have misread the post where someone asked "do you support aspecs," because to my recollection what I said was that I am fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea that I'm in any position to judge whether I support or harm anyone, and I think that the point at which someone says as a point of identity 'I Am An Ally To X Group' or 'I Support X Group' that. makes them substantially less likely to recognise or accept the ways in which they fail.

Also like. I absolutely understand the antsiness. I do. People can be really shitty to and about aspec people. But what I've said before and will say again is that you have to understand that while it's totally understandable that that would put you on edge, it's not inherent proof of ill-intent.

Ok. Here's the thing. I'm thinking of my own experience here. There is a subset of men who really give me The Fear. It's often hard to define why they give me The Fear, but I can identify some signs - they're probably really into video games, they have a specific way of getting into my personal space and a specific way of talking and type of intonation. they talk a lot about how much they like that they can trust me and talk to me like one of the guys. and the vast majority of the time, when I've ignored The Fear I have got hurt. it's entirely reasonable for me to be suspicious of those people based on my experiences, to pull back from them, and to listen out for reports that they have a history of abuse. If somebody says, "you're not like other girls I really feel like I can talk to you" I'm probably going to get up and walk away, or try and get it of the conversation, or try and get out ahead of the way I expect the conversation to go so that he can't lead the conversation.

But it wouldn't be reasonable if, the moment I heard someone say "you're not like the other girls, I really feel like I can talk to you," I grabbed him by the collar and yelled YOU MISOGYNIST DICKHEAD I NEED YOU TO PROVE RIGHT HERE AND NOW THAT YOU'VE NEVER ASSAULTED ANYONE. PROVE IT NOW. HE CAN'T PROVE IT GUYS HE DID IT. THIS MAN ASSAULTS WOMEN. HE SAID THE BAD WORDS.

People have different experiences and different associations with phrases. I very rarely answer a question about my beliefs with a simple yes or no because I don't trust certainty, particularly within myself, I find myself really anxious that we mean different things and that if I'm not specific enough then I'll be lying. So I very rarely say yes or no without explaining what I mean by yes or no.

And also. Just for the record, since apparently there's no means of avoiding pissing people off today. Aphobia can be a serious, genuine problem and also an area where not everyone agrees. I'm not talking about my own opinions here, I'm talking about how many different opinions have come up from ace/aro people just in this conversation. And I think it's really weird how often queer discourse conflates disagreement with minimisation. Like ok we can all, within the bi community, pretty much agreed that biphobia is, to a greater or lesser degree, a problem, and that bisexuality is stigmatised and comes with particular challenges. But that doesn't mean that when two bi people disagree on whether X trope is biphobic, one of them is The Biphobe and one is The Oppressed. like. oppression and social dynamics aren't clean, they're fuzzy-edged, overlapping and interweaving, highly subjective and highly personal but also totally depersonalised, and everybody is going to draw those lines differently. And it's wild to act like treating it as anything but a simple yes/no question is inherently bigoted because nothing is a simple yes/no question. That's not really how any social question works. We're all bringing our own stuff to the table, we're all trying to communicate concepts that we don't have the verbal or emotional language for, and when somebody says "are you against aphobia" like, that contains a lot of questions, primarily "what does that mean?"

like am I against dehumanisation of and aggression towards of ace/aro people? am I against systemic assumptions and incentives and expectations that everyone wants/needs sex/romance/a life partner? do I think it's fucked up the degree to which sex and romance are centred in culture to the degree that people are told and made to feel explicitly broken if they don't feel a draw to it? yeah, obviously, no shit. but I don't feel comfortable saying unilaterally 'are you for or against X,' when X has no clearly boundaried definition and isn't something most people would in good faith say FUCK YEAH I LOVE X. like if you ask any person 'are you against homophobia,' most of them would probably say 'yes,' and some of them would mean 'I think it's unfair and cruel to treat queer and same-gender attracted people differently because of their sexuality, and I will go to the wall to defend them and to fight heteronormativity' and some of them mean 'I don't hate the sinner I hate the sin and they can be gay as long as they do it far away from me and also never have sex or relationships' and like. What does the answer yes actually tell you in that instance? Like if I wanted to know if someone held bigoted beliefs, I wouldn't go up to them and say 'do you hate X' bc like. They're gonna say no. They may very well believe that they don't. If you actually wanted to guage their responses, it would make more sense to ask "what do you think of X issue" or "do you think Y idea is homophobic" bc like. bigotry is a pattern not a clear line in the sand. God this is just pure waffle now, sorry.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

Helloo, I just discovered your blog and was wondering if you could help me. So I recently felt like I want to identify as bi. The thing is that for years I was under the mindset that I'm straight but I'm sorta interested in women, but also that I've been obsessed with the queer community for so long that I brainwashed myself into liking women? And,worse, I've made some of my friends believe that about me, which of course resulted to them throwing my words back at me- 1/2

when I tried to come out as bi. And all of that made me feel scared to come out to more people and I also feel like I don't really deserve to be bi. Is this even possible or is it just internalized biphobia? And how can I fix the situation with my friends? Please and thank you for taking the time to read all this 💕-2/2

Hello,

yes, this all sounds like big time internalised biphobia to me. But lets start at the top.

The fact that you spent years thinking you are straight doesn’t invalidate you now coming out as/realising that you are bi. In a world as heteronormative as ours most people grow up thinking they are straight bc it’s treated as the default. The narrative of the queer person who ~always knew they were queer~ is a very selective one. Though some queer people absolutely realise at a very young age and some have the good fortune of growing up in a very open-minded and supportive environment, that is far from being the most common queer coming out experience. A lot of queer people spend years, decades even, thinking they are straight and/or cisgender until they realise they are not.

The whole “obsessed with the queer community”-thing also a veeeeeery common thing that closeted queers do. This ~very passionate “straight” ally~ thing is something that many people go through before they realise “wait a minute? maaaaaybe I’m not actually straught?!” That really goes to show that even when someone doesn’t know they are queer yet, they can still be drawn to queerness. That hightened interestin queer things might help them to get educated on the different identities, sexualities, genders that there are and that’s what eventually enables them to reflect on themselves and figure themselves out. This isn’t “brainwashing”. This is opening one’s eyes to all the possibilities out there that are not cisgender heterosexual.

And there is nothing that you have to do to “deserve” identifying as bi. That really is the internalised biphobia speaking. This idea that you have to fulfill a list of requirements to be allowed entry into an exclusive club. Bullshit. All you gotta do to be bi is recognise your potential to be attracted to more than one gender. If that’s the case and you like the bi-label then that’s it. That is all you have to do to be bi. You don’t have to prove it, you don’t have to date all the genders you’re attracted to, you don’t have to ~have always known~, you don’t have to suffer for it, you don’t even have to come out to anyone if you don’t want to.

But you seem to want to come out and you should do that on your own terms and always remember that if a person reacts negatively that says more about their weak and bigoted character than it says about you. Of course it can be hard to come out to people but if they absolutely refuse to understand that you identify as bisexual now, then I wonder if you might not be better off without them. Anyone who’s like “but you said you were straight?!” really can just shut up. Give them a “yes, I used to think I was straight but now I realised that I’m actually bisexual.” and that’s it. They aren’t entitled to a long and thourough explanation.

Especially if they try to discredit your bisexuality and argue against it? That’s none of their business. That’s biphobic. You deserve better friends than that. So if you want to give them a chance to make up for the pain they caused you then tell them that it is what it is and they can either choose to support you in discovering your (bi)sexuality or they can be assholes about it but then you can’t be friends with them anymore. It’s up to them to decide what kind of person they want to be.

Here’s my obligatory “getting rid of internalised biphobia” post.

Maddie

[waywardmasquerade]

is there any reason you dont make a dragon dice bag with the regular lesbian flag? I have never seen that femme flag before

Unfortunately the answer to that is very long. Apologies if I repeat myself or overexplain, events around the world have me rather frazzled.

To my knowledge, there is no regular lesbian flag. There have been multiple proposed lesbian flags, but in my research I’ve never found one that has broad community support.

There’s the purple labrys flag from the 70s or 80s (I think?), which apparently has historical issues and isn’t widely recognised today.

There’s the lipstick flag, which has much more recent issues related to it’s creator (transphobia, biphobia, racism) as well as not resonating with the butch & non femme parts of the community.

There have been multiple edits to the lipstick flag, first the lipstick kiss was removed, though I don’t know who by or the intention behind it. Then it was simplified to include more orange and brown.

Then it was simplified again to the five bar orange/pink flag.

All these edits have been called different things by different people.

There have also been a LOT of other proposed flags, including a “sapphic” lesbian flag (based on one of Sappho’s poems), which is interesting in itself because historical Sappho was thought to be bisexual. If you go hunting you’ll find dozens of proposed designs.

At the time I was researching and designing the lesbian pride Dragon Bagon, the lipstick flag and sapphic flag were the ones that showed up most in my research. I did not feel comfortable using the lipstick flag, and the sapphic flag was not recognised by the folks in my beta group. So I settled for modifying the first or or second iteration of the modified lipstick flag (there was no way I could fit all those slightly different shades in) and because I knew it didn’t resonate with many of the butch lesbians I had feedback from, I called it the “femme” lesbian Dragon Bagon, because I did not feel comfortable making a decision and putting a label on the entire lesbian community when it clearly didn’t fit a lot of people in it. I have since been keeping an eye out for a possible butch flag or symbol, there was support for a plaid Dragon Bagon, but plaid microfleece has not become available despite my searches. I’m hoping that will eventually change.

As it is, I am gathering feedback regarding the 5 bar flag, and while some of it has definitely been positive, some has also been negative. I also don’t feel comfortable just making a unilateral decision on behalf of the lesbian community when it does not yet seem like there is yet community consensus on a flag, though the 5 bar flag definitely seems to be steadily gaining popularity. I’ll have one person tell me that it definitely IS the “community flag”, while another tells me they don’t identify with it at all.

There are also another couple of factors:

I realise that folks who don’t do the job I do will not necessarily realise the level of work involved in prototyping and putting a design into a level of production that makes it affordable. Suffice it to say, there is a lot. So I can’t take changing established designs lightly. The Pride Dragon Bagons are already underpriced for the work that is involved in them. That was a conscious choice I made because I wanted to give something to a community I value. Making the price they’re at even remotely doable for me means we need to produce pride dragon bagons in batches, not one by one. It also means that I have to think carefully before making more of the designs that aren’t like to sell as well. Making new pride designs is not a low cost enterprise, but I want them to be there to at least say to as many of the less represented members of the LGBTQIA2+ community as possible: “I see you”, even if they never buy a Dragon from me, seeing how the photos make people happy is a boost. So I’m balancing the need for representation with the budget as well.

How well a design sells (and therefore funds us making more) is a combination of factors, for a start, it’s a matter of how many people there are within a given section of the wider LGBTQIA2+ community, and then what segment of that group has the disposable income to afford a handmade Dragon Bagon, plus what segment of that group wants to spend that much on a handmade Dragon Bagon. All that comes into play before we get to how pretty the design is, how well it matches the flag, how well I can reach that specific group, etc. Then there’s if there are multiple flags that segments of those groups identify with (e.g. Genderqueer vs Non Binary), and there’s also the matter of folks identifying with multiple flags, which usually means there’s one they want a Dragon for one more than others, which adjusts the numbers as well. And as cold and calculating as it might feel to me sometimes, I do have to keep an eye on the numbers if I want to be able to keep operating (and as a result, producing pride dragons) at all.

The next thing to consider is the availability of fabrics and colour matching. As it is right now, I only have access to colours that would possibly be an acceptable match for two or three of the colours in the 5 bar flag in your avatar. That may change in the future, and I’m always looking for new colours. I also need to consider that while a colour is available now, it may not be in three months time, which means if I want a reasonable supply I need to buy a lot in one go, which for a small business running out of my lounge, is not insignificant. So I need to be sure I can use the fabric before I buy it. While I don’t expect to profit hugely from the pride dragons, I do need to cover my costs and make something of a living for myself, and my helper deserves to be paid a living wage for their time and effort as well.

The last thing is that, despite putting more time and research into the lesbian pride design than any of the others, it has been the one that has received the least support both in terms of sales, and in terms of actual engagement and feedback on the design when I have called for it in the past. It’s also the community (or at least, the community that folks being unpleasant presented themselves as being from) that has directed the most aggression towards me. Even when I have clearly labelled the Lesbian Pride design in the lineup, I have received less-than-pleasant comments about “forgetting” lesbians or demands to know “where is the lesbian one”. Yet when I have called for feedback in the past, there was far less engagement than with many other groups. So it feels like a rock and a hard place for me, it got so hurtful that I actually stopped researching potential new pride designs for quite some time.  So when there’s been very little support in terms of feedback, engagement, and sales from this community, alongside some fairly unpleasant comments as well. I don’t know what else I can do, and it doesn’t help with inspiration and creativity. I realise that a few angry people who apparently don’t bother to read posts before lashing out do not represent the whole community, but it’s only been recently that there’s been an increase in useful feedback on this particular design as well.

Will I make a new lesbian pride dragon? Maybe. I can’t give a timeframe, I can’t say which flag it will follow, because I don’t know. I’m doing research as and when I can, and keeping an eye on a lot of different factors. That being said, IF I make a new one, I will be trying to prioritise rep for butch lesbians, since I have not been able to give them that so far.

All that being said, I am 100% willing to make custom custom Dragon Bagons for those who want them, and that can definitely include pride designs. They cost more, but I do try to keep the cost down as much as possible.

[wild-at-mind]

TW internalised misogyny, internalised biphobia, self loathing

I remember a time on tumblr when people other than gender critical variety TERFs used the phrase ‘identify out of womanhood’, believe it or not, that was a thing said by decent people once. Anyway the reason I identified out of womanhood, or am currently trying to at least, was nothing at all to do with me thinking being a woman is bad. It was being a bi woman, specifically a bi woman who has never and will never date a woman due to already being committed to a man, that was the hardest thing for me. This isn’t about lesbians vs bi women at all, I won’t have any of that. It is about ‘people who understand why acknowledging that they are into women matters to bi women dating men, and people that don’t’. (Acknowledging could mean: expecting to be treated like someone with a stake in wlw matters even if they are dating a man, or just using their identity to describe themselves openly, or many other things.) I mostly encounter these things online, often in places that pretend to be supportive of ALL bi women, which is what makes it so painful I think. The stereotype is that the bi woman will bring her horrible, misogynistic boyfriend into queer spaces. She will predate her fellow wlw for threesomes. You’ve heard these ones. She probably is not even bi, really, she kissed a girl at a party maybe, every straight girl does that, why she decided suddenly it was important enough to her to form an identity around you have no idea. The fact that she and her boyfriend may talk together about women they find attractive is very offputting to you, almost despicable, and infinitely more disgusting than the prospect of a man finding a woman attractive just on his own. Because that’s to be expected, no, but a bi woman should know better than to indulge a man in that sort of thing!

A community that well recognises the importance of belonging suddenly seems to forget when they ask, well why does a bi women with a boyfriend need this kind of space anyway? Your relationship doesn’t define your sexuality but also bi women with boyfriends go in the special category of ‘least concern’, can leave whenever they want, and do. Your sexual history doesn’t define your sexuality, but here’s a list of famous people who we have deemed bisexual based on the list of people they are known to have slept with, regardless of what they actually identified themselves as. Are you looking for community, for history, well don’t you know bi women of every life experience have historically always been treated exactly the same as lesbians? Yes, you who have dealt with repression of your sexuality that caused you to entirely miss out on the opportunity to perhaps date women in the 2000s and 2010s, if you had been around half a century ago you would for sure have been brave enough to date women and join gay scenes! (Anyone who doesn’t find this generalisation comforting will be treated with slight suspician.) Add to that the general suspician any woman into women faces when she dares express sexual feelings towards women that are purely about sex. And that’s a lot. I don’t want any of this baggage. I couldn’t think of any other way to escape it and I feel so much better without it. There were other reasons, of course, but given that for a while on tumblr there was a whole ‘lesbians can essentially undergo a full physical transition and still maintain their essential connection to womanhood through their fierce and dedicated love of women! (info on bisexuals not found)’ movement, it’s no wonder I got a little confused. Who will connect me to womanhood?

You may feel that my problems could be solved by spending more time in irl bi spaces. Thanks for your concern, but I do (or at least I did, before covid). In fact all this baggage was actually hindering me in those spaces- meeting people who have roughly similar experiences to you is great, but it’s not fair to expect new people I meet to suddenly become my confidiant and take on the responsibility for making me feel accepted in LGBT spaces, even specifically bi+ spaces. I would love to socialise without carrying that baggage.

(Sorry if this is upsetting to anyone, I may delete it later, I don’t know. It’s just how I feel and have felt.)

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

I'm glad we are talking more about "gay genders" and the way that being LG can often produce genderweird experiences, which aren't exactly transgender but are also not uncomplicatedly cis. It's always been true, but I'm happy that there's more discussion and visibility.

But team, the next step is absolutely to consider bisexual people. We are comfortable seeing cis[ish] gay men and women embrace these complicated gender places, it kinda figures, it makes sense, it feels organic. But why shouldn't this be equally true of bisexual people? (It's because on some level, we are seen as essentially straight, as straight people who sometimes have same-sex relationships)

there's no real reason why, if we accept that gay people often develop ideosyncratic genders, that bi people wouldn't too. Possibly, the gaygenders of bisexual people would be even more peculiar, because they are passing through straight and gay spaces, through same and opposite sex relationships, it's super messy.

I've thought before that perhaps we might understand the development of genderqueer, non-binary, agender identities as a bisexual thing. This isn't to erase people with those identities who are monosexual; but I guess I would like to survey how many "straight in every possible way except my gender" people are in these communities, because I suspect it's...very few. On the other hand, I think both bisexuality and asexuality would absolutely predict people who grow up watching gender on the television, and thinking "I'm not really any of these genders". Or, in reverse, I think being non-binary or genderqueer would predict people who can't exactly say whether they are gay or straight, and who would grow up watching gender on television thinking "I have no idea how I fit into any of these relationship structures".

And some partial evidence for this is looking at bisexual community heroes - Bowie, Prince, Janelle Monae, Lady Gaga, Annie Lennox - and observing that not only are they all subverting gender, they're doing it in similar ways, they're part of a recognisable bi genderweird tradition. This includes being kinda circumspect about whether or not they are gay while giving off gay vibes; artificiality and theatricality, but not quite in a camp way; and gender non-conformity. You've got Bowie and Gaga presenting their bodies as alien/other; you've got Lennox and Monae in suits, but in a very sharp and dapper way - not your traditional comfy/earthy butch, it's far more theatrical; you've got Prince's abundance of gender cues, combining feminine dress and styling with almost parodically heterosexual lyrics.

Gaga draws from drag culture, and I think you could also understand Monae as a drag queen (but both of these are gay male artforms). Gaga makes explicit reference in Telephone to the rumours that she is is a man (that people are making assumptions about her gendered body; but this is transmisogynist). Gaga is out as bisexual; she's a cis woman (as far as we know), but her stage persona is being understood as similar to a trans woman, or similar to a gay man. We aren't able to find words for where we place her gender and sexuality, because we aren't recognising that this mess of gender cues...could be a bisexual gender thing. Monae is non-binary, and has written het songs and sapphic songs and a stomping bi anthem. But, for the longest period of time, wasn't putting a label on any of this, aside from that one song about how "I want to be a queer/queen". Queen, of course, being another male-pattern-gay community term. Being a "no labels bisexual" isn't necessarily internalised biphobia or a superiority complex; it can reflect a genuine feeling of vagueness and uncertainty about where to plant your flag. A vagueness which is perhaps inextricable from an equally vague sense of how to fit into a binary gender. Meanwhile, Lennox is heavily involved in AIDS activism. She's clearly identified gay and bisexual men as "her tribe".

Lennox and Prince - who, as far as we know, are straight - but they seem pretty gay - and isn't that the bi experience in a nutshell, isn't that part of their appeal for specifically bisexual audiences? All five performers are characterised by...being simultaneously very out and very closeted. Again, I think that's relatable: a profound desire to be visible, but also a lack of certainty/confidence/ability to define what kind of queer you are. Bisexuality is inherently mute: you are assumed to be what you appear to be. Should we be surprised, then, if bisexual genders seem to take the pattern of "I don't know what I am or where I fit - and neither will you"

So I don't know whether I have the evidence to argue this, but I do think there's an...afab bisexual gender which is blending cues which say "I am a gay woman" and "I am a gay man", or rather, "I am a queer person, and queerness is indivisible from who I am, and so I see myself in queer people who date women and in queer people who date men". And that we should not be at all surprised or disdainful or judgemental or gatekeeping to see bisexual and genderqueer people L existing in this "I'm simultaneously L, G, B and T" place. That's the reality of having a gender/sexuality that never really fits anywhere, which can never really be visible or articulated as it's own thing. One knows one is queer, one reaches for whatever representation and visibility one can get, and it's a magpie gender.

(I don't have any evidence of the opposite dynamic, of bi men being very into lesbian culture or identification or modes of behavior. Perhaps this is a counter argument. But you often can't map the experiences of queer men and queer women neatly together (gay ones, transgender ones...), so maybe this is another example of that. But I would not be surprised at all to find out that femme bi men were into butches, for example.)

CONCLUSION: it is intuitively correct to me that bisexual people would experience genderweird as part of their bisexuality, just as many gay people do. I have some theories about what these genders might look like, but I want to emphasise that I don't think they are objectively correct (there are non-bisexual people in the gender spaces in describe; and I would not dream of beginning to try and gatekeep them as bisexual-exclusive). At the same time, I think it would be politically valuable and personally helpful to bisexual people to develop a sense that bisexual genders exist; that they can be a source of pride rather than embarrassment; that our genders aren't just a mimicry of gaygenders or straight ones but can have characteristically bi elements and be part of a bi tradition; to have confidence and joy in the ways our genders don't fit neatly into straight or gay frameworks, and that we might have additional needs in relationships to affirm our gender place; that being bisexual might bring on actual dysphoria, that being bisexual might bring on things which makes neither cis nor trans frameworks a fit for you...and all that jazz. Bi people may very well develop genderweird that is similar or indistinguishable from gay genderweird; but also produce unique genderweirds of our own.

TL;RDR: being bisexual can produce genderweird, just as being gay does. We should assert this more confidently. It might produce uniquely bisexual genders. We should explore and document these possibilities. We shouldn't do this with a goal to be an asshole to others, because gatekeeping things helps nobody.

[gottagobackintime]

As it’s pride month I thought I’d talk about my sexuality. Again. I’ve done it a few times over the years and in tags and so on but it’s also a way for me to reflect on my progression when it comes to it. 

So, it all started when I was 16 (2009) and I started having feelings for my friend who is also a girl. These feelings probably started when I was around 14 but I didn’t recognise them as feelings, it was more a ‘oh I really like her as a friend but I wanted to be close to her in a not friend way’. Not that I understood that then. So flash forward to age 16, I can’t exactly remember the thing that made me actually “research” different types of sexuality, but I started googling things like “How do I know if I’m bisexual?” and I stumbled upon a quiz that would determine if you were gay, straight or bi. So I took it and *drum roll* it said I’m bisexual. It really helped me, having to answer questions like “do you fantasise about people of the same sex”. I wanted an answer, “am I bisexual?” and for it to be as accurate as possible I had to actually think about it. I still took some time to think about it more. To be really sure. But something had changed. I understood that I had feelings for my friend and that it was a valid thing despite the fact that I’m also interested in guys and had had a boyfriend from the age of 6 to the age of 13 (he was my first kiss.) I added that I like men and women on facebook, as a really subtle “coming out” you wouldn’t really see it if you weren’t looking for it. I said that I’m bisexual in my twitter profile. I then started vague tweeting about having feelings for a girl, god help me it’s... It’s a lot. Let me show you:

Anyway... Moving on. It was never an issue with my sexuality when it came to my friends that I’d had since I was 13, we never really discussed it tbh, and I don’t think I ever actually came out. Some of them might not even know to this day now that I think about it. The one friend I actually came out to in 2012, I came out to by accident because I told her about a funny thing that happened in class when I had used my sexuality as an example to my teacher’s question. I didn’t realise that she didn’t know, because by then I’d had headers on facebook that said “I’m bi deal with it” and things like that. Because I’m an idiot and think that that’s enough, not thinking about the fact that she might not have looked at my profile in years. She was upset that I hadn’t told her, I was scared that I’d lose her as a friend because of my sexuality. But we talked about it and she did/doesn’t care about it, she was just upset that I hadn’t told her before, especially since I’d know I’m bi for several years at that point. And I don’t blame her for feeling like that at all. In the autumn that same year I started uni and I ended up in a little friend group and during the first week, I and another person in our group sat talking about Merlin, because we were both Merlin fans/merthur shippers. And we suddenly heard something about gay/lesbian and we asked what they were talking about. Another person of the group says she likes girls and both me and the girl I’d been talking to says “same”. And I said something along the lines of “and guys” and I then followed up with saying I’m bi. After this I had to come out again to the girl that started the conversation about liking girls. I had to come out again to other people who where there too. Which kind of hurt, I hadn’t expected to have to come out twice to the same people. Especially someone who is also part of the lgbtq+ community. 

The years went on and I’d see more and more things on the internet about bi-phobia and bi stereotypes and I felt that maybe I had to tone down the “I’M BI, GET USED TO IT” stuff that I’d sometimes posted. Because after all, “bi people only do it for attention”. This was just the start of my internalised biphobia. I started to question if I’m actually bi, maybe I was just doing it to be cool, to get attention, despite the fact that the thought of coming out face to face makes my heart race (still does) and so I always wait until I really have to come out. It didn’t/doesn’t help that I tend to crush more on guys than any other gender, so why do I have to be *special* if I’m that into guys. Then I started to think about the fact that I never ever ever ever ever want to go down on someone with a vagina. The thought makes me go 😬, so surely I can’t be into girls/people with vaginas. I completely ignored the fact that I never ever ever ever ever want to put a penis in my mouth either, because the thought makes me go even more 😬 and even a bit 🤢. Now I can see that, me not wanting to have oral sex doesn’t make me any less bisexual. It just means that I don’t want to have oral sex. I still want to have sex, just not like that. But when I was feeling shitty about my sexuality this didn’t even cross my mind. It was just a reflection on me “faking” my bisexuality. I felt guilty for mostly imagining myself in a relationship with a guy, because it seems easier. I called myself half-gay, half-straight and used that to minimise my own fears and struggles. “I’m only half-gay so I don’t have the same amount of struggles that a lesbian has.” Which is such a bad way to see things. Sure, I don’t have the exact same types of struggles that a lesbian has, but I still struggle with coming out, biphobia both from the lgbtq+ community and from straight people and internalised biphobia. This is one of the reasons I hate the fact that some people throw the words “straight passing privilege” in our face. It adds to the pressure that we’re not gay enough that many of us already feel. Since when is being in the closet a privilege?? 

Sorry about that, I just had to get that out of my system. I’m feeling much better about my sexuality again, and I can recognise the signs of internalised biphobia when it occasionally pops up. I think I’m gonna leave it here. If you ever wanna talk about bisexuality or lgbtq+ in general or want someone to talk to about your sexuality/questioning. Feel free to talk to me 😄

[rediscoverthespark]

Rich 1

( send a character & number(s) and I’ll tell you… )

1) Something this character is truly proud of. 

Gerard!Rich: He’s proud that despite two years of being molded near military-style by an evil piece of technology in his brain into someone else entirely that he never lost touch with his real self and he never became someone that he could no longer recognise or would never be able to forgive. On the contrary, the first steps of his mental recovery while he’s physically recovering from his burns in the hospital are learning to forgive himself for all he’s done while under the Squip’s influence but also to acknowledge that he had fought that thing every step of the way because he did not agree with it morally. The Squip didn’t change Rich as a person, it merely suppressed the outward traits and behaviours that it thought were “less desirable” about him. Rich can take comfort and pride in that fact.

Troy!Rich: He has so much pride in his bisexuality. Like, he talks about it every chance he gets and you can’t take him to the movies because for the majority of them he’ll end up blurting out loud enough for other people to hear at some point, “Seems too heterosexual for my taste.” and he has also been known to quote Thomas Sanders on, “Could be gayer.” (he probably has a merch shirt of that that he wears too tbh.) When people express biphobia by saying things like, ‘So you’re actually gay but just don’t want to admit it, right?’ Rich is just like, “Oh no, honey, I’m bi, you just don’t want to admit that you’re intimidated by the fact that my sexual prowess appeals to multiple genders and your narrow-minded one only appeals to one.” 

Also!! With the support of and a push from Morgan!Christine, Rich ends up pitching the idea of a GSA club at their school to the principal so that other students like him don’t end up feeling lost and alone and in that dark place that wound up with him thinking putting a computer in his brain was the only way to pass for “normal”. 

(Troy!Rich is also super proud of his heritage and can go on for a while about that as well, but considering his sexuality is a newer discovery that tends to come up more often. But Rich has also been known to blurt out things during movies such as, “Why is everyone white? I can’t tell them apart.” and, “Oh look, there’s one black character in this movie - how much you wanna bet they die first?” and he’s just generally a salty brown boy.)

5) A cherished personal belonging. 

Gerard!Rich: Is super attached to a book all about space that he got for Christmas in 1st grade. It’s got some dog-eared corners and some crinkled pages because he spilled juice in it once (or twice) and as a whole it looks like it’s been well-loved. But!! This book is how Rich discovered his love of space, not that he ever wanted to be an astronaut or anything, but from a hobby standpoint. And this boy can absolutely infodump facts of the cosmos when interest is shown.

Troy!Rich: Keeps an Omamori charm with him at all times. Thankfully there’s a shop in the local mall that sells them and keeping with Japanese tradition he replaces it every year though always with the same type of charm, 幸せ (shiawase) which is to increase happiness. It’s not so much the charm itself that is cherished as they are replaced each year, but what having one on him represents as a tie to his heritage and culture. His mother gave him one when he was born and exchanged it with a new one each year on his birthday until she passed away when he was 6. For several years after that his Grandma continued to send them from overseas and when Rich was 10 he started putting aside money small bits of money from holidays and such so that he would be able to replace the charm himself every year. Although you aren’t supposed to keep expired charms, Rich still has all six of the charms his mother gave him in a box under his bed, bad luck be damned.

12) How they sleep. 

Gerard!Rich: Sleeps on his stomach, head turned to one side with both arms hugging the pillow. When he got his squip it started zapping him whenever he tried to sleep in this position because it’s actually really bad for your neck and back and also makes it more difficult for you to breathe. The squip forced him to switch to fetal position because that’s what most sleep experts recommend but Rich finds himself weirdly vulnerable in that position (perhaps because he doesn’t need to be a sleeping position that makes him appear even smaller?) and needless to say once the squip is gone and he’s out of the hospital and free of casts he reverts back to his old sleeping habits…even if they do leave him in pain and grouchy some mornings, at least that’s his own damn fault.

Troy!Rich: Sleeps primarily on his right side with a stuffed Stitch plushie he’s had since he was small (he can also do a really good Stitch voice himself but a lot of people don’t know that about him because he’s been shot down for being “annoying” with it). Stitch also serves as a comfort item when Rich is upset. Needless to say the squip tried to make Rich throw Stitch out but Rich wouldn’t budge on the idea no matter how much it taunted him about what a baby he was being and how childish his peers would think him if any of them saw it because he was too old for it. They conceded on Rich would stop sleeping with it and Rich put it on the shelf in his closet because he wasn’t ready to get rid of it. One of the first things he does when he gets home from the hospital squipless is pull Stitch back out and take nap with him and it’s the best sleep he’s had in a long time.

17) What they’d sing at karaoke 

Gerard!Rich: Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire. He chooses it because he actually agrees with the message of it, like yeah, the world is so shitty that we all thought putting technology in our brains would help us survive it for a bit there?? But also unsquipped Rich is really bad at understanding social etiquette and doesn’t quite understand that it’s a little too soon for him to be making fire jokes and by the end of it everyone is almost speechless. Like, was it a good performance? Sure, but Rich you can’t be joking about setting fires, why are you like this???

Troy!Rich: Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation. He chooses it ironically because unsquipped he actually does give a damn about not being That Asshole anymore, thank you very much! Not to mention that even while squipped he never fully lost the qualities about himself that made him himself, they just merged with the false persona the squip wanted him to portray to make him more intimidating and confident, so when he sings Bad Reputation it’s not about him not giving a damn about doing bad well, it’s just him sarcastically being like, LOOK WHAT A DORK I AM I’M AWFUL AT BEING A BAD BOY LOL.

bonuses!!:

Gerard!Rich and Lauren!Brooke sing At The Beginning from Anastasia. It’s Brooke’s idea and all she has to do is go, “Rich, I have the BEST idea!” and Rich is immediately like, “I’m sold but go on.” because Rich had a blast singing and dancing with her on Halloween and he has a hard time saying no to Brooke anyway.

Troy!Rich convinces Anthony!Jake to sing Rock ‘n Roll Party Queen from Grease with him, Rich as Doody and Jake as Roger. Both Jake and Rich decided after the school play that despite the squipcident disaster and their less than great reasons for joining the school play to begin with that they enjoyed theatre more than they thought they would and it’s even more fun when they get to perform together.

But then Morgan!Christine is like, ‘Waaaaait. You sang a song with Jake but not me?? Get over here!!’ and then she talks Troy!Rich into singing P!nk’s Just Give Me A Reason with her (and by ‘talks into’ I mean literally all she has to do is suggest it and Rich is like, ‘Cool, cool, yeah!! Let’s do this thing!’).

.20) Household chore they hate the most

Gerard!Rich: Hates having to take the trash out. Namely because it’s full of alcohol beverage containers of various sorts. Why aren’t they in a recycling bin? Because his dad is a lazy bitter asshole who just throws everything in the trash and Rich is embarrassed about it because he’s pretty sure the people who work at the dump are angry about having to sort through their trash that should already be sorted and he’s also concerned that one of these days they’re going to look at all the alcohol content in there and call for an inspection of their house and that somehow it’ll all end up being his fault. 

(One time in early 8th grade Rich picked all the bottles out of the trash so that he could return them to the grocery store for money to buy cigarettes. Needless to say that ended badly because his dad could smell smoke on him and demanded to know where he’d gotten the money for that and then Rich got hell for wasting his money when he could be be doing more for his family’s financial situation!! and blah, blah, blah. After that Rich started being more discreet about stealing returnables and making sure he didn’t come home reeking of smoke.)

Troy!Rich: Hates having to do dishes. Which…isn’t actually a chore so much as the kitchen just ends up getting piled up to the point that if he doesn’t do them then they’ll never get done and the sink would be unusable and god forbid anyone ever see their home in that state. But also if Rich tries to wash them while his dad is around then he gets hell for ‘making too much noise’ so he usually has to wait until his dad is out cold for the night by which point Rich is usually too tired to do them and he has to find a way to balance how much cleaning he can do in the kitchen with how much longer he needs to be up that night (i.e. to do homework or study).

[baehraini]

I hope u know ur ugly ass post saying recognising trans ppl’s sex and RESPECTING THEIR GENDER IDENTITY while recognising their sex and that somehow saying one group isn’t lgbt & that people aren’t ever harmed for being attracted to the opposite gender, and twisting what i actually said to seem ~problematic~ and hateful, is the reason I got a bunch of hate some of it telling me to kill myself

I also hope u know that the shit ur perpetuating harms trans people seeing as sex matters in terms of health issues

And that “misGENDERing” is specifically about gender not sex. Recognising reality is transphobic according to u which is pathetic lmao.

Trans men are men & trans women are women, while not being male and female respectively. Get the fuck over it and stop perpetuating transphobia.

Anyways let’s address ur claims

1. Nah I don’t like to misgender anyone lmao I just also don’t like to completely erase the reality of sex for some racist whitey’s comfort

2. Ace people aren’t oppressed, not even in one of the worst parts of the world to be as a minority (middle east) where I’m from

3. I’ll call u racist if ur racist whitey Jfc

4. I’ve seen countless ppl throw the word terf just bc they see that the person is a lesbian or identifies w their biology rather than gender lmao fuck off when you’re not a lesbian and are arguing against what it means to be female to begin with

5. NO I don’t believe that if u believe biphobia is real then ur a lesbophobe holy shit. If u actually think gay people oppress bisexuals then ur a homophobe (bc that’s what thinking that gay ppl perpetuate more biphobia than hets means) and if u think anyone is barred from being with ppl of a different gender then ur literally arguing that heterphobia is a thing n are also a homophobe holy shit

6. It’s SO fucking telling that ur taking screenshots of ppl being homophobes and acting like that’s biphobia like. holy shit yall are transparent!

7. Lying ass dickhead I never said that straight and gay are the only sexualities holy shit I hate you homophobic privileged western whites

You’re a piece of shit and I hate white westerners tbh! My gf is the only good exception because she actually listens to minorities of all kinds unlike you privileged dickheads who don’t give a shit about fighting any forms of oppression. Oh and fuck you for making an entire shit call-out post about me filled with lies and strawmans & blocking me so I couldn’t defend myself on it

@mr-seahorse

[iceprinceofbelair]

(1/2??) it seems like you're debating two different issues here, so I'm kind of unsure of your point, and they seem like two different conversations?? a) homophobia in the ace community. while I 100% agree that aces can be homophobic, I'm not sure where you're seeing all this homophobia you're talking about. Im active in ace communities and haven't seen much (or really any) homophobia, so I'm kind of confused about that. and b) you're debating whether aces belong in the LGBTQ community. I've

(2/?) flipped back and forth on this issue, but I tend to side on the inclusionsist side, and I guess I've completely settled there now. anyway, I couldn't begin to cover everything in this debate, but I just wanted to say that while I understand a lot of the reasoning behind keeping aces out of the community and there are some really good points, one thing that you don't see in the inclusionsist side (or at least, I haven't seen it), is the hatefulness that some exclusionists show.

(3/3) whether you believe aphobia/acephobia is a thing or not, it's messed up that some exclusionists go as far as to make "aphobic" blogs that are just there to hate on aces. exclusionists will go this far, and a lot of their arguments lead to justifying this, while on the inclusionsist side you only see people wanting to be in the community (at least, that's as extreme as I've seen it go).

I was actually trying to be careful not to make any argument about whether aces belong in the LGBT+ community. It was more about the use of qu**r as an identifier being inappropriate for cis-he-aces. But, since you’ve brought it up, I have also struggled with this issue in the past and it’s because I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the LGBT+ community. I thought it was a community for anyone who didn’t fit “the norm” in society where sexual orientation/gender was concerned. But it isn’t. It’s a safe space where oppressed sexual and gender minorities can share their experience, feel safe, and also a unifying political force. When I consider the community in the second light, I understand that cis-het aces  and acearos don’t really have a place there because we don’t experience the systematic oppression that the community was founded to prevent.

I don’t have a link to the exact posts but I’ve seen it time and again - asexual people, especially cis-het aces, mocking the AIDS crisis. I’ve seen comments like “asexual laughter” when the spread of HIV is mentioned, aces calling themselves qu**r when it is not their word to reclaim, aces taking posts made specifically for mlm/wlw and complaining of erasure when in fact that post just wasn’t about them. Have you ever been on the AVEN message boards? Actual sentences I have read include “I can’t wait until they make a word like the n-word or the f-word for aces so we can reclaim it” and “Replace the B in LGBT with A”. It’s not a minority problem. AVEN is at the heart of the ace community and there is blatant homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia across the site.

Yes, a lot of exclusionists are hateful but I’ve seen a damning amount of hatred coming from inclusionists too. Aphobia is consistently likened to TERF arguments when, fundamentally, these things are not the same. Whether aphobia exists or not, it is on nowhere NEAR the same scale as transphobia which is what TERFs are perpetuating. Trans people are being killed and fired and abused and disowned and as we speak Trump is rolling back protections for trans children. Do you see any of that happening to ace people? Furthermore, inclusionists are frequently guilty of telling anyone who criticises their use of the Q slur that they’re being aphobic when, actually, they’re the ones being blatantly homo/transphobic.

I agree that making blogs specifically to hate on ace people kind of sucks but, tbh, as an ace person, I recognise that it’s not hurting me beyond making me feel a bit shit. Honestly, when I see cis-het-ace people try to reclaim the Q slur or force their way into spaces for oppressed sexual/gender minorities, I want to make an aphobe blog and I’m literally ace. I don’t feel safe in ace communities as a trans person.

To sum up, I have seen extremism on both sides and I’m not going to let the existence of extremism sway my view on this issue. I want my position to be the result of historical understanding of the significance of the LGBT+ community and not because I had my feelings hurt as an ace person.

[jobob-80]

Thinking about prejudice

I have quite a few axes of privilege, which is a particular perspective I have to get past in my intersectional feminism learnings.

There are some oppressions that I could see in action fairly easily and where I haven't had to overcome much personal resistance - racism was one of the first I learned about when I was way too green to disbelieve it; obviously sexism I have experience of; and homophobia was something that gelled with what I'd seen from people's attitudes etc.

There are some oppressions I am still struggling to recognise although I appreciate their validity - ableism is hard to quantify and categorise; fatphobia it took a long time for me to recognise and accept its dynamics as a type of oppression; transphobia still feels to me as tangled with misogyny in ways I can't quite figure out.

And then are the oppressions that I just really can't get my head round at all. I do not recognise anti-Semitism in my own attitudes at all, just can't really relate to that whole process. It's like, I can sort of see it reflected in culture and obviously Hitler, but I don't have enough connection to it to feel like I know it when it happens.

And what's up with the biphobia thing? Who are these people who think that if someone tells you they are attracted to Group X they get to say "actually you're not"?? I mean, I get that it exists... I just can't understand WHY, nor do I recognise that impulse in myself.

I think when privileged individuals enforce oppressions there are some situations and attitudes their (our) choice to do so is highly sensitive to their perceived status and cultural understanding. Insecure privileged people strike me as probably the most dangerous - it certainly seems to be mediocre men who most want to make life hard for women. But people privileged along the same axes will not have a shared experience of the privilege-oppression mechanics due to this, which is probably why building a community on a privileged identity tends to be a negative thing.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

(1/2) this is a bit out of this blog's range but I'm an almost 15 year old girl and I've classified myself as bicurious for over a year now. I've never said anything to anyone because ive heard people at my school (the student body has always been very diverse and open to any sexuality or gender preference) saying that its offensive to bisexuals and how its just faking being straight so i kept my mouth very shut, and a week ago i saw a shirt with bicurious on it at the mall (which ive never seen

(2/2) thinking about it and she clammed up intstantly and got all quiet and I'm afraid I've offended her. The issue with that besides the obvious issue is that im starting to think I might be bi instead of bicurious (I maybe have a crush on a gal and keep having this dream where i have a girlfriend) and I was planning to ask her how she knew she was bi to see if it makes me more comfortable with a definitive answer to who i am but now im very anxious about it and dont know what to do so

I don’t know what makes you think this out of our blog’s range? This is exactly in our blog’s range. I think there’s something in the middle of your message missing but I guess I get what it’s about.

In my opinion there is nothing offensive about people who identify as “bicurious” and to say that bicurious people are “just faking it” and “actually straight” is just as shitty and wrong and biphobic (!!!) as it would be to say that to a bisexual person. These are exactly the kind of things asshole people say to bisexuals. It’s not suddenly okay to say it to someone who identifies as bicurious. That’s also biphobia! And if bisexual people said that about bicuriosity then it would also still be biphobia! And bigotry!

Bicurious people are part of the bi community and whatever causes someone to identify as “bicurious” - it would already be enough to identify as “bisexual” if they wanted to.

Some people go with “bicurious” because they either think they are not “allowed” to identify as bisexual without experience or because they are just not sure yet and “bicurious” feels less definitive than “bisexual”. But if you’re questioning whether you might be bi, if you are curious about being bi - that is enough to identify as bisexual. Anyone who recognises their potential to be attracted to more than one gender can call themselves bisexual! So as far as I am concerned bicurious people are just as much a part of the greater bi community as bisexual and biromantic people. “Bicurious” is essentially a way of saying “I think I might be bisexual but I’m not quite sure yet so I’m going with ‘bicurious’ while I’m figuring myself out”. It’s a bi-specific term of identifying as “questioning”.

I’m not surprised there are bisexual people who might be offended by that but in my opinion they are pretty misguided if they think that it’s people identifying as bicurious what’s harming the bisexual community - instead of the vast amount of biphobia coming from both straight and gay people. It seems exclusionary if bisexuals dismiss bicurious people like that and, again: biphobic! (Because bi people can be biphobic as well!)

Yes, the label “bicurious” has (and still is) used as a way to invalidate bisexuals but that’s not the fault of bicurious people - it’s the fault of biphobic people! And I don’t think it’s bicurious people’s (or anyone’s) responsibility to appease biphobes. Even if I personally work with the understanding that any bicurious person could just as well identify as bisexual instead - they have their reasons for choosing to identifying as bicurious and I respect that. If it helps someone then that’s all that I need to know and I let people go by whatever labels they want.

All that theoretical stuff aside: if “bicurious” was a label you feel comfortable with that’s wonderful. If you want to switch to identifying as “bisexual” that’s also great! You can always, at any given moment in your life, change your label. People change and especially at your age you are developping so much and discovering your sexuality - and if you discover something new about yourself then you can update the language you use to describe yourself. “Bicurious” was accurate before, now “bisexual” might be more accurate. It’s your choice (and yours alone!) what you wanna call yourself! And I really hope your friends will learn to be more open and supportive about labels that aren’t their own.

Maddie