as small as a world and as large as alone, Hi there, quick question. Do you ever feel that...

12:08pm June 10, 2014

Anonymous asked: Hi there, quick question. Do you ever feel that your broad definition of bisexuality (more than just two gender identities) is stepping over to others definition of pansexual? Do you consider how it would make those who identify as pan feel? Because personally, I feel as though you diminish my identity as being pansexual, by saying this.

tommyistoofastforthisshit:

emiello:

No, I don’t feel that way at all. I don’t see how my identity impacts anyone else’s in the slightest, because it doesn’t.

Bisexual people as a group have never endorsed the whole “bi means two” thing like people seem to believe. We are either accused of liking only men and women (often only cis men and women, which makes even less sense and is fantastically transphobic), or of liking only two discrete genders. Some people may be only attracted to two genders, and that is fine, but that doesn’t negate the fact that bisexual people are bisexual due to their attraction to more than one gender. That is what we all have in common, and there is nothing wrong with that definition encompassing a wide range of people with a wide range of different attractions.

It’s not just me who identifies as bisexual with that definition (attraction to more than one gender/genders similar to and different from my own); It’s actually a long-held definition by the bisexual community, and is in use by major bisexual organisations today. Bisexual Index, the American Institute of Bisexuality, and others I’m too lazy to google at 1am, all have definitions like the one I use for myself. Denying the fact that bisexual people have defined our identities in this way for decades, and instead placing upon us transphobic (i.e. genital-specific or cis-attracted only) and binarist (bi means two so you don’t like trans* people!) definitions, is biphobic, and based entirely upon misconceptions about our sexual orientation.

If your sexual orientation relies on defining bisexuality in a way that the community itself has openly and frequently rejected, then I think it’s you who needs to look at their orientation, and how and why they define it in such a way. Pansexuality is the only orientation that so often relies on the (mis)definition of another orientation in order to hold its weight, and it doesn’t need to, because it can be perfectly valid without doing that.

I have no issue with people preferring to identify as pansexual, omnisexual, multisexual, or simply sexual or queer, as long as their reasons are not based in transphobia and/or biphobia, which they often are. For example, if you identify as pansexual because you are attracted to all genders, or regardless of gender, that’s a-okay. If you identify that way because you are attracted to men, women, and “transgenders”, or because you are attracted to more than two genders (and therefore not bisexual), that is less than a-okay by quite a lot.

“Hi there, quick question. Do you ever feel that your broad definition of bisexuality (more than just two gender identities) is stepping over to others definition of pansexual? Do you consider how it would make those who identify as pan feel? Because personally, I feel as though you diminish my identity as being pansexual, by saying this.”

Outstanding.