sonia | Bisexual Visibility Day

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Hey, we get a day! I identify as bisexual, which means that gender isn't a strong determiner of whom I'm attracted to.

This doesn't mean I'm endorsing a gender binary in any way. In fact, if there were a term for being attracted to people somewhere in the squishy middle of gender spectra, I might be one of those.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

runpunkrun

I can see you!! :D

From:

sonia

\o/

Edited (icon) Date: 2021-09-23 08:25 pm (UTC)

From:

adrian_turtle

I see you!

Have you considered identifying as pansexual or omnisexual? Those overlap with bisexuality, but specifically reject the gender binary. So these days, the label "bisexual" appears to mean "attracted to both men and women" or "attracted to more than one gender, and identified as queer in the 20th century." Or maybe "attracted to people without attention to gender, while honoring the cultural precedents that called our elder siblings bisexuals."

From:

minoanmiss

My favorite definition of bisexual, the one I identify with anywy, is "attracted to members of the gender one identifies with and also people of other genders." I feel general differences in my attraction to people I identify as women and people I identify as other genders, but more generally, there are a lot of attractive people in the world.

From:

sonia

Ah, I like that. It neatly sidesteps the gender binary issue and leaves it behind in a steaming heap.

It gets surprisingly sticky for me around "gender I identify with," given that I walk around as a cisgender woman. As I posted about in the past, I don't feel like I do a good job of performing "woman" the way society expects, so then I have to amend the definition of my gender to feel successful at it, so then "others of my gender"???

(Going back to that old post did remind me that I have the perfect icon for this conversation!)

From:

sonia

*waves*!

Those sound like great terms, and I haven't embraced them for myself. I do like your last thought about the cultural precedents and elder siblings. I have a sense of reclaiming bisexual, along with queer.

Perhaps unfairly, I associate pansexual with some of the pagan camps and communities I attended in California years ago, partly because of the god Pan (I do know that's not what's meant), but also a general attitude of "free love" with an undertone of "not quite as free to say no" as I would prefer.

I'm not sure I had encountered omnisexual, but it sounds like omnivorous, eats anything. I'm actually quite picky, possibly on the ace spectrum somewhere... Again I understand that's not necessarily what it means.

In summary, bisexual includes the right ground, and it gets complicated if I try to get more specific. It's all a work in progress!

Edited (icon) Date: 2021-09-23 08:25 pm (UTC)

From:

adrian_turtle

Technically, I'm either pansexual or omnisexual, myself. Probably pansexual. I say "bisexual," because it's the term of my generation, the term of solidarity, the term of "no, I'm not a lesbian separatist" and "no, I'm not het even when I'm holding the nice fellow's hand."

But I don't use pansexual either. There are too many communities where people won't understand it, either because they will misunderstand it as "looking, not particular," or "talking about a generally welcoming alternative community, not about an individual," or because they will just go "huh? that's a word?"

And in communities where people do understand it, I have a vague feeling it implies "not your mother's bisexuality." And I don't want to deny my past.

I absolutely agree about it all being a work in progress!

From:

silveradept

You're still visible.

And it requires more (good) nuance these days to describe the kind of people that someone is attracted to. And making differences, potentially, between physical attractions and non-physical ones. It's all the nuance that some factions would like to stamp out so they can have a simplified view of things.