There’s this phenomenon I’ve been experiencing for the past few years, ever since I got really serious about unpacking and understanding the depths of my internalized biphobia. At one point I might have referred to the experience as “taking the red pill,” but since that metaphor has been utterly ruined by the world’s worst people, I prefer instead to think of it as entering a bizarro world (apologies for the accidental pun).
It’s like this: you read some research, you start poring over papers, maybe it’s even triggered by an installment of this newsletter. But something you stumble upon triggers the opening of a door, and suddenly there you are, in this wholly new and disconcerting place. Up is suddenly down, left is right; bisexuals are not the most privileged members of the LGBTQ community but instead one of the most marginalized. Everything is confusing and unfamiliar in Bizarro World, but it also kind of makes sense. It offers context for some of those strange pains you’ve been feeling for years. It explains a lot actually. And you start to feel like maybe Bizarro World isn’t so bizarre after all — maybe it’s just a part of the regular world that most of us have not been trained to see.
But once you go back through the door, back into the “real world” — any attempt to explain what you’ve just seen, what you’ve just learned, is likely to meet resistance. To the people who haven’t yet seen Bizarro World, everything you say sounds ludicrous. Up is down? Hamburgers eat people? What are you even talking about, you know? And the more you try to persuade them, the less interested they are in listening. The more you talk, the crazier you begin to sound.
I started this newsletter because I was frustrated with the walls I kept hitting when I tried to talk about bi issues. I was, you know, an emissary from Bizarro World (again, apologies for the unintentional pun, I hate it), and every editor I pitched, every person I tried to talk to, did not seem capable of understanding what I was saying. It didn’t matter that the stats routinely show that bisexuals, as a demographic group, are doing badly; bisexuals were supposed to be not just privileged but honestly kind of frivolous, and the idea of bisexuals as an identity group, as an oppressed demographic, just did not matter.
And I still get frustrated, I’m not going to lie. It still feels, more than I would like, like most people don’t care; like most people don’t take things seriously. I think it should be shocking to more people that bisexuals are 4% of the US population and yet generally invisible; I think it should be shocking to more people that more of us do not feel comfortable making ourselves known. And yet because it doesn’t align with how most people understand sexual oppression, it doesn’t ever seem to compute. You can marry who you want, right? What more do you even need?
Anyway. I kinda just needed to vent my frustration about that, because it is the kind of thing that wears a lady down. There are only so many pitches you can send out, only so many projects you can lovely craft, before the rejection, before the sense that no one gives a shit, starts to eat at you. And yet, what are you going to do? Give up? No thank you. I’d rather keep chipping away until the walls between the “real” world and Bizarro World fall away. I’d rather keep chipping away until everyone can see what I see.
Want to support me in my mission to raise awareness of bi issues? The B+ Squad Book Club on Patreon is a great way to do that!
I know it can get exhausting but I genuinely wanted to express my gratitude and how you've not only helped me understand myself better (not only here but on Twitter) but also how it correlates and relates to systemic oppression and privilege and where they intersect. I hadn't thought much about bi issues systemically until this.
(reclaiming bizarro lol, sorry)