As a general rule, when people talk about oppression related to sexual orientation, they think about it in terms of oppression related to being in a same gender relationship (or, potentially, gender expression — drag show bans feel like one part suppression of gay culture and one part an attack on trans lives, for instance). There’s a reason why marriage equality is the banner fight that people think of when they think of LGBTQ rights: what better way to understand the way that same gender loving people are oppressed than by looking at the ways that their relationships are legally distinguished from those of straight folks?
But the oppression of gays and lesbians has never solely been about their same gender relationships. We don’t talk as much about the issue of “gays in the military” anymore, but it was at one point a pretty big deal — and notably, being barred from military service didn’t require you to actively be in a same sex relationship. It merely required you to be same gender attracted, or even simply suspected of being same gender attracted. Military service bans conceived anyone with same gender attractions — and for the record, bi people were explicitly named in policies like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — as unfit for participation in the US armed forces. Simply having the desire, regardless of whether or not it was acted upon, was enough to make you suspect. Other forms of discrimination against gays and lesbians follow this principle as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re actively in a queer relationship; simply being queer is enough to open you up to a torrent of abuses and discrimination.
I think it’s worth remembering that when we talk about biphobia, which so often gets assumed to be part-time homophobia. If gays and lesbians can experience oppression even while single, even when they are virgins, then why do we assume that bi people only experience oppression when we are “actively gay”? Why do we assume, for instance, that bi people only experience oppression by dint of sometimes being in same gender relationships — that, for instance, marriage equality marries to bi people because we might want to marry someone of our own gender? More to the point, why do we assume that biphobia goes away just because a bi person has a different gender partner?
I came out as bi at the age of 14, well before I started dating or sleeping with anyone (I hadn’t even been kissed at that point). It is interesting to me to consider what kind of biphobia I was already experiencing at that juncture, simply by stating a desire. Certainly, it weighed me down with the assumption that I must naturally be sexually experimental, that I must already have the makings of a slut. Certainly, it led other queer women to assume from the jump that I could not actually be trusted, that if they fell for me I would only leave them for a man, that my queerness was destined to be a short term fling rather than a long term endeavor. Certainly, it burdened me with the assumption that most queer community spaces and resources were not “for me” — that I was, at best, a tourist deserving only of temporary access to these spaces, despite the prominent inclusion of a B in LGBT.
That’s a lot to take on at 14, to take on long before you’ve even ever been kissed. And it is also just the tip of the iceberg, really — because of course when bi people do get into relationships we experience not just homophobia (both the kind we experience from having a same gender partner and the kind we experience when our straight partners are themselves homophobic and distrusting of our queerness) but also elevated rates of abuse and assault, all without really having any dedicated resources or places to turn to. We are exposed to all manner of violations and abuses simply by dint of being bi people, regardless of our behaviors and actions — and yet those violations and abuses are so often ignored or treated as inconsequential.
I do not think you have to be “actively bi” to experience biphobia; I do not think biphobia requires any behavioral opt-in to be activated. One experiences biphobia simply by being bisexual in a biphobic culture. We are all of us victims, and all of us deserve so much more.
I came out as bi in the early 2010s well before I'd experienced a relationship, too. My extended family's reaction taught me that you don't have to actually love someone of the same gender to experience vitriol for the **capacity** to do so.
Very interesting article, I wonder about the evolution from previous generations. I am Gen X, where most bi-people were I guess masters of avoidance, their full self expression scarified for social acceptance, the self-oppression of denial.
To be fair, where I came from most kids were struggling on a lot of fronts, dealing with god awful parents, teachers, priests etc.,
In that environment (and being generally ignorant of the possibilities, without role models or pioneers) being bi was the least of my worries.
It’s deeply regretful now looking back at the obvious loss, relative to what could have been, but at the time strangely it was a source of comfort to be able to retreat into this rich inner life.