Do we want to be weird?

Freaks vs. Wannabes.

First up, a note: The family emergency I alluded to last week, the one that led me to drop off on this newsletter, remains unresolved but is blessedly in a less acute phase, enabling me the brain space to actually think my thoughts about bisexuality. Hooray! I may drop off again for a bit if things get more intense again, but for now: let’s all hope my cautious optimism is rewarded.

(Also if we actually know each other and you’ve been worried about me feel free to reach out! I don’t want to spill my business on the internet but am happy to chat with friends.)

Now on to the main event.

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The other day, while I was aimlessly scrolling Twitter — or maybe it was Bluesky? They let me on Bluesky finally — I saw a post from a colleague (it doesn’t matter who) that attempted to sum up The Queer Condition™️. There are two types of queers, the post posited: the ones who are labeled rebellious and weird and desperately don’t want to be, and the ones who aren’t labeled rebellious and weird but desperately want to be.

That wasn’t it verbatim, but I’ve captured the general gist, which was easy to do because it’s not a particularly original sentiment — indeed it is a common belief, one that implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) shapes many intraqueer dynamics.

If you are anything like me, you are probably already mentally assigning various groups of queers to each category — which, for ease’s sake, let’s label Freaks and Wannabes. Trans people as a whole are put in the Freaks category, especially during this moment of heightened transphobic assaults, though one could further subdivide and note that, for instance, hyper visible trans women are further to the Freak end of the spectrum than the more invisible trans men, with cis passing non-binary people firmly planted in the Wannabe category. Aces, who often have to advocate to even be recognized as queer, are in the Wannabe category; whereas gay men — even the most milquetoast of them, like Pete Buttigieg — cannot shake the label of Freak.

And obviously everyone knows that bisexuals — and particularly cis bisexuals in hetero appearing relationships — are Wannabes.

That was, of course, the first thing that came to mind when I saw this framework laid out, the group I immediately assumed was being gestured to as my colleague fashioned this post. She, herself, was tired of being a Freak and used the post as a jumping off point to explain that she just wanted to live her life; whatever else she may have wanted to say, there was an implicit suggestion that there was a chasm in understanding between her and people whose biggest issue was not being registered as queer. People like, I silently filled in, the bisexuals whose largest concern seems to be “invisibility.”

And while I don’t want to project too much onto my colleague’s words, I will say that more broadly, this is the accusation that often gets leveled at bisexuals, especially cis bisexuals in hetero appearing relationships. We, who have the comforts of functionally being perceived as straight, are pissed off that no one sees us as weirdos? Our biggest problem is that we don’t get enough kudos for being socially marginalized? That’s the way so many people understand the charges of erasure, of invisibility. That is what makes us so cringe.

And yet. When I ask myself if I want to be seen as “weird,” if that is my goal, I find that the answer is, honestly… not really? I certainly do not envy my Freak friends the harassment and abuses they experience on the regular; I do not feel like my life would be improved if I were a constant target of mocking or hateful legislation. What I feel is something more complicated.

What comes to mind when I ask myself what I want is, honestly, “understanding.” I don’t want to be perceived as weird; if anything, what I want is the more subtle, more subdued, ways that I am perceived as weird to just be a non-issue. I don’t want to have to explain — well, honestly anything about my attractions or my sex and romantic life. I don’t want to have to justify my queerness when I’m interested in a man, or feel validated in it when I’m dating a woman. I just want to feel free to pursue my happiness, however that journey unfolds, without having people’s opinions of me change depending on the gender of my partner. I want — like my colleague, like so many Freaks — to simply be allowed to live my life without harassment.

And maybe that’s all of us, honestly — not simply the bisexuals, but anyone whose relationship to sex and gender is viewed as somewhat askew. While I think it is worth noting that there are some people who cannot escape visibility, who are vulnerable and targeted because of it, I don’t think it’s fair to say that anyone’s goal is to be perceived as “weird.”* I don’t really know if I believe that anyone is actually a Wannabe.

If anything, I think we’re all in search of that freedom to live our lives, that freedom to pursue happiness without having to explain ourselves. The question is simply whether our search for freedom is being met with violence and aggression, or whether it is met with a more quiet refusal to comprehend.

* Okay maybe some teenagers but that’s just… teenagers