One of the most common complaints fielded against bi activists is that we have a tendency to hit harder against queer biphobia than biphobia from the straights.
“Why are you constantly beating up on us?” many monosexual queers will ask bisexuals who call out their biphobia. “Don’t you see that straight people are the real problem? Don’t you know that we’re oppressed too?” The implication often seems to be that bisexuals are punching down, that we’re fixated on policing a marginalized population rather than attacking the actual oppressor.
And, well, for me — and I suspect for many other bisexuals — the answer is two-fold. Straight biphobia, or homophobia, feels less pressing in part because we already expect it; many of us don’t spend a lot of time with straight people — or only hang out with straight people who we know are allies — because straight queerphobia is so poisonous. Queer biphobia is, then, the biphobia we’re the most likely to come into contact with, it’s the biphobia that affects us most readily.
Then there’s also this:
I expect better of queers.
I simply do! Maybe that feels unfair. Queers are people too, just like the straights; flawed and imperfect and occasionally cruel people. Why should I assume that they’re going to be any more open-minded about bisexuality than straight people, right?
But it feels to me like people who have experienced sexuality-based oppression would know better than to police other people’s personal relationships and sex lives. It feels to me like monosexual queers should understand why it is crucial to advocate against biphobia — not least because queer biphobia helps convince straight people that their own biphobia is okay, that if the “other team” hates bisexuals too then it must be because we are truly loathsome.
And yet. Here we are.
I started thinking about this today because I realized I was having a similar feeling about an entirely unrelated situation. “Antisemitism on the left” has been in the news quite a bit since 10/7, with many publications running articles or opeds about progressive Jews who feel abandoned or dismissed by their social justice comrades in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians.
And I cannot deny that I have felt deep discomfort when I see people I generally respect tossing off jokes mocking slaughtered Israeli teenagers or blaming them for their deaths, or shrugging off the murders of friends of friends of mine as necessary collateral for liberation rather than a tragedy that should be mourned, just as all the Palestinian lives lost at the hands of the IDF should be mourned.
For me, it’s not that I think that the left is somehow “worse” than hardcore Zionists who cheer on the strikes on Gaza. Indeed, I’m finding myself troubled by how much ink has been spilled over the hurt feelings of liberal/left Jews, ink that could be used to advocate for a ceasefire, to put Palestinians front and center, to make their pain as real to a media audience as that of Israelis.
But I do not have hardcore Zionists in my life. They are not in my social media feed, they are not my online bubble. I have no doubt that they are saying callous, cruel things that devalue Palestinian lives — and indeed, it’s the fact that some of the “leftist” rhetoric I have seen online sounds identical to the Zionist rhetoric I’ve heard parroted by right wing family members for years, albeit with a few words changed, that gives me the most pause. The argument that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian due to mandatory IDF service (an argument that ignores that children are not eligible for military service, and that there are Israelis who resist IDF service, often at great personal cost) does not sound different to me than the president of Israel saying that there are no civilians in Gaza, that all residents of the Gaza Strip are fair game because they are all aligned with Hamas.
Or to put it more simply:
I expect better of leftists.
Maybe that is foolish! Maybe it is naive to believe that people are drawn to social justice because they inherently understand that all life is sacred, that all people deserve fundamental human rights and freedom. But I did believe that at one point. I did believe that people advocating for human rights would not brush off the murder of children simply because “the other side” does it too.
And yet.
The thing that is giving me the most hope in these absolutely abysmal times are joint Jewish-Arab solidarity projects on the ground in Israel-Palestine, groups like Standing Together, who bring Palestinians and Israelis together to advocate against the war, against apartheid, against the occupation, and for human rights for all. Knowing what I know about life in Israel-Palestine, I cannot imagine how difficult it is for these activists to do this work — especially now, at a time when so many of them have lost friends and family in the chaos and violence of war. I’m inspired by people who are able to deprogram themselves from the hatred their society has instilled in them, who are able to respond to the grievous loss of loved ones, not with rage, but with a commitment to ensuring that no one else need suffer the same pain.
I wish more of us could be like that.
If you would like to make a donation to on-the-ground crisis response in Gaza, Americares and Doctors Without Borders are both providing support.
I face weirdness from some gay men, and I do have difficulty interfacing with gay culture, but my biggest day to day problems with biphobia have far and away been straight women, several of whom have outright attacked me over leaving a straight marriage to be a bisexual slut.