Yesterday, while doing my daily self harm ritual known as “being on social media,” I came across a screenshot of a TikTok purportedly from a bisexual complaining about the fact that there are no bi-specific slurs. The sentiment here was obvious: ugh, those bisexuals, so obsessed with being oppressed (and yet obviously not actually oppressed because no one has slurred them), and… man I have thoughts.
For starters, the entire premise of the comment is off: not only is the existence of slurs not an actual measure of one’s oppression but… there are (or at least have been) slurs used to demean and degrade bisexuals. They fall in and out of favor, but they absolutely exist. And the way they’re deployed is actually… pretty telling!
What I think is worth noting first and foremost is that the prejudice — and thus the slurs — that bisexuals face from straights and gays are different. This is a crucial detail one needs to consider: the reasons why straight and gay people dislike bisexuals are simply not the same (even as their complaints may, at times, overlap). Straight people who hate bisexuals tend to do so because they hate queerness, full stop; if they’re going to send slurs our way, they don’t need bi-specific ones. They just call us fags and dykes. The bisexual’s crime, in the eyes of straight people, isn’t that we “can’t commit” or some bi-specific issue, it’s that we do gayness at all. Why come up with a bi-specific slur when you can, again, just call someone a fag or a dyke?
Within queer communities, on the other hand… well in queer communities bi hate is more nuanced, isn’t it. Queers can hardly hate us for doing queer sex — no, what they hate is that we are presumed to be fair weather queers, here for a good time but ready to bounce to the safety of hetero privilege the second things get challenging*. Thus it’s among queers where you actually see bi-specific slurs: we are “fencesitters” who can’t make up our minds and want it both ways; or in the case of women who explore sapphism in their youth only to wind up partnered with men, LUGs (lesbians until graduation).
LUG is an interesting one to me, partly because it reached its height of popularity around the turn of the century, back when I was in high school/college, but also because, my god, there is so much contained in those three letters. It’s interesting to consider it as an anti-bi slur given that, on the surface, it is not about bisexuality at all. It’s about lesbians! Lesbian is right there in the name!
And yet, what is a “lesbian until graduation” if not… a bisexual woman? A woman who, at one point in her life, is primarily interested in dating other women, only to wind up committing to a man. The LUG is purported to disavow her lesbian past, but like… does she? Or is it more like… she’s a bisexual woman who dated women and then married a man and is now presumed to have abandoned queerness because she… married someone she was attracted to.
The entire idea of the LUG is one of bisexuality, not as an identity, but as a betrayal of lesbians. It’s an anti-bi slur through the invalidation of bisexuality — which is, I think, part of why people don't see it as an anti-bi slur. LUGs aren’t genuine bisexuals, they’re fake lesbians, you know? (Nevermind that bi women get called fake lesbians all the time.)
That said, when you live in a world where “bisexual” itself is treated as a dirty word — where bisexuals are told we don’t exist, that we’re sluts, that we’re destined to cheat, and so much more — who even needs slurs, you know? No one needs to make up some nasty word to tell us how much they hate the bisexuals. They’ve already made it perfectly clear.
* This is not how bisexuality works, you hopefully know
PS It is Bi Month, it is my bi(rthday) month, you are welcome to shower me with cash