A few years ago, I wrote a magazine profile about a woman who was, how shall I put this, a prodigious liar. She lied frequently about her background, about her accomplishments, about her role within her company. And she lied to me on multiple occasions, spinning stories I absolutely knew were false even in that very moment.
This woman also identified as bisexual*.
Given everything I knew about her — in particular her long history of misrepresenting basic facts about her life — it would not have surprised me if she were lying about being queer. She gave off the vibe of a mostly straight woman claiming bisexuality for “cred,” a woman completely uninvested in queer rights or community (let alone the wellbeing of her queer peers and employees) who nevertheless wields her own professed queerness as proof that she deserves attention, accolades, and to take up space. The people I spoke with who knew her seemed to consider her, in words, actions, and worldview, largely indistinguishable from the various straight women they had interacted with over the years. And, again, on top of that, she was a documented liar.
But I chose not to question her bisexuality. Much as I would have loved to disavow her, much as I would have loved to “prove” that she was actually a straight woman coopting my own identity in order to seem a little cooler, a little edgier, I chose instead to sit with the possibility that this woman could be a liar, an abusive boss, someone who hadn’t dismantled heteronormative ideas or values, someone who mostly (possibly exclusively) dated men, and also legitimately bisexual.
The thing about bisexuality that’s so thorny is that at the end of the day, it’s not an observable quality. It exists inside one’s head, and nowhere else. There is no way to prove that you are “really” attracted to all the people that you say you are, no way to prove that you are “really” enthusiastic about sex with all manner of genders. This is, by the way, not exclusive to bisexuality: plenty of gays and lesbians have lived closeted lives for years, even decades, in which they manage to piece together a passable impression of a straight person, sometimes fooling even themselves. But in a monosexual world, one can be judged by one’s actions alone: if you partner with people of your own gender, clearly you are queer; if you don’t, clearly you are straight. When bisexuality enters the picture, on the other hand, this unknowability is perceived as a threat. If you can always claim to be bi no matter the gender of your current partner, then what’s to stop straight people from infiltrating queer spaces, from claiming access to resources intended for queer people without ever actually having to live with the burden of queerness?
And look, I get it. It’s absolutely possible for a straight person to simply claim that they are bisexual — either knowingly lying, or using some loose definition that may or may not “count” in other people’s eyes — and, well, I wouldn’t exactly say “reap the benefits,” since it doesn’t feel like there are a lot of them, but maybe get attention. Maybe claim the crown of “first bisexual so and so,” or get access to a queer scholarship or whatever. Get to go to some fancy party, or get listed on some Out 100 list, all without having to truly endure structural queer oppression. And sure, that kind of sucks.
And yet, the minute we start policing the boundaries of bisexual identity, we’re forced to contend with the fact that, as I mentioned above, bisexuality cannot be proven. There are plenty of legitimate bisexuals out there who’ve only dated partners of one gender (or never dated anyone at all); there are plenty of legitimate bisexuals who seem straight, who have bad opinions, who absolutely suck, and yet are still bisexual. And when we start attempting to enforce some kind of bisexual purity test, rooting out the “frauds” from the “real bisexuals,” it’s not the frauds who are actually going to get hurt. It’s the self-doubting, insecure, anxious bisexuals — it’s the members of our community who are too afraid to ask for help, too closed off to actually understand their own suffering, who will ultimately become even less confident about their bisexuality, even less capable to pursue community or resources, even more likely to suffer in silence.
For me, what this all ultimately comes down to is not who “counts” as bi or not, but rather that building our analysis around individual people is itself the problem. Bi politics shouldn’t be primarily concerned with whether this person or that person is “really” bi: the question of whether, say, Kyrsten Sinema is “actually” bi (something I’ve seen floated) doesn’t actually change the lived experiences of members of the bi community. It doesn’t actually change the biphobia that every other bi person lives with. Indeed, the desire to question bisexuals’ truthfulness is, itself, an outgrowth of biphobia, one more instance of society refusing to believe that we are real.
So, yeah, I decided not to give a shit about whether this woman was really bi, or whether her professed bisexuality was just one more scam. I decided that it didn’t matter to me if she was a “fake bi” or a real one who just really sucked. I decided that bisexuality isn’t a measure of someone’s coolness or worth as a person — that there are tons of terrible bisexual people, and their bisexuality is no less valid because I think they’re absolutely awful. I decided that my liberation — and yours! — isn’t wrapped up in obsessing over who is and isn’t “really” bi, but instead working towards a world where individual people’s sexual identities don't affect their destinies, where who you are or aren’t attracted to is as uninteresting a detail as your shoe size**.
I decided, basically, that the best response to someone claiming a sexual identity that I’m not sure is actually legit is to simply stop giving a shit. They have their reasons for adopting their labels, and I don’t have to care about them. And you know what? It fucking feels great.
* And potentially non-binary? At one point she started listing her pronouns as “she/they,” and for the record everything I’m about to say about bisexuality could be applied to non-binary gender as well.
** Apologies to the denizens of WikiFeet