One of the undercurrents of anti-bi criticisms and jokes — especially the ones that target bi women — is this idea that we’re just straight folks adopting the bi label out of a desire to make ourselves seem more cool; that bi people with straight partners, in particular, are engaging in a bit of stolen valor when we call ourselves queer (or even continue to identify as bi!). You would think, sometimes, that bi people with straight partners are draft dodgers in the grand war on heteronormativity, and that expecting the world to see us as queer is akin to demanding a Purple Heart despite never having seen a day of combat.
Here’s the thing though: not only is being LGBTQ nothing like being a soldier (not least because it’s bizarre to frame everything in metaphorical military terms), but there is no inherent valor to being LGBTQ.
You know who’s gay? Republican mega donor Peter Thiel. Roy Cohn, aka Trump’s mentor. Literal fascist Yukio Mishima. I could go on and on, but hopefully the point has already been made: there is nothing inherently worthwhile about being a queer person. A lot of queer people are absolute shit — and many of them are actively working against queer liberation and freedom in a way that that’s far more destructive and significant than just… being in a relationship that nominally appears to be straight.
So why do we keep acting like there’s some “realness” or cred to be had as a monosexual queer that bisexuals are somehow grasping at?
I mean, look: I say this again and again, but it still feels worth repeating. I don’t particularly find my own bisexuality interesting or revolutionary. I don’t think it makes me cool or groundbreaking. It is one of the most boring things about me, truly — and to the extent that it is in any way interesting, it is purely because I exist in a society that actively works to tell me that the way I am is wrong, and I choose to resist that messaging.
I don’t identify as bisexual out of some desire for cred; it is simply the most succinct way of explaining that I experience attractions to multiple genders, that I have loved and dated people with a variety of bodies and gender presentations. It is a simple statement of fact, nothing more or less. And so to constantly be made to feel like offering a basic summation of my dating history means that I’m trying to horn in on someone else’s party, that I’m trying to present myself as more heroic than I actually am —
Well. If literal fascists are more welcome at the LGBTQ party than bisexuals are, purely because of their monosexuality, then it’s not really a party I’m interested in attending, you know?
Hear, hear!
Draft dodgers - that’s hilarious 😂
As to whether or not individual bi people are cool I agree it’s wrong to generalise.
I do though genuinely think the orientation of bi-sexuality is cool - i believe that if we didn’t live under the tyranny of the majority who ignorantly choose to stigmatise it, it would be considered an incredible privilege to have the capacity to be sexually attracted to more than one sex/gender. Maybe one day. 😀