Bi Erasure - Tumblr Posts
“Therefore, it is not surprising that some bisexuals find their bisexual desire more a burden than a gift. They may feel a pressure or a wish to choose between heterosexuality and homosexuality to make their lives easier and avoid internal and external conflict. Many desire the ease they imagine would come with having one clear, fixed, socially acceptable identity. The behavior of individual bi people, as members of a stigmatized group, is frequently seen as representative of all bisexuals. Thus, a bi-identified person may feel a sense of shame when any bisexual person behaves in such a way as to reinforce negative stereotypes of bisexual people. And we can feel an even more profound sense of shame when our own behavior happens to mirror one of the existing stereotypes of bisexuals (such as practicing polyamory, or leaving one relationship for another). Although some bisexual people do behave in ways that conform to negative stereotypes about bisexuals, it is actually the dynamics of prejudice that cause others to use such actions to generalize their stereotyping and prejudiced behavior to an entire group.”
- Robyn Ochs, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World
i really do think that bi women need to stop trying to explain themselves to biphobic misogynists, they're going to find a problem with you no matter what you do. girls, you don't owe them shit
you don't owe them an explanation for why you're attracted to multiple genders. you don't owe them an explanation for why you're dating anyone of any gender. you don't owe them an explanation for why you rejected someone of a gender you experience attraction to. you don't owe them an explanation for why you've never actually dated anyone of a gender you experience attraction to. you don't owe them an explanation for why you might call yourself a butch or femme. you don't have to wish you weren't attracted to [insert gender] just to please biphobes. you don't have to "pick a side" just to please biphobes.
and most importantly, you are allowed to tell biphobic misogynists to fuck off. you are allowed to be mean to them. you are allowed to say that you won't change for them.
Bisexuality, as a sexual orientation, encompasses attraction to more than one gender. Despite growing acceptance, bisexual individuals often confront unique challenges that differ from both heterosexual and homosexual experiences.
society if people could just say bisexual
y’all are insane, I was talking about my bisexuality with my feminist history professor and referred to myself as a dyke and she didn’t leap over the table and slap me and say I can’t say that because I’m bi and not a lesbian. Like you do realize that people see all of us fruits whether bi or gay/lesbian as a bunch of fruits no matter the flavour, right?
“Using ⚢ means calling yourself a lesbian so you’re actually encouraging biphobia and erasing bi activist’s efforts” ayyyy yoooo im gonna lose my mind literally none of u have ever typed in “bi history” ever in your life & it shows. this picture took me one minute to find and it’s from the 1990’s
Fact: Bisexual people can be any gender. The idea that all women are a little bisexual or that only women can be bi stems from the (straight) male gaze and the belief that bisexuality exists for the enjoyment of straight men. It’s hugely biphobic and sexist; it objectifies bi women and erases bi men. We are here and we refuse to limit who we are to fulfill the expectations of straight society.
Butch and femme are not lesbian exclusive. The double venus is also not lesbian exclusive. They belong to bisexuals too. Historically they always have. We are going to use them all we want. Seethe more, you biphobic fucks
Happy Pride!
I made this infographic series on some statistics centered around bisexual women.
Bisexual women are more likely to:
Be victims of sexual assault/rape
Be victims of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)
Be at risk for suicide
Suffer from anxiety and poor mental health
Use substances
I plan on doing some more bisexual female/lesbian infographics and some LGB history posts for Pride.
These infographics also take me several hours to research, write, compile, and design, so a reblog or follow is very appreciated :)
you’re not “pansexual” you’re just a bisexual with a superiority complex
achilles is so often called gay by the community and straight by society even though he fell in love with men and women. freddie mercury is known as the most famous gay man even though he self identified as bisexual. channing tatum is constantly called straight even though he’s dated men and women. evan rachel wood and angelina jolie and drew barrymore–all self identified bi women constantly called straight.
sappho wrote love poems for both men and women and yalls response to the idea that she might have been bi is “there was no concept of bi/gay back then!! let’s focus on the fact that she was sapphic!!” to the point where her name has become synonymous with gay and she’s called a lesbian icon and y'all only seem to have issues with “concepts” and labels when the concept/label is BI. why am i not surprised?
I feel like if people realized sexuality was about WHO you are attracted to and not HOW you express your attraction they wouldn’t be ripping apart the bisexual community with new words because some people prefer women 51% of the time and men only 49% or whatever. I’m begging you to pick up a book on bisexual history and to understand the historical fluidity of the term. Don’t care about gender? You’re bi. Care about gender? You’re bi. Prefer one gender over the other? You’re bi. These are personal preferences and don’t deserve their own label when they completely go against 50+ years of history.
Bi women can’t talk about being in relationships with men because that’s seen as forcing heterosexuality upon gay and lesbian people. Bi women who previously identified as something other than bi can’t talk about the process of realizing they were bi because that’s seen as forcing heterosexuality upon lesbians. Bi women can only talk about being in relationships with women if they add 15 caveats about how they hate other bi women now and have discarded their bisexuality. Bi women in relationships with bi men or with lesbians have to swear up and down that they aren’t fetishizing their partners.
Bi women can’t talk about being happy (either single or in a relationship) because then people will take that as us having no problems in the world. Bi people can’t talk about mundane issues such as media representation or language about bisexuals because that’s too trivial. Bi women can’t talk about their sex lives or wanting to be polyamorous because that’s seen as too dirty and too gross and too predatory. Bi women can’t produce or consume “sappy wuhluhwuh content” because that’s seen as defanging and disrespecting lesbian identity and yet they can’t talk about bisexual social alienation/trauma/invisibility/loneliness because “invisibility is a privilege” and because “those things are just stolen terms from gay and lesbian people”.
Bi women can’t talk about being unicorn hunted on dating apps because apparently they don’t face that issue and instead perpetuate it and force lesbians to have threesomes with their male partners (apparently). Bi women can’t talk about intracommunity biphobia without being told that we aren’t radical for dating men and that LGBT spaces are safe gay spaces that we’d be invading.
Bi women can’t call themselves gay even when they’re in gay relationships. Bi women can’t call themselves tops or bottoms even when they’re having regular gay sex. Bi women can’t call themselves queer because that’s a slur but oh wait, it’s okay when other people weaponize that word against us. Bi women can’t call themselves masc or femme because they’d be stealing those terms from lesbians but oh wait they can’t call themselves tomcats, does, or stags because those terms are cringeworthy imitations of butch/femme. Bi women can’t talk about gender expression without being told they’re appropriating “real” gay culture. Bi women can’t talk about femininity without being told they perform it for men and bi women can’t talk about masculinity without being told that being bi makes it impossible for them to be masculine.
Bi women can’t talk about how unique relationships between bi women and bi men or bi women and bi women or bi men and bi men are. Bi women can’t call their relationships “bisexual” relationships because that’s somehow “anti-materialism”. Bi women can’t talk about loving their male partners because that’s anti-feminist but they can’t talk about hating men as a class or their trauma with respect to men without being told that it means they must actually be “lesbians suffering from comphet”.
Bi women can’t talk about solidarity with LGBT people without being seen as selfish, nor can they talk about just bi women without being seen as selfish.
Bi women can’t talk about the material, systemic, and sexual violence we face because apparently it isn’t real, no matter how much empirically validated proof we offer, and if we do talk about it, we’re stealing lesbian specific experiences or erasing lesbian specific experiences or trying to claim gay and lesbian specific experiences.
Bi women can’t talk about our place in overall LGBT history (because we were apparently invented in 1998) and we can’t talk about bisexual history (because that’s *spins wheel* taking the focus off the REAL radicals in the community).
Bi women have to be politically perfect all the time and have to allow people to scrutinize their personal lives and interpersonal relationships and sexual histories/traumas but it’s okay for people to not be in solidarity with us or to even offer us an ounce of empathy (and if we ask for it we’re whiny, selfish, and crying about non-issues). Bi women have to hate themselves and each other and hold each other responsible for all the world’s problems 24/7 but can never hold people responsible for biphobia.
Bi women can’t even talk about any of these things on their own blogs, in their own spaces, on their own time, with other bi women, because that’s just too much.
There really is no winning.
I do not understand how you can be a feminist and simultaneously reduce bisexual women to their relationships with men.
Can we start, when teenage girls come out as bisexual, saying congratulations and then offering support and information instead of questioning them, laughing at them and saying they’re lying?
fucking destroy the idea that teenage girls fake their sexualities and are only queer for attention