Queer Biphobia - Tumblr Posts

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. 

“oughh i hate it when bi women relate to lesbian characters and lesbian songs” wait until you find out that bi women can (and should) connect with whatever we please. Chappell Roan. Hannah Montana. Batman. Connecting to a character transcends beyond gender and sexuality. Bisexual women can relate to whatever. That duck sticking her whole head underwater and flapping her wings, very cute, so me. That cool rock you see over there. I see myself in it. This turkey sandwich. It is delightful and yummy, just like me.

i’m so sick of lesbians appropriating bisexual history and culture, like calling themselves sapphic when sappho was clearly attracted to multiple genders. it’s not cool.

I read Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw and I was shocked at how much more severe the issue of biphobia and bimisogyny is than most people, even within the bisexual community, even realize. I’ve posted links to the relevant quotes from this book and organized them under these broad points:

bi men are targeted by both homophobia and biphobia; biphobia bi men experience is a materially distinct oppression than homophobia;

bi women are targeted by both lesbophobia and biphobia; bimisogyny, the intersection of misogyny and biphobia, is a materially distinct oppression from lesbophobia;

bisexuals of color, disabled bisexuals, and trans/nb bisexuals experience profound erasure from bi representation and scholarship, and access to necessary resources;

bi people experience "double discrimination"/biphobia from the straight and gay communities; bi ppl are at risk of discrimination for bisexuality specifically;

This biphobic discrimination in the gay community goes back decades;

the terminology used to describe gay rights is often exclusive of us to a damaging degree. this means in addition to specific biphobic struggles, bisexuals often must face generalized homophobia without the "buffer" of acceptance in the larger LGBT+ community and with some enhanced difficulties acquiring LGBT+ resources; and finally,

positive aspects of bisexuality and bi identity/nuance corner.

The most important information I found is that bi+ people have a higher rate of mental health issues, suicidal and self-harm issues, addiction, isolation, rape, IPV, stalking, abuse, and are less likely to be out as bisexual or to have strong connections to the larger LGBT+ community to act as a buffer against discrimination, as opposed to lesbians and gay men. They are also erased and denied access to LGBT+ spaces, resources, and legal protections. As opposed to gay men and lesbians, the particularities of the bisexual experience includes 1) experiencing double discrimination, 2) less likely to be out, resulting in mental health issues 3) bisexuals are more isolated on average than LG people, and 4) bisexuals struggle with internalized biphobia. I've broken down these arguments and sourced further information on the material affects of biphobia here on my Wordpress blog, since Tumblr won't let me post the full quote all at once, but you can find the quotes with the specific research and studies I'm basing these claims on in my tag for this book or under my general book quotes link, #education multiplies power