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queenofzanthe thing that really gets me is people talking about the bisexual community and pointing to years-old (sometimes decades-old) evidence of trans-inclusivity and being like “see, we’ve always included trans and/or nonbinary folks in the definition of bi”
and here’s the thing
someone was. y’all weren’t.
i feel very confident saying this as someone who has identified as bisexual for most of their life, and who is also nonbinary. trying to act like the entire bisexual community has been welcoming and inclusive of trans folks since the 70s is a literal lie. if folks meant to be welcoming and inclusive of trans folks in the early 2000s and 2010s, they did a shitty job. if queer teens are not getting that message from you, then you are not putting that message out there enough. a 17 year old bisexual who is just realizing they might have some gender shit going on isn’t doing the fucking reading on queer history, they’re absorbing the most accessible messages
and the most accessible messages when i was a teen and a young adult were literally binaristic and often explicitly transphobic. they were always implicitly binary and transphobic.
and to say, ah no, look at these bisexuals from before you were born, being inclusive! that’s disingenuous. i am here, a nonbinary bisexual, telling you i have experienced transphobia and binarism from other bisexuals, and acting like anyone who’s ever identified with a related but distinct label (pansexuality, polysexuality, etc) is making up a distinction that doesn’t/shouldn’t exist is
literally erasing the experiences of other bisexuals. like me. who were told, well no that’s not really what bisexuality is about. that’s not really who bisexuality is for.
and no, i’m sorry, i can’t pull out receipts on this, because lots of it happened in the years before 2010, when i was a baby gay trying to convince myself i was hetero, or looking to media primarily made by cis gays in an attempt to find something even remotely recognizable
but i have been hearing this messaging for years now that no, bisexuality has always been inclusive, was always meant to be inclusive, pansexuals (or whoever) are making up a distinction that doesn’t need to exist, and it’s. so fucking annoying. y'all, i did not hallucinate all the weird transphobic shit i heard from other bisexuals, about bisexuals. i did not somehow misinterpret all the biological essentialism and fixation on genitals. i didn’t invent the idea of not being welcome or wanted under the bisexual label.
and it’s one thing to be like “we are trying to do better now” and another thing entirely to be like “that never happened”. there’s a world of difference between “that shouldn’t have happened” and “that didn’t happen”. one of them is acknowledgement, and one of them is fucking gaslighting.
anyway the first time i was explicitly told by a sexuality label that people like me existed and people could be attracted to them was someone explaining what pansexuality was, so sorry for not reading minds and somehow intuiting that i was supposed to ignore the transphobes and gender essentialists and that, in five to ten years, bisexuals would largely agree that i existed and was capable of being attractive
and here’s the thing
someone was. y’all weren’t.
i feel very confident saying this as someone who has identified as bisexual for most of their life, and who is also nonbinary. trying to act like the entire bisexual community has been welcoming and inclusive of trans folks since the 70s is a literal lie. if folks meant to be welcoming and inclusive of trans folks in the early 2000s and 2010s, they did a shitty job. if queer teens are not getting that message from you, then you are not putting that message out there enough. a 17 year old bisexual who is just realizing they might have some gender shit going on isn’t doing the fucking reading on queer history, they’re absorbing the most accessible messages
and the most accessible messages when i was a teen and a young adult were literally binaristic and often explicitly transphobic. they were always implicitly binary and transphobic.
and to say, ah no, look at these bisexuals from before you were born, being inclusive! that’s disingenuous. i am here, a nonbinary bisexual, telling you i have experienced transphobia and binarism from other bisexuals, and acting like anyone who’s ever identified with a related but distinct label (pansexuality, polysexuality, etc) is making up a distinction that doesn’t/shouldn’t exist is
literally erasing the experiences of other bisexuals. like me. who were told, well no that’s not really what bisexuality is about. that’s not really who bisexuality is for.
and no, i’m sorry, i can’t pull out receipts on this, because lots of it happened in the years before 2010, when i was a baby gay trying to convince myself i was hetero, or looking to media primarily made by cis gays in an attempt to find something even remotely recognizable
but i have been hearing this messaging for years now that no, bisexuality has always been inclusive, was always meant to be inclusive, pansexuals (or whoever) are making up a distinction that doesn’t need to exist, and it’s. so fucking annoying. y'all, i did not hallucinate all the weird transphobic shit i heard from other bisexuals, about bisexuals. i did not somehow misinterpret all the biological essentialism and fixation on genitals. i didn’t invent the idea of not being welcome or wanted under the bisexual label.
and it’s one thing to be like “we are trying to do better now” and another thing entirely to be like “that never happened”. there’s a world of difference between “that shouldn’t have happened” and “that didn’t happen”. one of them is acknowledgement, and one of them is fucking gaslighting.
anyway the first time i was explicitly told by a sexuality label that people like me existed and people could be attracted to them was someone explaining what pansexuality was, so sorry for not reading minds and somehow intuiting that i was supposed to ignore the transphobes and gender essentialists and that, in five to ten years, bisexuals would largely agree that i existed and was capable of being attractive
