The second message is being deeply misunderstood by the lesbian community.
When bi women reference ānot feeling queerā, theyāre not saying, āgosh, all this straight privilege is sure getting me down! I wish I could have it AND be included in the lesbian community! ā
Theyāre saying, āI am suffering from severe effects of oppression even when I am in relationships that are perceived as straight.
āAnd there is so little acknowledgment of this in the queer community that it not only means the problem isnāt getting addressed,ā (like the fact that less than 1% of LGBT grant money goes to bi-specific issues), ābut it also makes the psychological effects of the oppression much worse.
āTo the point that I donāt even have the words to explain this to you, and you donāt have the information to put it together.ā
The repeated message that bi/pan/omni/ply people are only oppressed/āactually queerā when weāre in same-gender relationships is a huge part of the constant erasure of bi experiences.
That erasure contributes both to the fact that bisexuals are consistently poorer, more suicidal, more likely to be mentally ill, and more likely to experience relationship violence and sexual assault than our gay and lesbian peers.
(Same thing goes for aces, for that matter. People say, āwell why would anybody know youāre ace on the street, you arenāt oppressed unless you ālook SGAā.ā
Meanwhile, both bi and ace people have extraordinarily high rates of suicidality, homelessness, poverty, harassment, and assault. And nobody knows, because both groups are so erased. Donāt even get me started on intersex peopleā¦.)
For example, 25% of bisexuals in the US are on food stamps; around 13% of gay men and lesbians are.
(This is actually worse than it sounds, because there are also more bisexuals - so itās a larger percentage of a larger group.)
If the only kind of oppression you can see is whether someone can marry their partner and how people react to them on the street, you leave out most of what gay people experience as well as the rest of us.
A lesbian who breaks up with her girlfriend doesnāt suddenly stop being oppressed. A lesbian who puts on lipstick and goes shopping alone doesnāt suddenly stop being oppressed.
For that matter, a passing, gender-conforming trans person doesnāt suddenly stop being oppressed.
Passing as a cis and straight person doesnāt even mean any of those folks will feel safe on the street.
Cutting our oppression down to āhow likely are you to get assaulted or harassed on the streetā is handy for gatekeeping all sorts of people. But it screws absolutely everybody over.
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