K I’m just gonna address this stupid shit hopefully for the last time. Brace yourselves, its gonna be long.
The most common definitions of pansexuality are:
1. “Attraction to men, women and trans people”
2. “Attraction to men, women and NB people”
3. “Attraction to all genders”
4. “Attraction regardless of gender”
5. “Attraction to people’s personalities”
First definition: transphobic as shit, full stop. Trans people are either men or women, acting as if they are a third gender that only pansexuals can be attracted to is gross.
Second definition: biphobic and nonsensical. Its biphobic because bisexuality never, ever excluded nonbinary people and it takes two seconds to look at bi history to understand that.
There’s also the fact that everyone can be attracted to nonbinary people. Yes, even straights. Wanna know why?
Because nonbinary people don’t have a set of physical characteristics that immediately tells you that they’re nonbinary. They look exactly like any other binary man or woman. Yes, some of them may be androgynous, but there are plenty of non androgynous nonbinary people and plenty of androgynous binary people.
So if they look exactly like men and women, how am I supposed to not feel any attraction to them? How am I supposed to exclude from my attraction a whole group of people that look wildly different from one another? Hell, how am I supposed to even recognize a nonbinary person without them telling me?
It just doesn’t work like that. Liam Hemsworth is not suddenly pansexual because he dated Miley Cyrus who is nonbinary but looks exactly like a woman.
Third definition: “Attraction to all genders” that is literally included in the definition of bisexuality. Historically, bisexuality always rejected the gender binary and always included all genders.
Fourth definition: “Attraction regardless of genders” thats not how it works. By definition, sexual orientation is WHAT GENDERS you’re attracted to, not HOW you are attracted to those genders. Bisexuals and pansexuals are attracted to the exact same genders and many bisexuals don’t take gender in consideration when looking for a partner. Saying that the difference between bisexuals and pansexuals is that for bisexuals gender needs to play a relevant role is just plain false, denies the experiences of many bisexuals and paints us as gender obsessed.
Fifth definition: “Attraction to someone’s personality” now this is just sapiosexual 2.0. Saying that the defining experience of your sexuality is being attracted to personalities implies that all other sexualities aren’t. Everyone feels attraction to personalities, its not just a pansexual thing. Having a completely separate label for something that everyone experiences is just absurd. And again, its not how sexual orientation works.
So, unless you redefine bisexuality (biphobia) or you misunderstand what a sexual orientation is (just plain old ignorance), bisexuality and pansexuality are the exact same thing.
So why is pansexuality problematic and toxic?
1. Because it never letf behind its roots. Pansexuality was born because of bisexual stereotypes (that we exclude trans/nonbinary people, that we are attracted to parts and not hearts, that we are gender obsessed freaks) and its still heavily associated to the “hearts not parts” biphobic and transphobic bullshit. Like, I literally have a ton of screenshot of people saying that in 2019. Not 2009, 2019. The cultural impact that pansexuality had helped to spread a ton of stereotypes and misinformation about bisexuality.
2. Because of the biphobia of the pansexual community. Like I said above, pansexuals still spread stereotypes about bisexuality to defend pansexuality, such as “bi means two, pan means all”. If people call out biphobia, they get called bigots, panphobes (thats exactly why i semi ironically have “panphobic queen” in my bio) or TERFs.
3. Because the rethoric “its fine to be uncomfortable with bisexuality, use this other label that was born out of biphobia and still hasn’t escaped its roots” is extremely problematic.
In a society where LGBT people are seen as dirty, sinful, immoral and deviants and that makes sure to say that stuff loud and clear its normal that some LGBT people internalize that shit.
The reaction to “hey, calling myself gay makes me uncomfortable” shouldn’t be “valid, lets make up a new word that means the same but in a ~woke~ way”, it should be “lets dismantle and actively fight the system that makes people uncomfortable with those words”. And its even worse for bisexuality, cause even in our community is often stigmatized and stereotyped (and while LGT people don’t have the power to oppress us, the biphobia in our community does harm us quite a lot).
Of course people are gonna be uncomfortable with bisexuality. That label has a huge baggage and a huge history of discrimination tied to it. Of course people would rather choose to use with a label born to be all inclusive and not with the “transphobic” and “enbyphobic” one. However, that mindset is incredibly damaging to bisexuals and the bisexual community.
Not acknowledging WHY the bisexual label makes you uncomfortable and opting out of the dismantling process of all those things that makes it uncomfortable with a convenient new label does more harm than good to bisexuals.
Actually, it reinforces that! I’ve lost count of how many times i’ve seen posts by pansexuals that really boiled down to “WE are attracted to someone’s soul and personality and we don’t care about gender unlike those bisexuals, who always care about your gender”.
Hell, just a couple of days ago i’ve seen an article by a pansexual person literally saying “i experience attraction in a different way than most people, i don’t look at someone wondering what their genitals look like or what it would be like to fuck them” (an almost word per word quote) as if everyone but pansexuals are creeps who wonder about strangers’ genitals.
Also, pansexuals are the very last ones that should say “let people identify how they wish!” cause all they’ve done is forcedly redefining bisexuality in order to validate pansexuality. Ever wondered why the definition of pansexuality changes every other day? Because you keep inventing a new one every time bisexuals point out that the previous is biphobic. You keep twisting the definition of bisexuality and ignoring our history and our voices to accomodate your made up biphobic label.
You like to scream “let us identify how we want” every time we bring up the very valid issues that we have with your label and maybe you don’t realize that, but its just another way to silence us when we try to speak up.
The only thing we’ve been asking you is to not shit all over out history and activism, to listen to us when we bring up our issues and to have a bit of critical thought about your label and community. You would think its the bare minimum but the fact that we need to have this conversation every two weeks proves that you refuse to do that.
TL;DR Pansexuality is incredibly biphobic, the pansexual community keeps spreading biphobic crap and saying “let people identifying how they want” while ignoring the consequences of that is problematic and harmful.
