Saying this bc we are far, far from getting it right:
The 'bi' in 'bisexual' doesn't mean 'men and women' it means same and other. Misunderstanding this is the main reason people wrongly create and support the idea of being 'pan' over bi. The willful misconstruction of what bi means is and contributes to biphobia.
Bi used to, and in practice still does, also apply to gender. Not just attraction. The majority of 'bi' people feel as if they are or can occupy more than one gender- both 'the one you expect them to be' and another.
The 'bi' in bisexual can be understood to be much like the 'bi' in ambiguous. It just means 'both' one thing and another, or more than one thing.
If you are attracted to people the same gender as you, but also people who are a different gender as you, congrats, you're bi. If you don't want to think so, please examine your beliefs about bisexuality and why you would be uncomfortable with it as a label...because biphobia is probably a big culprit.
Ironically irt that last point, many bi ppl are attracted to bi-genderedness / gender nonconformity in others, meaning that while we are attracted to our gender and others, we are selectively only attracted to people who embody a spectrum/duality of gender in themselves. (ex: many of us are largely uninterested in gender conforming/cishet folks and we joke that we largely prefer masculine women and feminine men. That's not literal, but you get the idea. So it's really irritating that the LGBT+ scene largely treats us as 'Straight+'.
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