i can no longer hide my disdain for the term "bi+." it is like a slur to me. i blame this on the commodification of everything "queer" in the western world. the christianese being used to moralize sexualities by sanctifying them as "inclusive" or damning them as "exclusive." the aesthetics of "queerness." the way identity is open market. shop for your pronouns. i absolutely blame modernism for the state of bisexual activism right now. it is a glaring weakness you can trace all the way back to the 90s at the height of logo politics predicated by the booming consumerism of 80s USA. it's where you get all this "fluidity" nonsense. all clubs, no action. personal branding > political literacy. "vote with your dollar." the fetishization of "diversity." no wonder everyone's idea of standing up for gay rights nowadays is largely insistence on participation in increasingly commodified subcultures as jury duty for young queers or reactionary virtue signalling mixed with altar calls to "unity" under the "community" initialism with sermons on the doctrines set forth by foucault, butler, rich and serano. or, for the edgy "feminist" ones, sheila jeffreys and andrea dworkin idk.
the reason bisexual activism feels like it hasn't gotten anywhere in the last forty years (it has, just not very far) is literally due to being fucked over by capitalism and monosexism simultaneously at the time it was starting to bud. bisexual is something "anyone can be"--the epitome of the liminal "queer"--and thus bisexual activism is only legitimate as something for "everyone" (which means no one in particular). emphasis is placed on "intersectional struggles" that boil down to anything More Important People like trans, het, or homosexual people can relate to and downplays systemic biphobia if it accounts for it at all. "bisexual" is just another word for the sexual revolution (which is why “serious” feminists hate bisexuals—we ended up on the wrong side of the 80s Sex Wars along with the kinksters). the exciting “queer frontier.” it's a lifestyle commodity sold to "rebel" straights. a belief. something that makes you sexy and open-minded. liberated. a badge that says "went bisexual in highschool/college." forever in service to anything and anyone but bisexuals themselves, who are not allowed, under queer theory or in the homocentric LGBTQ "community", to be conceptualized as a legitimate class of persons. you can also see why "queer" and "bisexual" are both treated as umbrella labels for "undecided" individuals who are more often conceptualized as simply being spicy straights by homonormative and biphobic homosexual/trans people alike. the identity of anyone who uses "bi" or "queer" is treated as ultimately fugacious.
all this to say, the quest for real bisexual activism is not actually hopeless, but there was a lot of mud in the water thrown in before something more productive than what we currently have could flourish. and people have to clear the debris out (and understand it) before it's all flowing again.
