Been a while since I stirred shit.
I was blocked by another page on FB for pointing out the problem between bisexuals and pansexuals is just that most bisexuals (unknowingly) gaslight everyone on the etymology of the word. That’s pretty much the entire real difference.
Explanation:
People take the Bisexual Manifesto as if it was the founding document of bisexuality, the manifest was from the 90s while bisexual was coined as a sexuality in the 1910s-20s.
Times change and culture advances, something from the 1910s-20s is going to have cruft from the past. That doesn’t mean it’s bad or that those little bits are more accurate than today’s usage… but pretending they’re not there is gaslighting and most people see it as that.
And it’s really hard to convince people to listen to you after you just gaslit them.
The reality is that the split between sex and gender, as well as the concept of non-binary genders didn’t properly enter western culture until around the 70s or 80s. Prior to that sex and gender were seen as one and the same, and there was only two sexes (this doesn’t mean nonbinary people didn’t exist, but they had to struggle with the fact that they didn’t have any good language for their identities)
Bisexual started as a scientific term meaning “both sexes” and got adopted as a term for sexuality in the 1910s-20s with the definition used being “attraction to both sexes”. This doesn’t mean they weren’t attracted to trans or non-binary people, it only means they didn’t have the language or common concepts for it yet.
In the 70s-80s when nonbinary started entering common western culture, the bisexual community split. One half decided to retcon the definition to be more accurate while still fitting the bi- prefix (I see two definitions commonly, either “two or more genders” or “same and other”). The other half decided that wasn’t enough and changed the name they used to pansexual.
Ever since then the groups have basically been flinging shit at eachother trying to establish a difference in their identities. The Bisexual Manifest came out in the 90s, right in the thick of this.
And the shit slinging won’t have any chance of stopping until bisexuals accept that the name was a product of it’s time and the change in definition is just a matter of language improving to be more accurate.
Bisexuals were always an attraction regardless of gender, but when they were first defined as a group gender and sex weren’t separated and there was only two recognized genders/sexes among the people using it.
#LGBTQ #LGBT #LGBTQIA #Bisexual #Pansexual #Etymology #Sociology