The Bisexual Agenda @the-bisexual-agenda - Tumblr Blog

pnkvmpr-hiatus-deactivated20240

okay y’all its pride month, time to expose yourself to what some actual trans/nonbinary bi’s have to say about bisexuality

written essays by @mediumkravitz

revisiting “both” definitions of bisexual

pnkvmpr-hiatus-deactivated20240

EDIT: added “why myths about bisexuals are dangerous”, extremely important article please read it.

jwjdhdjsksks

it’s hard to find a label to feel comfortable and identify with, don’t take that away from people

you can be attracted to all genders and be bi, but maybe someone doesn’t really “connect” with that label and that’s ok, no one is saying you are not valid

I didn't connect with the bi label before but I realized it was internalized biphobia because of all of the negative stereotypes about bisexual people. I thought pan was a better label because it seemed more a about love and bisexual reminded me of slutty college girls who kissed other girls to get guys attention. Then I realized that that was my own problem

fuck-no-bullshit

That really was biphobia and the existence of pansexuality has made that kind of internalized biphobia even more common.

The term bisexual is not just a label. It's the word that defines our sexuality. If a man is only attracted to other men, even if the word "gay" doesn't ""click"" with him that's still literally what he is.

Inventing new words to describe the same thing but claiming you just "connect more" with the made up word over the other is the erasure and alienation of the original word.

jwjdhdjsksks

Yeah I have a feeling a lot of the people who "just don't feel comfortable with the word bi" have a similar experience and thoughts as I did. The word bisexual felt too....sexual. But the solution is not to come up with new words that essentially mean the same thing. The solution is to confront why you feel that way and to get rid of your stereotypes. Fight against it, don't contribute to it.

As a non-binary person who identifies as queer in terms of sexuality but has used both bisexual and pansexual as labels in the past, I feel as if your stance on pansexuality is really harmful and is needlessly divisive. Why do you feel it is in anyway appropriate to criticise the use of labels that exist to allow people to express themselves in a way that is accurate to them, and makes them feel comfortable? I started out using bi as a label when I first came out, and then shifted to pan when I transitioned- not because bisexual doesn’t include non-binary people, but because I felt that my feelings towards gender were more fluid and I saw it as a largely socially constructed concept, and by using pan as a label I felt like I could remove gender as an element of sexuality for me. Please stop fuelling harmful discourse around this issue, I understand from personal experience that biphobia is a real issue and can unfortunately come from mspec community, but as does transphobia (one does not necessarily equate to or cause another but they are both severe issues). I appreciate the respect that you have towards people who use the pan label and that you are not actively encouraging hatred within the community, but your posts are still harmful and may encourage younger members of the community to engage in genuinely transphobic, biphobic and panphobic discourse. I’ve lived through enough discourse and in-fighting to know that it can be incredibly damaging, and I have worked to fight against the erasure of queer communities for many years, so please don’t assume that I’m coming from an inexperienced or uninformed perspective on these issues.

It really is amazing that you come to a bi persons blog, who mostly corrects misconceptions around bisexuality, bi history, and bi erasure to try and pressure them into silence.

The pansexual label (as well as other m-spec labels) have been and continue to be harmful to the bisexual community, including to pan-identified people. No, I will not stop speaking out about how harmful its been and continues to be for the sake of feelings. The feelings of pan-identified people are not more important than the history and health of the bisexual community. We have fought for over 50 years for our history, and its shameful to suggest we should give up that fight for the sake of people who refuse to call themselves bisexuals.

You personally switching to pan because you wanted to "remove gender from your attraction" is a prime example of why bisexual history and fighting bi erasure is important. There was zero need to switch labels, as bisexuality has been defined by bisexuals as attraction regardless of gender since the 1970s. It has never been limiting until the push for m-spec labels happened, and that limiting redefinition was done by people who don't claim bisexuality and didn't have an understanding of bisexual history.

I've gone over in my introductory post (https://the-bisexual-agenda.tumblr.com/post/644757707150229505/an-introduction) why this topic is important to me, and no, I won't be stopping.

I suggest you ask yourself why bisexuals talking about their history, preserving their history, and addressing things that are harmful to the bisexual community is something you want to silence. Would you actively attempt to silence any other minority group as they advocate for their community, history, and fight their erasure? Hurt feelings of one group will never be more important than the history and wellbeing of a marginalized group of people, and trying to silence those voices shows you are part of the problem of erasure.

#bi #bisexual #battle axe bi #battleaxe bi #bisexuality #bi discourse #bi pan discourse

Did I seriously just see someone tell you "even if AIDS was as devastating as you suggest [the implication being that it wasn't]"? What the fuck?

Yup. Tumblr continues with the really shitty discourse takes, but minimizing the impact the AIDs epidemic had and continues to have on the LGBT community has to be got to be a new low point.

It’s takes like that which make me wish this site wasn’t just a shadow of its former self, but just gone.

the-bisexual-agenda

The vast majority of bi/pan discourse was started by millennials over a decade ago mostly because we were missing millions of our LGBT elders that were killed in the AIDs epidemic who would have heard our shitty hot takes and told us "nope, that's wrong and shitty" before it took hold.

Now our penance is trying to undo that damage and educate the younger generation while being screamed at for how we're "panphobic" and getting death threats for trying to correct our own missing knowledge of our community history.

heywhatsupfolks

hey, can you tell me more about this? I don't know much about this topic, so it would be awesome.

the-bisexual-agenda

So there’s a few really good articles I would suggest that cover a lot of issue.

This article goes over the history and present usage of the term pansexuality and the problems with it. (https://aninjusticemag.com/the-history-and-troubling-present-of-the-pansexual-label-9e535e15277)

It’s more controversial than people think it is, and many express discomfort with it. Here’s why.

This op-ed piece talks about how bisexuality is enough and there’s no need for m-spec labels including pan/omni/poly/etc. (https://www.culturalconsent.com/home/bi-is-enough)

“Why did we need two labels for people who essentially experienced attraction in the same way? Why did there need to be two different commun

Here also is my own personal view, which touches on some of the initial push on tumblr in the late 2000s/early 2010s to force bisexuals to adopt pansexuality or else they were transphobic. (https://the-bisexual-agenda.tumblr.com/post/652986436879040512/what-is-your-opinion-on-the-pan-label)

what is your opinion on the pan label? There’s a lot of history behind the pan label, but it’s not what a lot of modern proponents of the la

The truth of the matter is a lot of millennial LGBT people grew up with very fractured local communities primarily because of how many gen xers and boomers we lost in the AIDs epidemic. Typically a marginalized groups history is passed on from elders to younger generations, and LGBT culture and history is no different. That’s part of why a lot of millennials still don’t know their LGBT history and why it seemed like a whole generation was left to figure stuff out for itself. If we had access to the thriving community that existed before the AIDs epidemic, our LGBT elders would have heard the shit takes we had like “but bi means just two” and would have educated us on what pansexuality meant to them because it does have a long history as a kink term.

Obviously it’s just my opinion, but I do think a lasting legacy of the AIDs epidemic is the near total erasure of bisexual history and the creation of m-spec identities that would have never existed if we hadn’t lost millions to HIV/AIDs. And in that, millennials set the precedent for absolute ahistorical garbage takes that gen z is continuing to perpetuate.

glaucons-younger-brother

I disagree with this analysis for two reasons, first is that, of Gay men born between 1951-1970 about 10% had died from AIDS by 1995. I don't think that would've had the impact on generational knowledge that you say it does.

Furthermore, men, both gay and straight, are more likely to be monosexual than women. So the people most likely to be invested in the bi/pan debate are more likely to be women who would be more inclined to look to their female elders so even if AIDS was as devastating as you suggest then it wouldn't impact the discourse as much.

the-bisexual-agenda

Bisexual men are the least likely of any other group in the LGBT to be out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there are less men who identify as bisexual or engage in bisexual behavior. https://bi.org/en/articles/revealing-research-on-why-many-bisexual-men-dont-come-out

Schrimshaw found that many men aren’t "confused" about their bisexuality. They know they are attracted to both men and women; however, they

It also doesn’t help that a lot of LGBT research (especially pre 2010) did not separate bisexual men from homosexual men in their studies, often lumping them in an suggesting their numbers were much lower. Never mind the amount of posthumous re-identifying bisexual men as simply gay that has happened particularly with celebrities.

It also doesn’t help that bisexual men specifically were blamed for spreading HIV/AIDs to the straight population, ostracizing them further into the closet.