#also if you're bi and think it's the only 'real' mspec identity we will all join forces to beat you up like that one jojo gif

[weedle-testaburger]

if you exclude bi people they get to bisect you. if you exlude pan people they get to deck you with a frying pan. if you exclude poly people they get to rip you up like polystyrene. if you exclude omni people they get to whack you over the head with an omnibot. we're not just called mspec because we're a spectrum of multiple forms of attraction to multiple genders, it's because we have multiple ways to beat your ass if you try and invalidate us

[bilesproblems]

This is based on a TROLL on TikTok who said "basically I'm a straight lesbian which means I'm straight but I like the lesbian aesthetic." Even though the troll account exposed themselves and said nobody would ever ID as a straight lesbian (despite the fact multigender people and people with split attraction DO), people now think that's a thing the contradictory label community does. That has real consequences on lesboys and mspec lesbians now because when we reclaim our places in lesbian spaces, or our complex experiences with sexuality or gender don't sound "complex enough" to someone with only the labels we use to go off of, then you'll get thrown in with the people "using it for the aesthetic" (a boogeyman that doesn't exist.)

If the person who wrote this sees this post:

NOBODY GENUINELY USES THE LESBIAN LABEL AS AN AESTHETIC. THAT'S NOT REAL. THAT WAS ONE PERSON WHO WAS TROLLING.

ALL lesboys have a complicated relationship with gender or they wouldn't feel like lesbians! Even if they appear like they're just a trans man, being trans itself can cause a complicated relationship with gender and how you label your orientation. NOBODY who is truly a perisex, aptobinary, monogendered cis man wants to call themselves a lesbian unironically. This is another boogeyman that isn't real. The only cis man lesboys are multigendered, on the nonbinary spectrum but still consider themselves cis because they're close to their AGAB, and "men" who are exploring their gender with the lesbian label - it is actually not uncommon for transfems to call themselves lesbians first and then trans second. Or maybe they are intersex and that made them end up having a complicated relationship with gender, how to label their orientation in regards to it, and the cis-trans dichotomy. There is most likely nobody who actually fits the stereotypical idea of what a cis man is (perisex, monogendered, aptobinary, and gender conforming, and without any complicated relationship to his gender) who actually identifies as a lesbian, and if there were, oh well. It's just like one or two guys. That's not an invasion and I'm CERTAIN that guy or those guys would actually indeed have a complex relationship with their gender. Sure some fully aptobinary cis men will jokingly refer to themselves as lesbians when they get rejected by us, but this kind of "no u can't be a lesbian" post won't stop them. They don't actually identify that way.

Mspec lesbians also do not identify as lesbians for the aesthetic. Like I said, that's not real. That was one troll who pretended to be a straightbian. Mspec lesbians and straightbians alike almost all have a complicated orientation. Straightbians are largely multigender, nonbinary, or have split attraction. Mspec lesbians also have split attraction, but we also have abrosexuality, difficult to distinguish orientation, aspec experiences, conditional attraction to men (depending on if there are other genders present), fitting both modern definitions of bi and lesbian (ie, me. I am attracted to women and a vast array of elsegender identities. This means I am attracted to 2+ genders and am therefore bi. This also means I am not a man and not attracted to men therefore I fit the modern definition of lesbian, despite the fact that I hate it as a definition, and am a lesbian), and reclaiming a historically backed identity that was destroyed by TERFs and radfems.

Please, OOP, if you see this: I think you're a good person and I think you'll fully support our communities if you get to know them, but first you have to stop attacking that boogeyman of invaders. They are not real. Nobody is using lesbian as an aesthetic and nobody who's an aptobinary man with no complicated relationship with his gender calls themselves a lesbian. What you'll end up doing is looking for this boogeyman and projecting it onto people without really knowing their relationship to gender, or their orientation, and assuming intentions. Sometimes there is complexity you can't see. Okay?!

occasionally I will see posts like these and I am not sure how some people still miss the point so hard

[posi-pan]

(You don't have to publish this if you don't want, it's lengthy and I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance than I'm not losing my mind...)

Aren't pan people the expert in the experiences we deal with as pan? I think so! People generally agree that talking over others' experiences with their own labels is bad. So that goes for us, too.

Aren't pan people the ones who will catch panphobic dogwhistles the easiest because some of us are aware it's directed at us and it's bad faith? Absolutely!

With all that said... I've come across a post (that I'm sure someone talked to you about it here before, around February) where the gist of it was a prominent bi talked about typical bi things (and there was no mention of pansexuality) but a lot of pan people caught on the dogwhistles right away. Some digging through that person's blog and there we have... *Babs. Then a bunch of bi people became defensive saying stuff like how it's not about pan, and bi people saying "bi is not transphobic etc" is not a dogwhistle... And that shutdown the conversation and didn't address the elephant in the room: a bi person saying "innocent" bi positivity statements that read as panphobic dogwhistles and this same bi person associating with *babs being just a coincidence and not at all related /s.

So then we have a bunch of bi people unwilling to hear pan people (and other non-bi mspec) and call out anti-pan and anti-mspec sentiments in the bi community, and you have a bunch of non-bi mspec people terrified of the (much more visible and bigger) bi community because of *babs, because of being mislabeled as bi... And everyone is unhappy but especially non-bi people get shunned out and silenced (much like in aspec discourse, trans men/transmasc discourse, and so on).

It makes me wonder if people even know what a dogwhistle is... The point is exactly to be stealthy and look like something completely ordinary and inoffensive... it's literally why it's called that. I wouldn't count on bi people understanding panphobic (or any mspecphobic) dogwhistles because these can come disguised as bi positivity! But I would at least expect them to stop and try to listen, see it from our perspective, you know like... in solidarity with their mspec siblings. And I'm glad many of them do! I just wish it was a community-wide effort.

A lot of the time I feel like the "I'm mad when it's not about me" and "read this manifest/book/article/magazine, it's the bible of <identity>, no I don't care about your, actual, real life experiences" and "well, I won't listen/do anything about it because it doesn't affect me personally" and "well, I'm <identity> and I don't think <thing> is that bad, you're overreacting" are things that are so pervasive in the community, especially from mainstream labels and binary people... like... in some kind of hierarchic, oppression olympics, way and people don't even need to say it explicitly like that... And this is why you see so many new labels, mogai, xenogenders, bi lesbians, etc getting so much hatred all the time. Somehow it's threatening to Certified(/s) lesbians, gays, bisexuals, binary trans people, and it's so depressing... I hate exclusionists. I don't really have a solution. I wish I didn't have to be blocking a lot of panphobes/mspecphobes everyday :( thank you! (I don't mean to be antagonist against mainstream labels btw, I believe solidarity and union can make us all much stronger.)

*Babs are not the only panphobic/mspecphobic types out there, but they're pretty public about being assholes. It could be anyone, really. And unironically, *babs also harm fellow bi people because their rhetoric is biphobic too.

just........everything you said. yes. you are not losing your mind. you are spot fucking on.