#i'd normally apologize for such a long response esp because i kind ramble a bit

[posi-pan]

But why use Pan if it was a direct response to a minority of Bi people. Many TERFS are lesbians, that doesn’t mean that lesbians should have a new term because of them. Pan was solely reactionary to Bi and wouldn’t exist if Bi didn’t. Plus the study you posted just highlighted that majority of Pan people are young are vulnerable. That doesn’t show any difference between Pan and Bi.

now y’all are just trying to piss me off.

you can’t compare how communities or individuals within a community deal with bigotry, or generalize that everyone should feel one way about it.no one is saying anyone has to use a different label because of the bigots who use their label. but, using your example, if a lesbian wants to distance themself from that term due to terfs, that’d be a personal choice they have every right to make, even if others don’t. it’s not one or the other. both can and do exist. and one is not more valid than the other.

the proof is in the fact that there were two solutions to combating the widespread issue that came from a “minority of bi people”, because not everyone could agree on one single response. some wanted to challenge the narrative within the community to take back their identity from transphobes and others wanted to embrace a different label that was transparent from the jump. both happened. and honestly, the former has been a bit more successful, considering more people know bi isn’t exclusive than people know what pan actually means. but that’s another thing.

if i’ve ever used the word “created” in regard to this, i misspoke, probably due to not having any sources for pan existing prior, which i have now. although in the post being referenced in your message, i said pan “caught on” in attempt to combat transphobia. pan already existed before this. this happened in the 90s, and there’s documentation of pan being a sexual orientation in the 60s. and the source i got this information from, about pan rising to prominence in response to transphobia, said that the political context of fighting transphobia is likely why pan became a big deal rather than staying a niche concept.

honestly, you can’t say pan is “solely reactionary to bi” because there just isn’t enough documentation on it. whether that be articles, books, studies, or simply queer people sharing their experiences. even though from what little there is about pan, we can guess that pan wasn’t created to be xyz compared to bi, but rather just another fucking word for how people feel, there still just isn’t enough information out there to dismiss it the way you are, anon.

(i don’t know the exact timeline for when pansexual was used in kink communities to indicate things like a club/party open to all people and a person open to all sexual experiences, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that meaning stemmed from pan simply meaning loving people regardless of gender. of course it could’ve also just been a literal translation of “all sexual”; all sexual orientations/all sexual acts. but again, that’s another thing.)

i don’t get the point of saying if bi didn’t exist neither would pan, because what does that have to do with anything? what is with the hierarchies and superiority about labels? “this wouldn’t exist without that” and “this has been around longer than that” like? okay? and? that doesn’t mean one is better or more important or more legitimate or more needed than the other?

as for your comment about the studies….age was literally one difference in one smaller study. there was no age difference in the second larger study i talked about. not sure how that indicates the majority of pan people being young. and if by “vulnerable” you mean more likely to experience poor mental health and bigotry because of their orientation, then sure. and those weren’t the only difference found, just the two you felt like made some kind of point in your favor. and my posts were talking about the difference between pan and bi people, not the difference between the pan and bi identities. which is literally stated in both my original post and my addition from yesterday.

why use pan? because it’s the term we relate to and feel most comfortable with and represented by. because even if the origin was as bad as people claim, it doesn’t cancel out what it means today. because no matter what horrible misinterpretations people have of it, it doesn’t change what it actually means. because we just fucking can.