#that gay and bi men also get to experience the range of all these different types of romances instead of having to

[undead-potatoes]

Going through my Ma/ss Ef/fect tag and seeing SO MUCH of the discussion around Bi/owa/re's treatment of queer characters (and by extension queer fans), remembering how this was a whole thing every single time a new game came out bc they seemingly never learned

And then juxtaposing that up against B/G3 where this just... wasn't a thing? To remember all the turmoil around this shit and feel such an overwhelming sense of relief that every character is available to any gender or race, instead of gating off romances for especially queer people or the less "conventionally pretty" player races. Ideally we'd have a bigger variety of queer identities among the LIs (like lesbians or ace characters etc), but not having to worry as a queer player whether you will get the short end of the stick again is just so nice? for once?

[the-astral-clump]

PLURALITY & PRIDE

On the first day of Pride Month we decided to write a little thing about how our plurality and our queerness affect each other.

But before that, lets get some things out of the way: This is a safe space for every system and any who identify with multiplicity. This is also a safe space for every good-faith identity. We also greatly encourage other systems/plurals to share their own experiences. <3 (mind you this post is a bit long and rambly so theres a closing message slash tldr at the end)

Alright! That being said, this is half describing our fuckyweird identities as a system and half a love letter to it all.

Labels are things that I (the host, Alex) have strugged with for very long time. Since the way we experience such things like fronting as blending, blurring, and/or passive influence I often find it difficult to differentiate my sexuality and gender from my headmates, due to this melding of sometimes contradictory identities (for example, Alex and Mae being transmasc and transfem respectively) we often experience some very.. well.. queer feelings. We all have different appearances in headspace, and due to the nature of our headspace, we can often change these at will. This however (unfortunately) cant be transated into our physical body, which is afab. You can perhaps imagine the feelings that might arise from having an alter who is and enjoys a feminine body co-front with an alter who is a lot more masc leaning, or maybe you can't. Either way you can at least imagine how confusing this can be, having two voices, two entirely separate people, share a body and wish for entirely different things for it. Having alters who experience different levels of romantic and sexual attraction as well as attraction to different genders. How it might feel to have a largely asexual alter co-front with an allosexual alter with a very high libido, how it might feel for a bisexual alter to blur with a homosexual alter unable to really percieve the presence of eachother. Often Alex and Sasha co-front, Alex is aroacespec and experiences minimal attraction though usually towards men, Sasha is m-spec and (very) allosexual. They also feel differently as to presentation, Sasha being much more feminine than Alex, this can lead to weird dysphoric feelings, feeling gay and bi feeling like a girl but also mlm, feeling so many different ranges of conflicting emotions and identities.

Although things like this have brought us great frustration and caused conflicts within the system, this pride month we want to instead celebrate these incongurences in identity. We want to celebrate having complicated identities, having feelings that perhaps conflict with eachother. Because this is real, what we experience is real and it deserves recognition and respect. This is something that can and should apply to everyone, regardless of wether they identify as plural, queer, or anything else. So here's for a lovely pride month, to my fellow queer systems, and to all the people and creatures whose identities dont fit into a solid mold.

closing message/ tldr; As a system we experience many conflicting and weird combinations of indentities and we are learning to live and love this aspect ouf our lives, and hope others can too. You deserve love, pride includes those with complex identities, be weird, be yourself, be queer unabashedly and love yourself for it. &lt;3

[basslinegrave]

make your own post this and that so i am. so i dont spam ppls tags and what not

thinking about how snm would realize they got feelings for one another and i feel like for sam the realization would come much later like. into their 20s at least but for max i think hed crush on him on and off since they would be like teens or something? im a sucker for stories about my ships realizing their feelings and getting together so its hard for me to just pick One to go with. if i was a writer i would make like 80 different situations a week 😭 but with these two since theres no canon, there doesnt have to be a set timeline anyway and there can be a morbillion of them. like if i look at the cartoon that is a married couple with a house and all. so it narrows it down to getting together much sooner... then in ttg you just have them perhaps not fully in it, maybe they talked about it, maybe not yet at all, maybe s3 could be where sam realizes his feelings, etc etc (i dont see them as a couple yet there though) and so on

anyway my fav idea is that max just has feelings for sam but hides it (maybe even forgets about it from time to time and then falls in love with him all over again) and this goes on for years and years but he thinks sam wouldnt be interested at all so he lets it be (maybe except one time drunkenly fooling around back in like college, or at least during the one week before they got kicked out lmao)

sam realizes it much later, in their 20s or early 30s (not even early middle age man yaoi.... weak...) and i think he would be a bit "afraid" of it all, i do think hes bi but not having experience with men especially and it would be a scary and unknown area for him plus he wouldnt want to somehow hurt max and ruin their friendship and all that. reassuring himself that would never happen and no matter what they will be best friends even if he told max but he would still try to bury those feelings at first. big on "try", they would still slip out in other ways like caring for max and just the usual (how they talk, touches, stuff like headpats and throwing max etc), thats also the thing that would be like "oh yeah. whats there to be scared of", the fact that once they would get together, nothing would really change at all? they already have their own love language of sorts and are always together anyway etc so it would just go from "partners" (work) to "partners" (work and life and everything else) i think. i also like how in ttg you can look at some things as "oh hes deep in the closet" even if its not written like that..

its also hard for me to separate canon and fanon at times and hard to like. work with some stuff, its always a mess in my head but a good chunk of the fans ship them and take them as a couple. me personally i would see it only in the cartoon but even there its more of a joke (but if you show some things as facts it can be easily viewed that way) but for the rest of the media it stays vague (which i do like, except ttiv, you know what you did ttiv *shakes fist*) but there i keep thinking about how max is sort of shown as gay but not really. like its more of a 'if youre gay or a shipper etc you see him as gay, otherwise not' situation to me. if you say hes gay online, there will be people telling you that hes not, its never been explicitly said (true) etc he just doesnt like girls.. and i noticed the irony of how this is a time where people that normally are against aro/ace characters they will paint him as such just so that he isnt gay, lol. like "no he cant have anyone if he can only have men 🤬" anyway. that said yeah they can be aroace best friends, just for me personally id prefer to be more romantic - in their own way. ofc they dont go to romantic dinners but they can go blow up a shooting range or go to a burger joint and see which one of them can eat more burgers before throwing up, but they can also smooch when the player/reader/watcher isnt watching, you know. max hates kissing though, which can either end in they dont kiss much Or they do, its just on the same page as with them hating when others touch them but theyre glued to each other 24/7 (or like the case with max hating seeing naked ppl but he himself being naked normally) so like he hates seeing it, but is fine with sam and sam only?

derailed strongly there, i wanted to talk about how they would also tell each other, thats also something i cant decide on but me like a little bit of angst of course so it would have to come with either a little misunderstanding or going "too far" -> realizing it wasnt too far but what the other very much wants etc etc. actually i have nothing here, moving on

uhh and i also think about them proposing? i think they both would want to. theres also so many ideas but my fav is that sam gets to propose first, but max just goes fuck! beat me to it. and he pulls out a ring as well and they get to propose at the same time (with sam perhaps getting emotional, max would call him a sap but then get a bit emotional too for once) but then theres also something silly for the comics/htr where i can imagine it more like max mentioning marriage, as a joke or not, and sam pulling out a comically oversized ring pop for him (then they have the """"shotgun"""" wedding lol) then for ttiv which is my dearly hated storyline. they maybe proposed in the past, but idk if they actually got married, they ended it because it got rocky. perhaps sam got cold feet but max would be the one to end it (then make harsh remarks about sams dating life and all that, but deep down being glad its not working out for sam cause max has always been the jealous type) and maybe they finally get therapy (or max contacts sybil after ages and she gives him some advice and such) and perhaps after splitting up for a bit like in the cartoon (insert snm divorce gif) they get back together now that theyre like in their 50s and realize its no use, theyre not really holding each other back as they would be worried maybe but that they truly want to be with each other and they get actually married after trying again. i think its silly for them to get married like youd expect maybe sam to think about that but not max but i think hed be very excited about it mainly cause of the food at the reception

[mithliya]

About the pressures on gay people to be het acting and how we react to them…….. I think one thing people have to accept is 1) yeah it affects people … it affects people DIFFERENTLY. Five different gay girls growing up in the same town in the same family with the same religion taught to them will have 5 different experiences with it. Some people are more people pleasing. Others are rebellious but deeply taken in by the idea of gods and devils judging them and tormenting them forever. And so on. I grew up being taught to be scared of hell and mostly just low key rejected it from the start. My sister is also now an atheist but is still terrified. Still has nightmares. Still catches herself subconsciously adjusting her thoughts and behavior to “avoid hell”.

2) yeah admitting that and saying it aloud DOES make at least some bi or het people further self-delude for whatever reason that they are gay despite not being gay, which yeah does continue to have some negative effects when they speak over us, but let’s be real hear it’s just one more half-out cig butt getting dropped on the ground in the middle of an already raging wildfire of homophobia… we got other problems

3) AND it doesn’t make it less true — some people really do experience pressures great and small to be or try or pretend to be het. And some act that out while others don’t. And it doesn’t make someone not gay to have been in a situation like that. It’s a cold day in hell where I want someone who went through that to suffer even 1 second more …. And for what??? so I can scrabble to try to keep political fake gays and other fake gays from overrunning? When that is more to do with their own psych and less to do with what we do or say? Nah. We should fully and openly talk about pressures to try het sex and try to become/pretend to be het. AND be very clear that it doesn’t confabulate whole feelings of desire for the other sex. Not just like desire to be het or desire to be desired or whatever. And we can be clear too that sometimes bi people for personal reasons lose the passion for one sex or the other. But still have the capacity for it and are bi.

A lot of this confusion crap to me is 1) homophobia— being grossed out or freaked out by genuine same sex only attraction so people keep trying to erase that including by faking gay to change the socially accepted meaning of it to include the other sex 2) people not getting the range of bisexuality or how affected people are by their own experiences and politics. Like yeah it’s possible to lose attraction to men functionally from being around them and seeing their shit. You’re still bi or het though. Just with a zeroed out libido for men from life experience.

If anon wants to stop the madness around this she should talk about all that not worry about, cast doubt on and bother lesbians from traumatic backgrounds who experienced trying to force themselves to be into men.

totally agree, i keep saying people will go thru similar situations but have different reactions for many reasons such as personality. it just falls in deaf ears bc i feel like some ppl just get some kind of pleasure or joy out of framing gay ppl as liars for having frankly traumatic experiences of trying to be het in a homophobic world. so i feel like no matter how much any of us explain and talk about this phenomena, some ppl will only hear what they want.

there’s indeed OSA ppl pretending to be gay and explaining away their experiences with the opposite sex, and i get being wary bc of that. i’ve been in such situations where i wasn’t certain ppl were actually gay but who does it actually help to harass every person who has for any reason ever had any experience with the opposite sex, gay ppl included, and to harass them & call them liars & make it seem like their story can’t possibly be plausible? it hasn’t helped gay ppl from what i’ve seen. doesn’t help us form communities, sense of togetherness, give us protections, or anything else.. and it probably pushed some gay ppl back into the closet. i’ve seen so many lesbians harassed off of these platforms over it too.

when there’s ppl openly claiming to be gay while talking about being into the opposite sex, im not going to be wasting my time harassing traumatised gay ppl about how it doesn’t make sense to me that they forced themselves thru a heterosexual experience in hopes that it’d change their sexuality.

[nerdykeppie]

I'm sorry that you've had bad experiences with our clothes. We actually order from multiple different companies, each of which has a different sizing chart, not counting t-shirts, which have their own sizing issues. That's why we have the applicable sizing charts linked on every item, notes on every item about sizing, and several large-type, bolded reminders through the process that we cannot exchange clothing for size, so please make sure you've checked the actual size chart for the item, including right at the top of your order confirmation email.

(I just pulled a test email to screenshot, which is why it has my name.)

This has been explained before, but I'm glad to explain it again: there is only one way that we could possibly afford to offer the variety of items that we offer, with no fat tax, in the number of Pride flags we carry, and in the number of sizes we carry, and that's to make all sales final.

On every pattern-printed item we have added in the past several years, there are at least 10 standard Pride flags, and as we move forward, everything's getting this full list: Ace, Aro, Bi, Bear, Gay Men's/MLM, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Gilbert Baker, Lesbian, Non-Binary, Pan, Progress, Queer, Rainbow, Trans. Got it? Okay. Now guess how many items on each thing sell with aromantic pride colors, or gay men's, or lesbian, or genderfluid. On most items, four flags sell consistently: Ace, Bi, Trans, and Rainbow. A few more sell mid-range amounts: non-binary, pan, Progress.

To be able to exchange items for size, we would need to either a) already be stocking the item or b) have some faith that we'd be able to sell it again. Since most things from rarer flags never sell a single thing, and it's only, like, one out of fifty items with an aromantic flag option that ever sells the aro variety, that just isn't the case.

We also don't buy in bulk, because if we did that, we'd have to restrict the number of different styles we offer to just a few, and those would be the styles that fit and are preferred by the vast majority of people. To be able to offer more modest styles, styles that work for very short or very tall people, styles that work for people who are self-conscious about their broad shoulders, etc. etc. we need to work on an order-single-items-when-purchased basis.

So that leaves us where we are: we pay to have each piece of clothing manufactured, and we keep our profit margins as reasonable as we can so that we can try to make a living and pay our employees a living wage while also not charging astronomical prices. If you buy a single piece of clothing from me, and you want to exchange it, and it's not something I expect to sell again, I'm well in the red on that item.

That adds up fast, and we're already riding thin margins. We don't have funding coming from anywhere but sales, either, which means we don't have big reserves to rely on. Freedom from investors -- and we've had offers -- means not having someone telling you your shit is too queer or too objectionable and your margins are not good enough and you pay your employees too much, because, frankly, fuck that.

At the end of the day, the choice is either we can't allow exchanges or we stop offering 80% of what we offer, because we can only do exchanges for size if we think we can sell the item. I'm sorry that didn't work out for you. Our size charts on some items do run small compared to what people may be used to, but our posted size charts are extremely accurate, and I stand by them. Neither Emet or I are even vaguely skinny, and we've tested nearly everything we offer -- there are one or two we didn't because it was a special order for a single customer -- so I can say pretty firmly that if you measured and compared to the size chart, it should match.

I do my best when it comes to sizing issues -- if an order comes in and it has 2 things marked size L and one that's an XS, I'll hold the order and try to contact the customer to make sure they meant to order the XS and it wasn't a mistake, since XS is the default drop-down size. I don't catch all of the sizing issues, but we know this can be tough, so we want to make sure people get what they ordered.

If the item you got doesn't match the posted size charts, we would hope you would contact us right away so that we can reach out to the manufacturer and get you an item that is correctly manufactured. Everybody makes mistakes, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that someone would get something marked size L that's actually the measurements for a Medium. It's only happened maybe a half-dozen times over the past 5 years, but it has happened.

(This is not, by the way, a request for advice on the topic of exchanges from anybody -- we have had many, many long conversations about the topic at PHQ, and we will continue to have those conversations. If we ever figure out a way to make it work, you all will be the absolute first to know.)

You wish we could offer exchanges? Me too. I'd like to be able to do that while still offering more than 4 flags and 2 designs. If I figure out how to do that without going bankrupt, you'll be the first to know.

Okay, y'all.

I'm gonna be really up front with everybody in a way that I'm usually not:

This year so far has been really rough, in a way that kinda has me worried. Bear with me, and there will be dog pictures along the way and pictures of new swag at the end, ok?

Running a small business is always rough, and with everything going on - with me being down-and-out struggling to get my hysterectomy approved, with everything going on financially & politically, with Jake moving out here - we knew that this year probably wouldn't be a banner year, but...

... when I pulled reports at the end of May, I was kinda shocked and gutted because at the start of June, we were actually down a considerable amount year over year. I knew the year wouldn't be great, but like, oof.

Pride is usually where we make our money for the year - we call it "gay Christmas," because where other retailers count on their holiday season, we count on Pride to make sure that our employees get paid during January of the following year.

Pause for Ser Davos Seawoof:

This Pride has started ... slowly. Not terribly, but a little more slowly than I'm comfortable with, and slowly enough that I'm nervous. We invested a lot of money in new stock and equipment, and that's got to pay off. Right?

So here's the pitch:

We need to make at least $60K in sales this month to make sure that we're in good shape for the upcoming year. We are currently at $8100, and we have a two-day event coming up in Seattle at the end of the month, but that still gives us an awful lot of ground to make up.

If we hit our sales goal for this month, NerdyKeppie will donate 1% of our net profit for June to @queerliblib.

Just hitting that goal would both make it possible for us to know we can make it through the year & even if we have the worst profit margins this month, it'd be a minimum $250 donation.

We just added Express delivery as a shipping upgrade on most of our t-shirts (limited color and size options on that, which isn't under our control) so if you need something quick, we've got you, and everything from our Portland HQ collection ships usually within 2 business days.

Everything in our Bottoms & Tops collection is Buy 2, Get a 3rd 69% off with code TOP2BOTTOM until midnight tonight:

And as always, NerdyKeppie is 100% trans-owned and queer-run. We start all of our employees at a minimum of $25/hr, and all eligible employees are IWW members. We have no investors, and we have no shareholders to please. Big box corporations screw over small artists and drop Pride the minute it gets hard or controversial, but this is our life.

We're here for the long run. Help us stay and help us build resources for today & tomorrow, and get some cool-ass swag while you do.

💗🏳️‍🌈

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

[woman-loving]

I don’t identity as a “bi lesbian,” but I feel there is room for a woman to identify as both bisexual and gay/lesbian, and I don’t agree with the arguments I’ve seen against “bi lesbian” identity.

One thing that annoys me about detractors of the identity is the occasional claim that it is basically an internet phenomenon that arose within the last five years or so. Actually, women have been claiming both bisexual and lesbian identities for decades. There have constantly been debates about how bi women fit within lesbianism, lesbian identity, and lesbian community since the gay/lesbian movements have been active. This isn’t something that has ever been universally agreed upon, and there never will be universal agreement on it.

Just for reference and historical interest, I’ve compiled a few selections from articles and books, mostly from the 80s and 90s, that are by or about lesbian-identified (or gay-identified) bisexual woman, or that at least mention them. Inclusion doesn’t indicate my approval of the author’s perspective or argument; this is to provide a bit of history on the discourse.

What is a Lesbian? To me, a lesbian is a woman-oriented woman; bisexuals can be lesbians. A lesbian does not have to be exclusively woman oriented, she does not have to prove herself in bed, she does not have to hate men, she does not have to be sexually active at all times, she does not have to be a radical feminist. She does not have to like bars, like gay culture, or like being gay. When lesbians degrade other lesbians for not going to bars, not coming out, being bisexual or not sexually active, and so on, we oppress each other.

--Trish Miller, "Bisexuality," Lavender Woman, Vol 2 Issue 5, August 1973.

*

The definition of lesbian that I suggest, one that conforms to the two methodological considerations above, is the following:

5. Lesbian is a woman who has sexual and erotic-emotional ties primarily with women or who sees herself as centrally involved with a community of self-identified lesbians whose sexual and erotic-emotional ties are primarily with women; and who is herself a self-identifed lesbian. 

My definition is a sociopolitical one; that is, it attempts to include in the term lesbian the contemporary sense of lesbianism as connected with a subcultural community, many members of which are opposed to defining themselves as dependent on or subordinate to men. It defines both bisexual and celibate women as lesbians as long as they identify themselves as such and have their primary emotional identification with a community of self-defined lesbians. Furthermore, for reasons I will outline shortly, there was no lesbian community in which to ground a sense of self before the twentieth century, a fact which distinguishes the male homosexual community from the lesbian community. Finally, it is arguable that not until this particular stage in the second wave of the women’s movement and in the lesbian-feminist movement has it been politically feasible to include self-defined lesbian bisexual women into the lesbian community.

Many lesbian feminists may not agree with this inclusion. But it may be argued that to exclude lesbian bisexuals from the community on the grounds that “they give energy to men” is overly defensive at this point. After all, a strong women’s community does not have to operate on a scarcity theory of nurturant energy! On feminist principles the criterion for membership in the community should be a woman’s commitment to giving positive erotic-emotional energy to women. Whether women who give such energy to women can also give energy to individual men (friends, fathers, sons, lovers) is not the community’s concern.

--Ann Ferguson, “Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution,” Signs, Autumn 1981.

*

Individuals who came together a month ago to discuss bisexuality and its relationship to radical feminism decided recently to begin a serious, regular study group on human sexuality and its social/political/psychological manifestations in our culture.

There are eight of us in the group. For all, understanding bisexuality, both in our own lives and and in our society, is a primary goal. To this end, we decided on a format of readings and discussion, with a facilitator for each meeting, that would bring us through the range of sexual options available in the United States today, from male-identified heterosexuality to lesbianism, to a final informed examination of bisexuality in the context of all that we had learned. Throughout our exploration, feminism will provide both a point of departure, and a point of return.

We started by trying to define some terms, specifically "feminism," "gay-identified bisexual," and "bisexual". Alot of us were amazed to see how many different interpretations each term, especially "gay-identified," could have. Is someone "gay-identified" because they devote a majority of their time, energy and emotion to the gay community? Or does an individual's radical critique of heterosexuality make them "gay-identified"? And does "gay-identified" also imply "women-identified"? Some people felt that one could be gay-identified, and still not be woman-identified. And exactly how many Meg Christian concerts make you "lesbian-identified"?

We didn't reach any conclusions, but had fun realizing that being bisexuals, we are dealing with a whole realm of experiences that can be classified in any number of different ways; and that the variety of possible bisexual lifestyles is as varied as the women who are in the Network.

--Barb H, “Study Group,” BBWN, Vol. 2 No. 4, July-Aug 1984

*

I recognize that homophobia is at the root of biphobia. I came to lesbianism long before my sexuality was clear to me. I lived an open lesbian lifestyle for four years. I cannot deny the importance of this experience, nor do I want to. For me lesbian identity is more than, and/or in addition to sexuality; it is a political awareness which bisexuality doesn't altar or detract from. 10 years ago when I left my husband and full-time role of motherhood, it didn't make me less conscious of what being a mother means. In fact, it gave me a deeper understanding. I am still a mother. That experience cannot be taken away from me. In much the same way, my lesbian awareness isn't lost now that I claim my bisexuality. When I realized my woman-loving-woman feelings, and came out as a lesbian, I had no heterosexual privilege; yet there were important males in my life, including a son. I am bisexual because it's real for me, not in order to acquire or flaunt the privilege that is inherent in being with men. My political consciousness is lesbian but my lifestyle is bisexual. If I keep myself quiet for another's sense of pride and liberation, it is at the cost of my own which isn't healthy--emotionally, politically or medically. Not only is it unhealthy, it's ineffective.

Since I have come out I have triggered many lesbians to blurt in whispered confidence--"I have a man in the closet. You're brave to be so open. What am I going to do?" These are not easy times. AIDS has given biphobia free reign in the lesbian community (and admittedly with much less destructive effect than how AIDS is fueling homophobia in society at large), it is all right to trash bisexuals, not to trust us for fear of AIDS. Bisexuals are untouchable to some lesbians.

We have to deal with oppression in a constructive way or we will be factionalized forever. Time is running out. We have to see the whole and the part we play in it. Forming family communities with people who share your sexual identity is important, but trashing is nonproductive. The sexual choices we make are equally valid for our individual experiences. AIDS is not a gay disease; it is a human tragedy, a plague that doesn't recognize boundaries. I urge bisexuals to take a political stand, and to become a visible, viable energy force. It is important and timely to open this dialogue in each of our communities. Nobody belongs in the closet. The only way to get a sense of "our" community is for us to begin to speak out and identify ourselves. When we verify the connections and the networks of our oppression, we build a unity that avoids the, "I'm more oppressed than you" syndrome

--Lani Kaahumanu, “Bisexuality & Discrimination,” BBWN Vol. 3, No. 6, Dec 1985-Jan 1986; Reprinted from the 1985 Gay Pride March magazine, San Francisco

*

What makes the Third Annual Northeast Conference on Bisexuality what it is? The breakfasts and dinners--the entertainment--the excitement of meeting others who feel like family. My first event of the conference was stumbling onto a cocktail party just around the corner from the Registration Desk, which turned out to be part of the Woman's History Week! A bit embarrassing after greeting many people with wine glasses in hand, asking them how they heard about the bisexuality conference!

I'll skip now to describe my experiences at the lesbian-identified affinity group and the two workshops I attended. Why do women who identify as lesbians go to a bisexuality conference? There were about 10 of us in the room, each with a different answer. Most of our relationships at the present time were with women; after that the similarity ended. One woman had affairs with men when not seriously involved with women. Another, in a non-monogamous long-term lesbian relationship, had recently begun a sexual involvement with a man. one woman, now involved with a bisexual woman, was here to discuss her feelings about the situation. Some of us had led exclusively lesbian lives for a number of years and were wondering if we'd closed off important parts of ourselves. Whether or not we would act on our sexual attractions for men, acknowledging them were important to us.

Our personal herstories contributed to our diverse opinions. For some, coming out was relaxed and easy and relationships with women refreshingly egalitarian. Others found sexual awakening and coming out difficult, and lesbian relationships fraught with many of the same difficulties as straight ones. We also discussed reasons lesbians don't accept bisexual women, such as fear that she'd leave for a man or desire to preserved woman-only space. We questioned the reality of "heterosexual privilege," wondering whether any women could really have it. We discussed the sorrows in our lives, such as family histories of alcoholism, incest or physical abuse, and the joys of our relationships, our work and our lives.

--Stacie, “Lesbian-identified Affinity Group Workshops: Lesbian Sexuality & Politics of Sexuality,” BBWN, Vol. 4, No. 2, April-May 1986

*

[Robyn Ochs]: What is your current sexual identity?

[Betty Aubut]: I call myself a "bisexual lesbian." I will always politically identify as bisexual, which to me means opposing restrictive categories. Some days I feel real separatist, and other days I feel that I want to be involved with men. Being bisexual to me means that I see men and women whom I'm attracted to. A man would have to be very special for me to want to get involved with him but I will fight for bisexual rights whether or not I'm sleeping with men. I see the bisexual community and movement as a very important bridge between gays, lesbian and straights. As long as gays and lesbians are considered completely 'other' from the mainstream, we'll never have any power. I consider myself gay. I think bisexuals are gay and gay liberation is our liberation. I don't consider myself 100% straight and 100% gay; I am 100% gay. That doesn't mean I won't sleep with a man every now and then--some lesbians do that. I never used to identify as lesbian out of respect for women who made the lifelong choice never to sleep with men, but then I realized that was a lot of bullshit. Calling yourself lesbian does not necessarily mean you have made that lifelong decision. Now I mostly identify as a lesbian--so I call myself a bisexual lesbian. I don't sleep with men right now, but I have male friends whom I spend time with and cuddle with. I've even become socially involved with some of the men from the men's network. I'm proud of where I am now because it's been so hard for me. People who have known me for a long time can't believe the change.

--Robyn Ochs, “Bi of the Month: Betty Aubut,” Bi Women Vol. 5, No. 2, April-May, 1987

*

Sharon Sumpter is a bisexual lesbian activist and psychotherapist who works with women survivors of abuse, institutionalization and sexual oppression. Her book-in-progress, In Pieces, is dedicated to opening the closet doors for former "mental patients." "I went into my work to undo the criminal things that were done to me and that I saw done to other women." She thanks Deena Metzger and Asherah for this, her first published work.

--Contributors' Notes, Sinister Wisdom, Issue 36, Winter 1988/89

*

Representatives of lesbian-feminist separatism may feel singled out as special targets of our anger and distress. To the extent that this is true, the seeds of anger lie in lesbian separatism as a politic: In this reading of feminism, specific sex acts take on politicized meaning. These are said to have consequences for the consciousness of the person performing them. Lesbian feminism is arguably the most proscriptive gay or lesbian politic, generating in its adherents the greatest tendency to judge others' (especially sexual) behavior. Gay men, for example, seem more likely to cite personal antipathy or simple stereotypes about bisexuals as a source of their chagrin. A great many bisexual women, particularly those who are feminist and lesbian-identified, have felt both personally and politically rejected and judged by the separatist sisters. Even those with no such experience may feel wary having heard of other bisexual women's stories. No one like to feel attacked, even politically.

----Carol A. Queen, "Strangers at Home: Bisexuals in the queer movement," Out/Look, Vol. 4, Issue 4 (16), Spring 1992

*

Closer to Home successfully deals with these and other problems of self-identification. As most of the writers are "lesbian-identified bisexuals" (one of several labels used for the sake of convenience), the definition of lesbianism is also reevaluated. Is a lesbian a woman who relates emotionally and erotically with women or a woman who does not relate emotionally and erotically with men? Must a woman fit both criteria to be considered a lesbian?

The "Principles and Practice" section expands these main course theories of identity with side dishes of memories and personal feelings--feelings of not being queer enough; of breaking all the rules, even the gay rules; of being dissatisfied with the waste of energy from political infighting. It's odd for lesbian-identified bi's to find themselves viewed as politically incorrect. It's maddening to have one's past feminist work invalidated by the inclusion of a man (or men) in one's life. It's frustrating to find oneself faced with a choice of being honest or potentially losing support of women's groups. It's confusing to work for the freedom to come out of one closet only to be asked to stay in another. As Rebecca Shuster write:

"If we choose a lesbian identity, we are subject to systematic oppression and internalize that oppression in a package that includes marginality; invisibility; isolation...; and countercultural rules about how to relate to women and men. If we choose a bisexual identity, we are subject to systematic oppression and internalize that oppression in a package deal that include a feeling of not belonging or having a home; defensiveness; isolation...; and countercultural rules about how to relate to women and men. Precisely because bisexuality represents freedom of choice, society ensures that the identity comes with its own package of mistreatment and constraints."

----Beth Herrick, "Bisexual Women Pushing the Limits," Sojourner, Vol. 18, Issue 10, June 1993

*

The first step is to move toward building alliances within our bisexual communities. Many communities are united by a commonality of the oppression. This is not so in our community, partly because of the different ways people identify as bisexual: gay-identified, queer-identified, lesbian-identified, or heterosexual-identified. Some people are bisexual in an affectional manner only; some are bisexual both affectionally and sexually; and some are bisexual only sexually. Since there are so many ways to express our bisexuality, the first step toward alliance-building is to work internally to accept all members of our own community. It is imperative that we build alliances across our own differences; otherwise, alliance-building will fail. Acceptance of the diversity of bisexual labels within our community will allow us to pursue alliance-building with decisive strength in the heterosexual community and what many of us consider our own lesbian/gay community.[3]

--Brenda Blasingame, "Power and Privilege Beyond the Invisible Fence, in  Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions, 1995

*

Personally, I am unable to separate out the various ways that I am oppressed (as a woman, as an African American, as a bisexual lesbian, as an impoverished single mother) and say that one oppression is worse than the other, or that I desire one form of liberation more than another. I do not want to experience threats to my life, my child custody, or my job security because of racism or homophobia. I don't want to be oppressed for any reason!!!

--Dajenya, "Which Part of Me Deserves to Be Free?," in Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions, ed. Naomi Tucker, 1995

*

A good deal of criticism has been written about heterosexuals who are surprised when they find out the true sexual orientation of someone who they didn't think "looked gay." These criticism assert what is of course true--that there is no such thing as a gay or lesbian "look," since of course, everyone who is gay, lesbian or bisexual, looks that way.

Unfortunately, many of my experiences as a lesbian-identified bisexual woman have said to me that having an appearance or demeanor that diverges from the expected means I will not be accepted as truly belonging in the lesbian community. Despite my attendance at gay pride parade, dollars spent at gay resorts and in support of gay causes, and numerous attempts to participate in gay and/or lesbian groups and volunteer events, I have often felt unaccepted by this community.

--Amy Wyeth, "Don't Assume Anything," Bi Women Vol. 13, No. 4, Aug/Sept 1995

*

Joan Tollifson relays her struggle to make sense of her life and her spiritual awakening in Bare-Bones Meditation. Born with only one hand, she grew up feeling different, found identity and purpose as a bisexual lesbian and a disability rights activist, but struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. She first embraced Zen Buddhism then a very bare-bones form of spirituality that has no form. This exuberant and amazing testament is for the many people who don't fit into the conventional molds of existing religious traditions.

--"And on Publisher's Row," complied by Jenn Tust, Feminist Bookstore News, Vol. 19, Issue 4, Nov-Dec 1996

[thedreadvampy]

Like not to get discoursey but. I think there's a difference between the use of language to describe and explore your personal experience of your gender and sexuality vs the use of language to describe and define large community groups and classes. by which I mean there's a difference between eg taking about your personal connection to lesbianism and saying Lesbians Are X

like. the personal is experiential. the communal is material. and I think a lot of (very tedious) LGBTQ discourse is about people treating them as interchangeable. when we're talking about. oppression and social dynamics. the primary driver is how you're understood by others (and how the fear of how you will be understood by others affects your behaviour). that doesn't mean there's no place to speak about your own messy experience with idea and identifiers that you maybe feel partially, or invisibly, or that speak to your complex experience of self.

like. exploring parts of your identity is a really vital part of being queer imo. it's one of the beautiful things about this community. to be able to try on different hats or say I'm a bit this but a bit that, to question and to say 'look I know this might not make sense but it's true for me' and to be messily complex in your understanding of who you are and what you want. but like. that's a discussion About You that's for you and your friends and the people who know you and love you. and the problem imo is that the nature of social media is such that musing about and claiming your own identity vs discussing community issues are the same forum.

like the thing is saying "I feel bi but also lesbian? like I think my deal is that I'm a bi lesbian?" kind of. Makes perfect sense to me on a personal level. I also waver back and forth on my relationship to lesbianism. similarly I definitely know lesbians who still consider themselves lesbians (or lesbian-with-an-exception) as a personal identity but who are dating men bc their partners transitioned and they found they still wanted to be with them, or men who consider themselves lesbians bc their identity has been so tied up with lesbianism before they realised they were men. and like I'm not a lesbian and I'm not trans and I'm not here to litigate whether that's right or wrong, largely because tbh it Just Is. Like regardless of the philosophical implications, sometimes the truth of how someone feels about their identity at their core is just. Messy. And often contradictory. And part of coming to terms with that involves having the space and words to acknowledge it, and to acknowledge the messiness and contradictions in it.

but on a community level, ehhhhhhh like lesbian is specifically a term used politically and socially to describe the material reality of being a woman who loves women and doesn't have a desire for a relationship with men. and when you say "lesbians can be attracted to men!!!!!" or "men can be lesbians!!!!" there is a shrinking linguistic space to define the specific experience of Being A Woman Only Liking Women. which is a meaningful social and political category distinct from Man Who Likes Women or Bisexual Woman.

the thing is that sexuality and gender labels are, by their nature, extremely broad. like we're talking about labels that describe millions or tens of millions of people. they're not going to capture everyone's experience perfectly and without exception. community labels are indicative, they're describing a simplified core experience and for any given group identity (LGBTQ or otherwise) there will be people who match it up perfectly and people who are. out on the blurry edges of the term. but who sufficiently identify with the core concept to find it a relevant term. that doesn't mean the label needs to constantly shift to be specific to Them, The Person Using It. Any time a term is describing more than one person there absolutely will be parts of some group member's identity that don't fit perfectly in the boundaries of it, aspects of the assumed experience that are either missing or different or too small or too large to fit. but that doesn't mean the label is wrong, it just means human experience and identity is infinitely complex. Identity isn't a box, it's a cluster range. and it's frustrating to not be able to talk about what resonates and what doesn't in any given terminology without it being taken as a statement on How That Term Should Be Defined To Fit Me, Personally.

like irl I have a lot of conversations about how I feel about my personal relationship to queerness, to bisexuality, to lesbianism, to butchness, to dykery, to asexuality, to heterosexuality, to cis womanhood, to nonbinary womanhood, to traditionally gay male and trans female forms of expression and language. like it's Messy but it's also rich and valuable and honest. but I generally. steer clear of that on here bc when you talk about it online, in an open forum, every personal statement is taken as a general proclamation. and we get into Who's Allowed To Talk About What and Whose Label Is Whose and it's all. fuckin. Discourse about What The Rules Are. it's just. frustrating.

[bisluthq]

Can I ask a question? I hope this doesn't come across as offensive but I'm genuinely wondering. I noticed when Kaylors assume Josh or Mikey are gay you tend to judge the way Kays are using stereotypes to assume someone's sexuality (as you should!!). But on the other hand, you make assumptions too saying Klossy seems 100% straight, person x has range, person y seems gay/bi... and by assuming that you are... also... using... stereotypes?

Well things like “person X has range” are mostly a joke dude like we can’t KNOW a person’s sexuality unless we are in their heads. The ONLY person whose sexuality we can know is US like ourself. I say this literally all the time. We don’t KNOW anyone else’s sexuality unless we’re that person. Sexuality is complex and confusing enough to understand FOR OURSELF let alone for someone else.

I’ve used Tom Hardy before as an example: Tom comes off SUPER straight but he’s been like “well of course I’ve experimented with men wtf kind of question is that?? Who hasn’t?” Straight people, Tom. Straight people haven’t.

If Kays were like “Josh Kushner has range 👀” I’d not have a problem with it. I’d disagree because he seems like a hetty tech bro frat guy to me but like that’s just about Gaydar right and since Gaydar isn’t necessarily accurate - see Tom Hardy example above - it’s literally just someone’s opinion.

I don’t know if Karlie is queer in any way - she could be! If she pings for you, fair enough like go off queens. That’s just an opinion. Like we can’t KNOW for sure because we’re not Karlie. 

I’ve said before that I get why Saoirse pings for people. I don’t think she’s queer because she’s called herself straight TWICE on main out of like nowhere tbh and is weird when she’s kissing Kate in Ammonite lol so I do think she’s hetty but I can understand why people think she mightn’t be.

The reason the Kays - and like hectic shippers generally - get icky isn’t because they’re like “ohhhh my Gaydar is atingling I think these folks are queer and like one of us and isn’t that fucking cool if we’re right?” They’re TRUTHERING it as fact that these people are all Kinsey 6 gay, not with their partners, lying about their kids, and in the case of Kays and mlm they make out as though that’s deviant and gross.

Also there are “stereotypes”/vibes that are behavior based and which generally alert Gaydar - ergo like Klossy doing that Makeout Fakeout thing with Ash Graham pinging as EXTREMELY straight girl behavior, or like Sebastian Stan getting flirty in interviews with both men and women pinging as bi - and then there’s “well he’s wearing a cardigan and would a straight man do that???” and the latter is what’s problematic. Even just in life like your Gaydar shouldn’t be pinging based on CLOTHES unless that person is wearing like idk something that references gay culture (like a bi flag on their head if you know what I mean).

Again, I don’t have an issue with someone having a different Gaydar reading to me. That’s not the problem. What I have an issue with is people treating that Gaydar reading as fact (and this does apply to Klossy too like we don’t KNOW dude like I am not in her head but I just see… absolutely no reason to think she’s anything other than extremely straight and if she isn’t like she’s still EXTREMELY committed to a man she’s been with since summer 2012 which hypothetically wouldn’t make her less bi but like again there’s just no reason to think that and she sure as shit isn’t a gold star lesbian like IF she’s a lesbian that’s a big drama for r/comphet to work through) and using like appearance and shit and, again, making out as though being mlm is gross.

I think all speculation on sexuality should be taken in good fun and as like a bit of banter and we must ALWAYS remember that we don’t KNOW anyone else’s exact sexuality because that’s for them to figure out.

[fanpersoningfox]

WHO TOPS IN SHOETHE???!!

I doses have to know

Alright, let's get into this.

(This btw is the third reply I'm writing for this post because the first was too short and the second too angry. My roommate pointed out that you're probably not aware of all the implications this question has so I'm going to try and explain, please bear with me.)

Originally top/bottom refers to who is taking the active vs the passive role in (cis) gay anal sex. It's about a sexual preference, like whether someone likes their nipples touched.

Eventually, within gay circles, people started to build their identity around these labels. Subcategories like power bottom or service top showed up. Being a Top or a Bottom (or a Verse) is a Thing in gay culture. (And by "gay culture" I here mean gay men's culture, though it's also a thing in lesbian culture. It's not really / not at all a thing in bi/pan/queer circles and I as a pan, queer person really don't get it tbh.)

As people build their identities on being a Top/Bottom, certain attributes have become associated with these labels/identities, which in turn has created stereotypes of what "a Top" or "a Bottom" is like. And this is where things get problematic.

Because this is where fandom stepped in. And by "fandom" I don't mean queer people exploring their sexualities by projecting onto characters and having a good time. I mean straight women fetishizing gay relationships, which more often than not includes very strict, stereotypical top/bottom roles (if you've ever been into anime, you may be familiar with the concepts of seme/uke, which is basically the same thing (though I don't know enough about the cultural background there so take that with a grain of salt)).

And this is why your ask rang all my alarm bells, the question of "who tops?" in fandom often means "who's the Badass Strong Top and who's the smol uwu bottom?", which is just plain dehumanizing.

I personally, as a pansexual genderqueer person, feel already quite uncomfortable with the traditional top/bottom labels in gay culture. To me top/bottom feels like gender roles 2.0 and I'm not here for that shit. I do recognize the importance of these labels/concepts in gay culture but they're just not my cup of tea. The fetishization of gay people via fandom's interpretation of top/bottom dynamics on the other hand makes me so uncomfortable I physically cringe.

In fact, it makes me so uncomfortable that I've decided not to include a scene where they have penetrative anal sex in Referendare und Liebe because I don't want people to quote me as "Schiller tops" or "Goethe tops". (There are other reasons beside this one, more important ones even, but it is a reason.)

I write them as full human beings, far away from these stereotypes.

Furthermore my Schiller is bi and my Goethe is pan and neither of them is particularly deep into Gay Culture. They both have their experiences with it, of course, and especially Friedrich is big on queer culture, but there is a difference of experiences between homosexuals and multisexuals, which often leads to bi/pan people not being part of Gay Culture. And since I, a pansexual who's really not into this part of Gay Culture, am writing these two, they aren't either.

That being said, I also see both of them as switches (if we want to use bdsm terminology) and don't believe they have set roles in bed or the relationship. However, there is a Goethe quote where he said something along the lines of "I've never liked it much from behind", so I guess that can be taken as an indication that he prefers the active part (or that he's not into anal, period. Or not into doggy. I gotta look up the context again.).

Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn, they take turns.

[and-damntheconsequences]

Something I kind of love in a lot of the fanfiction I read, and it's maybe been said before, maybe not, is that homophobia or biphobia even as just a concept... is only really there in the minority of fics.

By that I mean, in most media that I've seen, no matter how pro-lgbt and positive it might be, there is usually the element of "bad stuff" within that. Two men or two women being in a relationship is very much the sole focus — because its different and its "brave" and characters have to come out and communicate those things, and live through the trauma that inherently comes with being lgbtq+. Because that's how life is.

But, as a bi person, even one who is very much in an accepting household and community, that's something I'm kind of used to. Sometimes I just have no interest in that being the sole focus of what's communicated. Representation is great, of course, and we can't just imagine away all the difficulties that same-sex relationships bring in real life because that hatred and discomfort is still very much prevalent. But sometimes escaping it is nice.

Now in fanfic, a lot of ships — at least that I've read and interacted with — are gay. There are problems that come with that: fetishisation, for example. But as a whole, it's also somewhat freeing. Because while there are fics that mention homophobia and biphobia and discrimination within the world and setting that's been created, and some of those are incredibly well written and amazing reads, it's not often the focus. There are a whole, huge, range of fics where that's not the case at all.

I'll read a fic where two men or two women or sometimes multiple people, can be in a relationship together, and that's treated as completely normal by everyone else. Ships often get the exact same treatment as straight people get in mainstream media in a lot of fics, that gay people don't seem to get otherwise. It's normal, it's healthy, there's no hidden shame, or covered up discrimination. There's no whispering about it behind closed doors because it would be dangerous to admit anything in public.

Maybe this is only my experience, but fanfiction opens up a door for people to create the types of media they want to see. And for lgbtq+ people, sometimes that is a world that doesn't even blink at them as something odd or unnatural. We get to try and see ourselves and our community, even if we're not consciously processing it as such, as just people, who are in love, but who have amazing and brilliant stories both within and beyond that.

And I like that.

[bi-dazai]

honestly i think i have a weird anger or cultural confusion where other gay and trans ppl are like much happier and comfortable to come out and shit and be open, but I've always had an extremely complicated relationship with it because it's always made me feel so isolated and lonely, even with other gay ppl around. and younger ppl especially will like go around coming out so frequently and meanwhile if I'm going to even tell you that I'm attracted to women I have to trust you 110% and that isn't something that comes easy.

I'm terrified of like. Wearing even rainbow goddamn socks because I'm scared shitless of getting bullied, or harassed, or even assaulted. Which is ironic considering I try to be quite fashionable in public but with being openly bi (let alone being openly TRANS) it's a complete no-no.

Like I think as much as I love being bi and nb at the same time I still despise it, I still think it's ruined my life. I have gender dysphoria about my chest whereas if I was cis I would be so happy with how feminine my body is. My first ever relationship with another girl at the moment being cut short by abusive homophobia fucked me up in innumerous ways, leading me to like...severe issues with the way i feel about sex and emotional attachment and touch.

And ofc there's the homophobia, like at this moment I'm probably leaning towards getting a fuckbuddy or smth over tinder but like a romantic relationship with another person is terrifying, like I'm insanely private w relationships even w men, I won't let us hold hands if I think too many people might see bc i have this stupid complex

There's more and more but my relationship with being Out is one where it's something that I simultaneously desire and despise, being Out is one of the most terrifying concepts I can think of and to me having someone refer to me as "they" and not as a woman is simply not as important as being safe, as not living in even more fear of assault.

And then all around me ppl my age (although usually younger) are all coming out to anyone and everyone like it's just casual, saying their pronouns like it's nothing. And first it's disbelief and shock because holy fuck, has everyone gone fucking mad?? Are we all so fucking stupid that we just forget the everloving fear homophobia strikes into you?? And then it's the jealousy, that these people have this comfortable relationship with their own gay/transness and enough trust to actually open up and tell a room full of strangers "please call me they not she". It's disappointment and anger in myself that almost 7 years after forcing myself to whisper "I'm bisexual" to the bathroom mirror in the middle of the night and then cry my eyes out because it felt like I'd been cursed, and probably over a decade since I'd started having sexual feelings about all genders, and an entire lifetime of having feelings for men women and others, after so long I'm still just a coward who sits and hates it all, who fears it all.

But then recently I've come to the realisation that the way I realised I was gay was a way that's kind of...dying out. That being the mostly offline way.

Don't take this the wrong way but I've found a lot of people go online and find this overwhelming amount of support and representation for gay and trans identity. You can argue validly this statement, but the context I use this in is comparing it to like. 2013. People were way less online. Being an online celebrity was a novelty.

At school there were dyke, faggot, tranny, etc, thrown around as if they were confetti. Jokes about "lesbos" and "lesbihonest" humiliated any girl who was too close to another girl. I grew up not just in Brisbane Queensland but in a town that was connected to the mainland only by two bridges - a landbridge and a humanmade bridge. The school was overwhelmingly anglo. Overwhelmingly right wing.

I realised I was bi with minimal help from Tumblr. I realised I was bi because I fell, hard, for my best friend. And then she liked me back, and our relationship was amazing. But the school found out. We held hands under the table, we found a quiet moment to kiss and everyone pointed and stared. We made out in the shadow of a building and turned to find twenty people watching gawkeyed, pointing, fascinated.

The entire time her mum was abusive, and massively homophobic. She blamed me for turning her daughter gay. She forced us multiple times to break up at the threat of violence. Eventually we did. We never talked about it. Our friendship never returned like it used to. It was awkward, tinged with sadness, regret, yearning and young love cut short.

It was traumatic, to say the least.

Tumblr in 2014, despite the cringe screenshots, wasn't actually mostly about LGBT positivity or whatever. I first saw the term bisexual on, if you can believe me, a quotev story in 2011 about a cheerleader and an emo girl who get together in a secret relationship. You were either gay or straight, or you had an exception. Bisexual felt right, though, for me, felt accurate, was accurate.

It was years of confusion and secrecy and guilt, peeks at other girls in the changing room that I couldn't help and I didn't understand why. Then it was months and months of anger and frustration at myself that I was feeling this way and confused about myself, and then when I said those words it felt like I was being torn apart. It felt like my life had fallen apart. I cried every goddamn night, I felt awful all the time.

At school the kids noticed. They noticed before I started dating my friend, they noticed the way I looked at her and they interrogated me about it. I'd claim up and down I had a crush on another boy - true perhaps, but it was a passing interest - and then they said they told him and analysed how I reacted. And then the interrogations continued for months because the gay girl was entertainment for them. Around me, as I walked between classes, had lunch, walked home, dyke dyke dyke faggot hahaha.

And then the relationship happened and then leelah alcorn happened and I learned what a trans person is. And sometime when I was fifteen I saw nonbinary begin to pop up, terms like genderfluid and nonbinary and they rang true like bisexual did, but the last time I went down a rabbit hole like that it ended in trauma, and another person got hurt. I didn't throw homophobia at her, but I felt and still feel responsible for it. I didn't turn her gay, but I made it obvious. I don't quite know how to say it.

I knew I was nonbinary, deep down. One day I decided to add that to my tumblr bio. Nobody gave a shit, just like nobody gave a shit when I said I was bi. But that was because I wasn't open about it even online. I couldn't talk about that stuff or I'd curse myself.

Time went on, I got more comfortable, collected fresh new traumas. My brother came out as trans. Around me, friends came out as gay and trans. But they kept coming out. They didn't stop at close friends and trusted family, they told teachers, their entire class. I didn't understand. Why the fuck would you put yourself at risk like that?? And I still don't. I said it was jealousy and anger at myself before, and maybe it is still a little bit, but now, it's just concern.

As I said, the way I realised I was gay is the rather old fashioned way - offline, through trauma, and almost entirely unenjoyable and traumatic. A lot of kids still go through that for sure. But the ones I see telling everyone over that they're gay or trans are, in my experience, not those ones. As the internet began to become more of a general use thing and less of a "only recluse weirdos" space, the online LGBT safe space began to expand into an audience bigger than before. Online, you were safe. Nobody knew your name, you were behind a screen. Homophobia was veiled, you could just delete a hateful anon, could just log off. You could put up your pronouns and people would use them because, well, ppl didn't really have any other identifier someone might use for your gender. So this positive uplifting atmosphere spawned for the most part. And instead of learning through confusion and rare chance encounters with random words and crying into the sink every night that you're gay, you much easier come across this content that tells you indepth what this is and that it's okay. And you think, well wow, that's me, and then...you know, I guess. Not denying there's some of the classic self hatred etc but...you have this safe space online to fall back on, and I cannot emphasise how much that has pushed the acceptance and widespread knowledge of lgbt people in the past 5 years. I didn't exactly have that space, and my realisation was through mostly real life channels, which were swamped at all sides by homophobia, at worst, abusive, at kindest, it would treat you like a sideshow attraction.

Being someone who arguably isn't old enough to brush this difference away with being an "older gay" but still having had a gay experience quite different to the majority in my generation (applying this to area as well) I have to say I'm confronted with this comfortableness other days have a lot and it's always jarring. I think also that while it's important and I'm happy that "younger" gays and transes have at least one good support network/space to fall back onto online, I do think it creates this kind of...dangerous other side, especially for those who go to schools that are LGBT positive and have families who are also friendly to that sort of stuff. I find that young gay teens are totally unprepared and unhardened for the fact that most people you run into in real life despise your guts for existing as who you are. And while we can make as many soppy gay narratives as possible about being honest about who you are and losing shame, we need to face the fact and teach young lgbt kids that being Out isn't just something you do as a ritual in being gay or trans, it's a brave thing and it's completely optional. And furthermore, most importantly, it's insanely dangerous.

I don't think that teenage, raw fear of the consequences of even the very concept of being Out has ever left me. Perhaps I have to thank the homophobic 14 yr olds who swamped me in slurs and trauma, because it's given me a survival sense that's kept me closeted so far you'd never get in.

But occasionally I'm tempted, particularly with my transness which I am only out to perhaps 3 people about, to venture into the world of telling people about yourself. I started a new uni semester and in a tutorial, the teacher handed out cards. We were to use it as a placard to write our names on it so the teacher would learn our names over the next few classes. And, if we chose...our pronouns.

I stared at that card for what felt like a million years. This has always been an ordeal. People don't know how to pronounce my name, even though it's a rather simple one. But pronouns? I'd never really told anyone those. Online, yes, and once when I was asked by a friend i was brave enough to say "any will do" but this - this wasn't the curated safe online space, this wasn't a one-time phrase to a friend. This was an open, permanent thing that would sit below me every class, declaring me to 18 other people. I wrote down "NATALYA", then beneath "she/". And then I stared some more. I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was the biggest fool, because before I could stop myself I wrote "she/they". No "he", not yet. But...it was there.

At the end of the class the teacher collected the placards. I wanted to run back screaming, wanted to ask her for a new card so I could be safe again. But I didn't because I would look like a freak and a coward.

I still think it's stupid. I still think I've put some petty gesture that no one will ever respect (if they can call you she they won't ever call you they) above my own safety. The thing that really struck me was that it didn't feel good. The reason I wrote it like that, I believe in hindsight, is that I was curious what those other kids feel like, because it must feel good to declare that you're a tr*nny d*ke in front of the entire class, good enough to beat the stomach-lurching dread that precedes such an action. But it didn't. It just felt like an unnecessary risk. And it made me feel worse, like there was a target on the back of my head.

I think I could talk about this forever, about how so many kids believe coming out is this thing you're required to do to be a good gay, but it's not. It's stupid stupid reckless, and in my case it ends with you getting fucked over.

But Ive written for ages and gotten prosaic halfway through so I'm gonna shut up. Basically why the fuck do you guys come out to everyone like please stay safe instead of this it isn't worth it.

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

You mentioned earlier that you'd be willing to give book recs? If you still are, what would you recommend for fantasy/sci-fi not about straight white guys? Got a lot of recs for those already.

while I take umbrage with your url, I have many recommendations! In fact, most of the sci fi and fantasy books I have read as of late feature nonwhite and/or LGBT characters and many are not written by straight white guys either, which tends to help. Here’s an incomplete list thereof. Other people looking for recs, this is a pretty broad list ranging from fairly classic fantasy to modern urban fantasy to a couple different forms of sci fi, so you can probably start here.

Currently I’m reading the Foundryside series by Robert Jackson Bennet (I read book 1, I’m mostly through book 2, I don’t think book 3 is out yet) which is best described as cyberpunk, but in an otherwise low-tech fantasy world. The plot and themes are great, the characters are great, the exposition in the first book is a bit heavy-handed like dude we get it you program but the second book is much tighter. Most of the characters are described as being nonwhite, and the main character of the first book (who’s still a major character in the second; it’s just more of an ensemble) is a wlw. Note: I  think these are the only books on this list written by a white guy, so again, look for women and LGBT and nonwhite authors and often they will make characters who are like them.

N. K. Jemisin is a good author not only to read but to follow in that as one of if not the most prominent black sci fi/fantasy authors she makes recommendations of other authors and pushes for recognition (basically, her point is that she did not come in to take Octavia Butler’s seat and you can have more than one black woman writing sci fi). The City We Became is based on a phenomenal short story that she wrote, about the city of New York coming to life through various human avatars; almost all are nonwhite and several are gay, bi, or lesbian (there’s a minor supporting trans character who I hope gets a larger role in the next of the series but the first book just came out). The Broken Earth trilogy is maybe one of my favorite series I’ve read in the last few years; most of the characters are black and a decent number are LGBT.

Speaking of Octavia Butler, most of her characters are black and she’s also just a modern classic sci fi writer for a reason. I’ve only really read short stories (the Bloodchild collection), the Patternist series, and Kindred. She does dip into horror themes at times and I respect if people aren’t into that, but she was a brilliant author. Most of her characters are black and The Patternist series includes shapeshifter characters who have romances with people of various genders.

I was frustrated by the pacing in The Priory of the Orange Tree, but not the characters. The worldbuilding could also stand to be a little better in that it’s clearly like, Europe and Asia of our world circa 1600-ish but with different names for things and also some magic. Plenty of nonwhite characters, some lesbian romance. (Author is Samantha Shannon).

You have probably seen stuff for Gideon The Ninth on Tumblr and for good reason; it’s very good. The tagline on Tumblr is often Lesbian Space Necromancers which is true but also it’s just incredibly funny and dark and well-written. (Author is Tamsyn Muir).

You may have also seen things for the Shades of Magic series on Tumblr; it’s a really cool conceit, one of the two main characters is a woman, and there is significant gay romance among the supporting characters. It’s got epic battle vs. evil for the soul of the universe stuff as well as interdimensional portals but also pirates and the elemental magic olympics, somehow. I do feel sort of ambivalent about the author saying one character is likely genderfluid but doesn’t know that it’s an option because on the one hand I do not like the author saying things and it counting as representation, but on the other said character comes from early 1800s London and this would not be an unreasonable way for them to feel. (Author is V. E. Schwab)

The Raven Tower is super interesting and I only read it because my mother had it out of the library when I was home for Thanksgiving and she said ‘here you might like this’. It’s sort of a retelling of Hamlet, it’s got weird deity lore (which I happen to love in fantasy), and the main character is trans. (Author is Ann Leckie).

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is sci fi and while there are challenges and real plot involved it’s just like...kind of a fun adventure book? I just remember finding it fun, despite the seriousness of elements of the plot, and I say this as someone who often does like a good epic good vs. evil plot but it’s kind of nice to read a book where the hardships are like, needing to fuel your spaceship in a weird place. Some of the human characters are nonwhite (I’m of the opinion that aliens don’t really count as representation), and several characters are not straight. (Author is Becky Chambers).

The Golem and the Jinni is about the early 1900s immigrant experience in lower Manhattan, but through the eyes of a golem woman living in the Jewish community and a jinni in the Syrian community who become friends due to being displaced magical beings. (Author is Helene Wecker).

Alif The Unseen is by G. Willow Wilson of Ms. Marvel fame and is a technological fantasy novel that takes place in an unspecified Middle Eastern country in roughly the modern day. It came out in 2012 and was clearly (and thoughtfully) influenced by the Arab Spring of 2011; most characters are Middle-Eastern or South Asian Muslims.

Finally on this list, though not of the many books one could read, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is by Samuel R. Delany, a gay black man, and while it’s been a couple years since I read it it was so brilliantly written and different than a lot of space sci fi that I’ve read and it hit me in such a way that I keep meaning to reread it. The main characters are also black gay men.

[cuppachaotic]

Okay I see a lot of people questioning the difference between bi and pan. And a lot of people saying that they are the same. And a lot of people invalidating people on either side or both sides. I just wanted to give you my definition or my understanding of pan and bi as a person who has identified as both and from what I hear from other bi and pan people. (Edit: I am not saying I know everything about being bi. Most of this post is about being pan because I am pan. I identified as bi for a while but obviously I am not bi so I don't know everything. I experienced some things while identifying as bi but it's not the same as being bi) Bi and pan are alike but obviously they have their differences.

My definition:

Bi: attracted to two or more genders (alternatively it could be an attraction to two genders, this doesn't have to mean men and women it can be women and non-binary people, any combo really)

Pan: attracted to all genders regardless of gender (gender matters but it doesn't matter which gender because it isn't a factor)

Google's definition:

Bi: sexually attracted not exclusively to people of one particular gender; attracted to both men and women.

Pan: not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity.

It is a misconception that pan people are only attracted to personality. Some pan people are panromantic but for the pan people that are not, they are attracted physically to the parts just doesn't matter which parts (some pan people do have a preference for how they look but it doesn't matter which sex society tries to equate them to because they respect gender is what I'm trying to say, also bi people respect gender too I'm not trying to trash on them dkdojdjdnd I love all of y'all 😭) There are a lot of pan mottos but one of them is "hearts not parts" which I equate to meaning as long as I am attracted to you, you are a consenting person, and in my age range, I can have sex with you or kiss you or date you.

It is also a misconception that pan is the "attraction for transgender people". This is not true. Transgender is not a gender it is a label. Transgender people have their own respective genders. We just all have something in common, we were assigned something at birth but don't identify that way. If an assigned male at birth person transitions to female and dates a woman who is lesbian and identifies as lesbian themself then those two are lesbian. If an assigned female at birth person transitions to male and dates a woman and this woman is straight and so is the trans person then they are straight.

Some of you will probably be like "okay that makes sense" and some of you might be like "my gay brain is confused" so I'll include some links at the end so you can read up on it more.

I just wanted to say in my experience at first I identified as bi (because I didn't know what pan was), when I found out about pan I immediately knew that that was me but it took me a while to switch labels (I was openly out to any one I could be except family and I thought it would be confusing) my understanding of pan has definitely grown over the years. So it is okay if you identity as bi for years and switch labels, you are not betraying anyone. It's okay if you identify as pan for years and switch labels, you are not betraying anyone. It's okay if you know that you are pan but want to use bi. And so on and so forth. Sometimes it's difficult to know and you decide from a vibe or an experience. You are still growing and so is pan as a new formed identity (well not that new but relatively new). Pan and bi are like soul sister labels and there are many misconceptions about both. So I say we support each other. A lot of pan people identify as pan because they felt they were bi but weren't comfortable with the label for themselves but that doesn't mean that they are uncomfortable with bi people. (I mean I'm speaking as myself as a pan person not for everyone there are those kind of people out there). Also a lot of pan people weren't uncomfortable with the label bi. They just more felt they were more so pan and that was that, and that's okay too. Other pansexual people see the term as a statement. It varies! (Which is why you should read/watch the links below)

Links:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/02/pansexual-difference-pansexual-bisexual-got-answers/

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a10315700/pansexual-meaning-myths/

https://youtu.be/W5W_eWJE5sQ

https://youtu.be/47dgl8JJJDM

https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-bisexual#takeaway

https://youtu.be/x5P_xF1JuUk

https://youtu.be/PK0QSp3KS40

https://youtu.be/Oa6AnOCQD50

Even if you think pan is a fancy way to say bi that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it doesn't matter to other people. You can ignore the community if you want but if someone comes out as pan to you don't be a dick. For some people saying the word is freeing. Some people like me feel that we get to be a person for themselves again. Not a zombie for others.

Edit: this is a joke I'm sorry if it is insensitive but: does that mean my sexuality is gucci? I have a designer sexuality (Me being self deprecating about people calling pan people a non existent fancy version of bi)

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Tackling Biphobia

This page provides information for criminal justice and other safety services, including police, councils, charities and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on addressing biphobic hate crime. Bisexual people can face prejudice and hate crime, which service providers have a duty to tackle. The information below aims to assist services understanding and serving the needs of bisexual people who experience hate crime.

Recognise Biphobia

Biphobia is a prejudicial attitude toward bisexual people based on negative stereotypes. It can include believing that bisexual people are:

• Deceitful, dangerous or perverse

• Greedy, promiscuous or exotic

• Confused, indecisive or ‘going through a phase’

• Spreaders of disease or damage lesbian and gay rights

Recognise the gap

Services are increasingly familiar with hate crime against lesbian and gay people, but bisexual people have their own distinct needs, which can be overlooked or underplayed. Build your knowledge, policies and systems to tackle this important issue.

Biphobia exists

When asked how many biphobic hate crimes they have come across, most police officers would say zero. However, many officers will have dealt with one without realising. This is partly because bisexual people themselves sometimes struggle to label experiences as hate crime, do not disclose their identity, or are assumed to be another sexuality. Additionally biphobia is often not well understood or recorded by services. Instead of assuming biphobia does not exist, acknowledge that it happens but that under-reporting makes it difficult to see.

What is Biphobic hate crime?

Any offence should be treated as a biphobic hate crime if the person who experienced it or anyone else feels it was an expression of biphobia. Biphobic hate crime can include verbal abuse and violence from neighbours or strangers. Because people’s bisexual identity is not always visible to strangers, biphobic abuse can often be concentrated in settings where the targeted person and perpetrator know each other. That can include verbal abuse or unwanted sexual touching from acquaintances and biphobic domestic abuse from family or partners. These crimes are less easy to recognise but it is equally important to record and address them in a manner that addresses their motivation of hostility. To qualify to be recorded as a hate incident, a report needn’t include biphobic language. It is enough for a reporting person to perceive that it was motivated by anti-bisexual prejudice.

Record Biphobic incidents

Below the level of criminal offences, people can face prejudicial comments about their identity. Police forces, councils and charities can record these as non-criminal hate incidents. It is especially important to utilise this to record biphobic hate incidents because prejudicial and offensive but non-criminal abuse makes up the bulk of some bisexual peoples negative experiences.

Tackle biphobia within LGBT communities

Bisexual people can face prejudice from lesbian and gay people, such as being refused entry to LGBT spaces or inappropriate treatment by LGBT services. Lesbians and gay men working as service providers can also sometimes oppose bisexual inclusion. This means bisexual people sometimes feel pressured to pass as gay or lesbian to avoid biphobia when accessing an LGBT related service. Those who do come out can face inappropriate assumptions, questions, stereotyping. It is therefore important for LGBT services to do specific work toward understanding and welcoming this large section of their community.

Bisexual people face homophobia

Homophobia is not an intolerance of gay and lesbian people, but of people attracted to people of the same gender. Therefore many bisexual people can regularly face it in addition to biphobia. That means someone reporting homophobic abuse is equally likely to be bisexual as gay or lesbian. Someone could also identify as heterosexual but receive homophobic or biphobic hostility. Sometimes there can be uncertainty over whether an apparently homophobic word or action was being used in an anti-bisexual way. Determining how it should be recorded should be done together with the service user.

Make a positive impact

For every biphobic incident or crime someone tells you about there will be many more unreported. Help people feel that telling you was worthwhile. An important but under-utilised way of doing that is by referral to bisexual and LGBT support, advice, advocacy and social groups. Though some people are able to get criminal justice outcomes, many do not. Enable people to consider a range of options including help from police, discrimination law, restorative justice, emotional support, or assistance complaining about biphobic attitudes from a provider of goods or services.

Bisexual people are diverse

Many people face hostility that they feel had multiple types of motivation, for instance both biphobic and racist. They are entitled to ask police and other safety services to record it under several hate incident categories. Ask open questions about motivation and support service users in determining their own account of events. Also, bear in mind that a crime or incident may have more than one hate motivation.

Be led by perception

It is the right of anyone reporting hostility to ask safety services to record something as biphobic. That is because police guidance states that any crime or non-criminal incident should be recorded as motivated by sexual orientation hatred (including biphobia and homophobia) if the person reporting it feels it was motivated that way. Though courts need evidence to record a hate crime, police and other services do not need proof to record an incident or crime as biphobic and/or other hostility.

Create a safe environment

Many bisexual people feel pressured to pass as straight or gay when talking to services. Some people believe that bisexual people who are not in open same sex relationships are lucky being able to pass as straight, but feeling pressured to keep your identity secret is stressful. It also prevents people from disclosing important information about incidents. Make efforts to enable service users to feel safe disclosing issues related to their identity.

Speak out

Demonstrate that you take biphobia seriously by speaking out against it. Explicitly name biphobia in promotional material. Leave bisexual inclusive literature and posters in public spaces. Invite a speaker from a local group to a team meeting. Send bisexual inclusion resources to colleagues. Challenge biphobic attitudes where you see them. Mark Bi Visibility Day on 23rd September. Include bisexual people in case studies. Invite bisexual speakers when organising events.

Change recording systems

Criminal law recognises hate crime motivated by sexual orientation, which includes biphobia and homophobia. However, most organisations only have one recording category to record both, which they normally label as ‘homophobic hate crime’. Ideally, recording systems should have a separate category for each, but failing that, ensure any biphobic motivation is specifically named on the narrative incident record.

Recognise bisexual diversity

People’s sexual identity does not always fit into a neat box. Under the bisexual umbrella you find people who feel a strong tie to bisexual communities and others who do not. Some people are polyamorous (have relationships with multiple consenting people), while others are in monogamous relationships. You also find pansexual people (gender doesn’t determine who they are attracted to) and people have a fluid attitude toward gender. Whatever terms someone uses about themselves, try to be flexible in understanding it.

Avoid assumptions

Ask open questions about service users identity and the gender of partners. Ask open questions about whether they felt there was any kind of prejudice motivating an incident. Do not presume that everyone who reports homophobia is gay or that everyone in a mixed sex relationship is straight. Be open to the possibility of an incident being biphobic, even if a service user has not identified themselves as bisexual.

Mind your language

Avoid slipping into language that can exclude people. Do not use the word ‘gay’ to refer to all LGBT people and issues. Refer to same sex relationships instead of gay relationships. Talk about mixed sex relationships instead of straight relationships. It is fine to talk about homophobia in specific cases, but when talking about LGBT communities as a whole, mention biphobia alongside homophobia and transphobia.

Reach out

Find out about local, regional or national bisexual groups and events. Start dialogue with bisexual communities to find out about their experiences and needs, while acknowledging that they are underresourced and have little capacity. Consult them on changes to your service. Ask for their expertise and support their work in exchange. Promote opportunities to get involved in your structures, such as independent advisory groups and management committees.

Create change internally

Aim to make bisexual people feel welcomed and accepted. Acknowledge that they have different needs to gay, lesbian and heterosexual people. Look into finding a way to officially record biphobic hate crimes and incidents. Get specific training on bisexual issues and needs. Ask questions about how your and other organisations are meeting their equality and human rights duties for bisexual people. Ask inclusive questions on forms. Ask a bisexual community group for their opinion about the accessibility of your service.

Be a good employer

Being a bisexual-positive employer is a legal duty, but also sends a message that you are serious about building inclusive services. Start by acknowledging that lack of inclusion of bisexual staff may be an issue. Work toward creating an environment where people can feel safe being out. Explicitly cover biphobic attitudes and behaviour within policies. Encourage LGBT staff and service user networks to provide a safe space for bisexual people.

[skywalkersapprentice]

mdzs novel review

Now that we’re in quarantine and I have an infinite amount of time on my hands, why not read a novel that’s 500k, right?

(Spoilers ahead.)

I totally fucked up my sleeping schedule by staying up for three nights in a row and sleeping four hours in the afternoon while reading it. worth it, though. Despite a few flaws that tripped me up close to the end, Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) was a gorgeous story. Kudos to the translators for giving it to us in English.

I’ll start off by saying that this story is not for the faint of heart. The main character has very grey morals. There is self-cannibalism, gore, period-typical homophobia, corpses come to life, mentions of rape, incest, sexual content, straight up dubcon and disturbing themes all the way through. If I’d seen this tagged as such on Ao3, I definitely would have left it alone. Despite all this, there’s also some truly wonderful characters, a plot unlike anything I’ve ever read before, subtle pining, fantastic worldbuilding, magical music, found families, and!! canonly lgbt characters that get to experience all of this things in the one hundred goddamn chapters it takes for them to get together.

The Good:

Wei Wuxian. One of the most interesting characters I’ve ever encountered. How can one be so good, so happy, so giving, yet so incredibly fucking annoying? He’s so clever, but also a moron. He’s selfless, but only in regards to things and people he cares about. He has an absolutely terrible memory (god me too) and knows how to get under everyone’s skin and has killed literal thousands of people and also. He is my son. If I knew him in real life I think he wouldn’t have survived long enough to become the Yiling Patriarch but in fiction he is wonderful.

The plot: Look. This novel is longer than the first four Harry Potter books combined. You can almost think of it as two books- one set in the past, one set sixteen years later. But although it’s the longest book I’ve ever read, it never really felt boring. It was definitely confusing at times (I’ve never had to take notes on a novel before to keep everything straight in my head) but I wasn’t bored. Things just keep happening- Wei Wuxian is back from the dead!! Now there’s a creepy hand!! Now there’s a statue that can move!! Now we’re in the past!! Now we’re back in the present and there’s a castle that eats people!! Now we’re in a ghost city and there’s some freaky stuff going down!! Time for the saddest flashback of all time, and now we’re starting to put the puzzle of this dismembered person together!! All of this is interspersed with worldbuilding and character dynamics and creating a full picture of the past and- whew. It was so hard to tear myself away to sleep or eat because I just wanted to know- what’s going to happen next? 

The love story: Hello, slowest of burns in the entire fucking world. I live for the enemies-to-friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-what-are-we-to-lovers love story that this book gave me. Lan Wangji, you poor emotionally repressed disaster gay. Wei Wuxian, you blind oblivious moronic disaster bi. Somehow, they’re perfect for each other. I was really, really hesitant to read this book because I know it has roots in that specific straight-girl-writes-gay-men type of culture that is often terrible and fetishistic. There were definitely things that I disagreed with that that I’ll talk about later, but largely, stereotypes were avoided and I have to give the author credit for this relationship that managed to be so many things. I relate heavily to the type of person Lan Wangji is, and I adored watching him fall for Wei Wuxian, through Wei Wuxian’s eyes, without either of them really even realizing it. They’re the definition of what I like to call a “Red and Blue couple”- the opposites, the fire and ice, the calm and the wild, the dark and the light, the red and the blue, who complement one another so well despite being so different. They balanced each other out wonderfully. Don’t talk to me about the WangXian song or the fact that they have a child or I will start crying.

Lan Wangji: Though I love Wei Wuxian, annoying traits and all, Lan Wangji is who I heavily resonated with. He kind of reminds me of Else from Frozen?? Anyone else?? Like, his whole thing is basically “conceal don’t feel”, except what he’s concealing is the fact that he feels things so deeply. He just wants to help people, to be essentially perfect at what he does (scooby doo villian voice: and he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for wei wuxian) His character development from the past to present was lovely. I silently cheered for him whenever he broke the rules, or let the strict facade down for a bit. 

The side characters: Literally how are there so many characters in this book who are so fleshed out that they feel like real people? Xiao XingChen, Lan SiZhui, Wen Ning, Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng and Jiang LanYi all especially stood out to me, but even beyond them, everyone had a fully explained reason and motivation for like, everything they did. Even if I hated the villains, they weren’t needlessly evil. We love a grey story.

But there were some things I didn’t like.

The Bad

The R rated stuff: Well. This is probably the weirdest critique I’ve ever had to make about a book, and maybe some of it was partly due to translation, but... the sex was out of character. I thought the general dynamic made no sense for the two of them as people and it just.... wasn’t super well written? Thankfully I was warned beforehand that the Incense Burner chapters contained content I wasn’t prepared to read, but yikes, I felt like I was reading about two different characters the second clothes started coming off. I haven’t finished the bonus chapters for this reason. The second I read the word “rape”, I had to stop. Consent is a pretty hard line for me, and I can’t do a dubcon kink. Obviously the author can do whatever the hell she wants with her characters, but I felt like she threw away their personalities for the sake of trying to write something hot (which- it wasn’t.) This is why straight people have no rights and also why I will be pretending those scenes don’t exist. 

The Hatred Chapters: I do feel like all of the tension and action was sort of- let down at what was supposed to be the climactic showdown in the temple. It dragged on for so many chapters that I didn’t feel on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next.That could also be due to translation. I’m not sure. Maybe I need to read the Hatred chapters again. But I did feel sort of let down in the final 20 chapters of this novel. It wasn’t enough to seriously impact how much I love the general concept, but it was disappointing.

Semi related but after 100 chapter build up, that confession could have been better. Again- maybe a translation thing.

The Nie MingJue backstory flashback: just- honestly wasn’t interesting to me. It was the only part of the novel that I really had to slog through. 

Lastly - this isn’t the novel’s fault, and I am certainly grateful to the translators for all of their work translating this gigantic novel, but there were some consistent grammatical issues surrounding the dialogue tags that bugged me. I’m not sure how it is in Chinese, but in English, writing “Wei WuXian, “Nothing.””  just- isn’t correct. At the very least, you need a verb like “said”. I usually read fast enough that my brain tends to insert the word even if it’s not there, but when reading slowly, this did frequently jar me out of the story. I’d be willing to edit the entire novel just to fix these errors. But it says a lot about how good this novel is that I continued reading despite errors like this because something like that in a fic would have me closing the tab immediately.

Alright, that’s all. 

Overall:

There are so many small things, little moments and lines that I loved about this story, it would take me days to list them all. The dialogue patterns from character to character were distinct. Things like the forehead ribbon were endlessly entertaining. Side plots like the A-Qing one had me in tears and I was laughing a few chapters late from drunk LWJ. The novel was just fun to read. There were errors, yes, there were disappointments, sure. But it made me feel so much. I’ve been through the entire range of human emotion while reading it, and it’s so rare to find a book that just yanks you into the universe like this one did to me. I really needed an escape this week, and this was absolutely a welcome one. If I go read it again, I’m sure I’ll find a hundred more things I like about it. Heed the warnings I’ve given, if you read it, but I absolutely adored most of this book and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

9/10.