#this is absolutely not to say the bi erasure and biphobia aren’t real and aren’t serious issues

[cherylesbian]

{character is explicitly stated by the creators to be a lesbian/refers to herself as a lesbian} fandom: ugh her being gay makes no sense / she should’ve been bi!! / I’m just gonna say she’s bi

{character’s sexuality is never explicitly stated / they were intended to be straight / creator and actor differ on opinion on their sexuality} {someone headcanons them as a lesbian} fandom: BI ERASURE!! BIPHOBIA!! WHEN WILL THE EVIL LESBIANS STOP

[elizabethxjessie]

‘real lesbians’

This is a long time coming, but as a lesbian, I have found some discourse on this tag to be harmful. If you are just here to look at memes and feel validated as a lesbian, please keep scrolling. <3 

I’ve seen so many posts shaming other lesbians and telling them that they are actually ‘not real lesbians’ because had relations with a man before they realised that they were gay. 

Please realise that we all live different lives, and we don’t all experience sexuality and self-realisation exactly the same way. 

I’m going to use the example of my grandmother because it’s the best case for this that I can think of. She grew up in 1940s India where being gay was illegal, and arranged marriage was the only socially acceptable union. 

When I came out to her as lesbian, she told me that it was normal to not like boys and that she too loved women when she was my age, but she married my grandfather despite not having any feelings for him ‘because he was nice’. She told me verbatim that she didn’t actually love him. Obviously they had sex within their marriage otherwise I wouldn’t be here. This doesn’t mean that the sex that they had was non-consensual. She didn’t enjoy it, but they had to do it anyhow. Does this make her any less lesbian? No. 

I’ve seen people saying that you cannot have consensual sex with someone without being attracted to them. Thus, apparently lesbians who have consented to sex with men in the past aren’t ‘real’ lesbians. This completely erases the experiences of gay and lesbian people forced into relationships due to cultural or societal pressure. This pressure is still very real, whether it results in arranged marriage, or a lesbian being in a relationship with a man in order to convince herself that she’s not actually gay. 

The idea that lesbians and gay men aren’t valid if they had relationships with people of the opposite sex is completely baseless. Are we forgetting that before it was socially acceptable (in first world countries) to be gay, most gay people just got married to the opposite sex despite not loving them, forever repressing their identities?

Some people still live in environments like this, where being gay would put them in danger or lead to them being rejected by family or friends. So yes, some lesbians repress their identity (consciously or subconsciously), and even have relations with men to escape the reality of their sexuality. 

Was this my experience? No. I personally haven’t had sex with a man, and I do not ever want to. Does my individual experience invalidate lesbians that have had sex with men? No. I can respect that we all have different experiences as we have lived different lives. 

This brings me onto something much more important. How much it sucks to be told what your sexuality is. It’s so hypocritical that people will reply in comments like ‘You’re not a lesbian, you’re bisexual’ or something along those lines. I completely understand that bi erasure is real, and that the idea of comphet can worsen internalised biphobia in bisexual women, but this is completely out of line. I’m sure that there are bisexual women who think that they are experiencing comphet when it’s just attraction, but people should be free to explore their sexualities, and come to their own conclusions. Weren’t a lot of us told by our parents ‘it’s just a phase’ , ‘you’re straight, you’re just confused’. 

Why do we do the same thing each other when we know what that feels like? A lot of lesbians have been repressed in their feelings for so long, and have finally come to understand their lesbian identities, just to be invalidated by other lesbians on this tag. 

Only you can know what your feelings are, so when a fellow lesbian shares their experience in a space that should be safe, how about we believe them instead of trying to invalidate them? It’s absolutely ridiculous to go around telling people what you think their sexuality is when you know nothing about their personal experience and feelings. 

Anyways...Sorry for the rant, please go back to scrolling and have a pleasant day :)

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Recently, I wrote an article outlining tips on how I deal with internalised biphobia when I am at low points in my sexuality. So, I got wondering why we deal with internalised biphobia. I looked at where my internalised biphobia stems from. Because when I know, I know what to not tell myself any more. It’s dangerous to live with that level of self doubt, but there are things that you can catch yourself thinking sometimes. And when you do, call them out. Tell them no. So stop telling and asking yourself these things:

Am I sure?

I think for me, this is the one I get caught in most. I know for me that this one comes from the time between me realising my sexuality and coming out. When I realised that coming out was a thing I felt I had to do (for a variety of reasons), every day I questioned if I was sure I needed to. And the answer was never certain. In part, as I was very nervous, but also I simply just wasn’t ever entirely sure. I am still not. But it is OK. A fellow bisexual friend I have said they question themselves a lot and that they hate the uncertainty of it. And if there is something like this you aren’t sure about, that can affect you. For me, it’s very much about what happens if it is just a phase? What if there was no point in coming out to anyone? The uncertainty is awful. And, if you are someone who is very fluid in their sexuality, as I am, what do you do then? Because your questioning then can go through the roof. I dislike the uncertainty.

But I have learned how to answer this question. All I can say to myself is, “Yes. You are valid, and you are real, and you are bisexual”. Most of the time, that is enough to shut down that thought process. Sometimes, it isn’t. And you just have to say, “No. But This is how I am feeling today, but tomorrow, I’ll review myself again and see.”

But I am not equally attracted to genders.

Lord.... no. I am absolutely not. I am (generally but I am fluid) much more attracted to women than men. This does confuse people. And I think that this comes very much from a society thing. I wonder if it genuinely comes from the fact that bisexual representation in our society isn’t that great. For me, in television, the only thing I have seen that has had really good and accurate bisexual representation was Crazy Ex Girlfriend on Netflix. There is even a song he uses to come out and the character is so lovely and genuine and an older guy, so it honestly challenges most of the stereotypes along with it. But it is the only thing I have ever seen in which a character clearly states that they are bisexual and challenge stereotypes. It is one of the greatest things to watch.

The point is, many bisexual people do not have a clear equal attraction to different genders. But for some reason people think that we do. However lots of bisexual people have unequal attractions to a variety of genders and are fluid in their attractions. So you can be bisexual and not always be equally attracted to just two genders.

Just A Phase

Again, this is a big worry for me. And it ties again into the uncertainty of this sexuality. And this is the one that I think that is truly truly biphobic. Because it is just a form of bi erasure, and saying it is not real. I think this maybe comes from the fact that a lot of people who are out as gay, originally came out as bisexual. And as they later come out as gay, people make the assumption that it is a stepping stone to coming out ‘completely’.

Well, for some people it might be. It might be that they are still questioning and want to just keep their options open. It might be that they use it when they come out to give the people they come out to a level of hope that they might still be able to be in a straight relationship. Some people see it as something that exists when you’re young but you grow out of.

All I say is that I hope it’s not a phase. It’s taken a lot for me to get to this point of comfort in my sexuality, including powerful struggles with my mental health. So if it is a phase, I will be very very annoyed. But, even if it is just a phase, what means that it isn’t real in this moment? I know right now that I am bisexual. Maybe in a year’s time, I’ll have gone through more self discovery and realised that maybe it will no longer be how I identify. But does that make my feelings right now any less valid? Because it’s what I feel right now that matters.

Internalised biphobia will make you unhappy. Try and give yourself some bi love, and appreciate yourself in all your bi-beauty.

[multisexualsafespace-blog]

llynethsfandomblogthing replied to your post  “For the record, I absolutely despise having to answer questions like...”

I'm really sorry you're having a flare (i get it, i'm chronically ill too) but you need to understand that you're meant to be a safe place for all bi and mspec people. Purposefully misgendering NB people who present a certain way so you can tell anon she's appropriating a term she fits the criteria of isn't great. I present both masc & fem but i'm never a full binary gender. Masc nb people aren't men. Maybe put on your blog you only support SGA if thats all you do.

I am so tired of constantly having to repeat myself on here. You are putting words in my mouth and I do not appreciate that! Please read my posts more carefully in the future before accusing me of anything.

I may have worded myself badly, but what I told that anon is that if she is only attracted to people who she considers “masculine” that this is probably informed by the fact she actually categorizes them as men and not as nonbinary. This happens so much and as a nonbinary person myself I experience it a lot. I wasn’t misgendering these hypothetical nb people, I was saying that it sounds to me like she is thinking of them as men, which is ignoring their nonbinary identity and possibly fetishistic.

I never said that masculine presentation = manhood and I do not believe that. I present varyingly masculine but I identify as an agender woman. I talked about 1) people who align themselves with manhood and therefore do in fact identify as (nonbinary) men, which is a thing that exists and they choose, and 2) people that the anon considers to fit an idea that she has of masculinity and therefore probably subconciously considers to be men regardless of their identity.

I reblogged like a thousand posts on LGBT history in the last hour, all to spell out one thing: bisexuality, and from there the concepts of multisexuality, multi gender attraction, poly- and pansexuality, are LGBT identities. They exist to describe experiences that LGBT people have. The LGBT movement is based in the fight against homophobia (including lesbophobia, biphobia, sapphobia etc.) and transphobia (including nonbinary erasure, colonial bianrism etc.). If you experience neither of these things, you are not LGBT and shouldn’t use terms that were made by LGBT people for LGBT people.

As a nonbinary bisexual, I am kinda sick of being fetishized by straight people who think that using our terms makes them edgy or whatever! A dude who is into me because he sees me as a “tomboy woman” is still straight and he sure as heck doesn’t respect my nonbinary identity or my bisexuality! If that dude called himself bi or ply because he would fuck me even though I don’t identify as female, I would punch him in the face!!

Cishet women can also fetishize LGBT people.

Safe spaces are only safe if we keep out the people who oppress us. I would throw TERFs and racists and Nazis out of our spaces and I am sure as hell gonna throw cishets out, too.

Mod Ren is like a billion times nicer than me because I am a queer crippled ball of rage, but like, you can believe me that he and I talked about this topic and we are both very tired of being attacked on this blog and of people demanding us to answer homophobic and transphobic questions and of having to stay calm and reasonable at all times. Again, we are real people and you are expecting a damn lot from us. We want to provide help and advice for people going through situations like our own, not fight about definitions and labels and history. You can read that stuff up yourself, we provide enough resources if you just scroll down from here.

- Mod Norah

[stardyng]

Femme-Shaming

Queer Men

In the gay community, there are two main categories that queer men may find themselves inserted in, and they are ‘’masculine’’ and ‘’feminine’’. There may be a lot of sub-categories, but they aren’t used as nearly as much as these two terms as queer men will constantly be faced in situations where these two terms are used. Whether it in dating profiles, gay clubs, pride or even typical non-gay exclusive situations, these terms and their baggages seem to appear. That would be fine if most of these conversations didn’t come in the expense of feminine gay men where they are slandered and always have to defend their femininity. These things happen because while femininity is common enough in the gay community, many believe it to be a bad and negative trait, and this belief appears in multiple forms.

These are caused in reason of stereotypes and misplaced sexism. Historically, feminine gay men have been treated as jokes, as embarrassing and as lesser than men from people outside of the community but more so recently, masculine queer men in the community started seeing and treating them in a way which is almost as degrading than some people outside of the community treats them. That’s caused in reason of the skewered belief that these men harbor that feminine gay men make the gay community look bad which is in turn caused by the fact that femininity has been practically intertwined with ‘’gay men’’ in popular media, whether it be on-screen or off-screen, and this previously accepted notion of what it means to be gay has created a multitude of problems inside the community itself like the drive that many queer men feel to destroy and escape this stereotype by acting out this hyper-masculine facade.

On the other hand, masculinity is a concept that is celebrated by gay men as most aspire to be so since they become the kind of men who are considered to be the most desirable and attractive in the community and they get to fit into society’s heteronormative gender norms to feel more validated and accepted by straight people despite the fact that these norms are just things that holds us down, and is just a product of our male-dominated society. But regardless, a big portion of these men will often be complimented when people couldn’t guess that they were gay as that validate their masculinity, have their dating profiles repleting with sentences like ‘’no fems’’, and ‘’masc 4 masc’’ which wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t caused by their fear or disgust for femininity rather than them actually being attracted to masculinity and them calling themselves and each other ‘’straight-acting’’

Like stated before, there’s a certain amount of disgust, uncomfortableness and irrational fear that many masculine queer men feel that is aimed towards feminine men as in their perspective, these men act like girls. It’s really just misplaced misogyny and that certainly speaks a lot about the way our society treats femininity and women in general. But regardless, these feelings are so intense that many of these men don’t want to have anything to do with men who are even just slightly effeminate and often, they will validate this claim by saying that if they wanted to pursue girls, they would date a ‘’real’’ girl.

Conclusively, everybody is attracted to different types of people, but that doesn’t validate any type of disgust towards anyone over superfluous reasons and the first step to stop this trend so is to stop excluding any part of the community. Besides, gender norms are fictitious things enforced into people and feminine gay men are strong, as being themselves in a world that tells them otherwise and often attacks them for their difference is true strenght. So this growing division between the two main groups in the community is absolutely ridiculous and only causes for feminine men to be the objects of crude jokes by an even bigger percentage of people.  We are in a community that can sometimes be shallow and exclusive with so much division and where gay men don’t even accept each other yet that’s the first thing that we should do as we are in a  society with this much anti-LGBT-ness. We just cannot be asking for unity and respect by other people when we can’t even give it to each others.

Queer Women

The lesbian community strikes some similarities with its male counterpart when it comes to the categorization of the people in it. Much like with queer men, the community separates its members in two main categories. The first category of women are the ‘’feminine women’’, who are more commonly known as ‘’high-femme’’ or ‘’lipstick lesbians/bisexuals’’. The second category of women are the ‘’masculine women’’ who are more commonly known as ‘’butch’’ and ‘’studs’’ and much like with queer men, these terms are constantly used in a numerous amount of situations and conversations that have a relation with queer women but the similarities stop there. That’s because conversations related with queer femmes aren’t typically happening at their expenses since they aren’t treated as jokes or as stereotypes regardless of whether it be by people in or out of the community. Rather the discrimination that feminine women go through showcases itself in their sexualities being invalidated based on their appearances and personalities.

This invalidation of these women’s sexualities comes in multiple forms which all have stereotypes as their foundations but regardless of the form, they just come off as friendly fire especially since femmephobia basically embodies the dismissal of the notion that femininity is appealing, that it has value and that it equates with strength, not weakness. This dismissal of femininity has a number of repercussions. The first being that it paints a good and bad way to be a queer woman, one which is heavily intertwined with the belief that many queer women harbor that the more masculine they are, the more valid their queerness is. Ultimately, it’s rejecting the diversity that the community supposedly perpetuates. The second being the refusal to date women who don’t fit into this strained mold, which only leads to these women feeling dejected. The third being assuming these women’s sexualities regardless of the presented situation which only helps at promoting the notion that our society has taken about how heterosexuality is the default so people are straight until proven otherwise while also reinforcing stereotypes of what it means to be queer and straight.

This mindset, however doesn’t just come from masculine queer women as often, other femme also contributes to perpetuating this stereotype while also refusing to date these women despite the contradiction of it all. One of the many reasons these women refuse to date femme women ultimately comes down to insecurities. Insecure of one’s own beauty compared to the other and insecure that other people consider them to be the lesser attractive woman in the relationship but the most relevant reason femme girls are rejected is because of biphobia and bi-erasure. The moment where they restrict femininity with heterosexuality and masculinity with homosexuality is the first sign to their lack of simple acknowledgment that bisexual women exist. But even when bisexuality is acknowledged, there’s also a bunch of biphobia that follows. The tricky thing about it is that it isn’t obvious. Femmes are actually assumed to be bisexual women as an attraction towards men is associated with femininity, and in turn, bisexuals are assumed to be actually straight which is why femme are considered to be heterosexual women. So these women are avoided and simply rejected because of biphobia.

The erasure and invisibility bisexuals feel that comes from people inside and outside of the community is one of the biggest issues they have to face as bisexuals. One of the roots to this issue is femme phobia yet it’s rarely discussed leaving the situation as systemically harmful as it is. It’s important to talk about this contributing factor to an issue that’s affecting the biggest section of the community that was founded on the discriminatory viewpoints we grow up with when it came to gender and sexuality. Ones related with bi-erasure and internalized misogyny that is polarizing a community that should be uniting. That’s it’s important to assert ourselves, and not accept any of this devaluing based on perpetuated myths and this romanticism of masculinity.

[colorisbyshe]

Seeing people (both celebs and normies) being so afraid/reluctant/disgusted by the word "bisexual" shows just how much biphobia has prevailed. People literally describe bisexuality when someone asks them about their sexuality and when someone tells them, "So... like... bisexual?" They either tilt their heads like what's that??? or act like eeeewwww nooooo. It makes my bi heart sad :( oh and btw: what's your ko-fi? I wanted to donate but I didn't find it.

Sorry for taking to so long to answer this! I had written out something long and then my window crashed, so I had to take a break before writing it again because I was so irritated.

True to our name bisexuals get it from both sides--from non-bisexuals and from bisexuals. As a response to biphobic from non-bisexuals (primarily straight people but also from gay people too), a lot of bisexuals internalize this and try to find a way to make how they feel okay. Rather than understanding biphobia as a dislike/ignorance towards attraction to multiple genders (primarily stemming from homophobia), they think biphobes hate the word “bisexual” and that if they obfuscate their relationship to the word bisexual enough, they can exist as a bisexual without being hated.

And in some ways... it has worked because a lot of times these people try to hide the parts of bisexual they think are hated depending on context. “Everyone is a little bit bisexual/sexuality is fluid” means they aren’t a real threat to straight people because straight people can minimize bisexuality to “girl crushes” or whatever--like, oh, bisexuality must be just like that time I got drunk and kissed another girl. Or they’ll use “queer” in a way that seems inclusive of cishets, closer to them than gay people (who are just soooo archaic and regressive), to seem less threatening and more Quirky.

And then they’ll say “Oh, I’m SO gay” when around more LGBT people.

It’s like a pass the hot potato when it comes to just... owning up to bisexuality, to unmarked attraction to multiple genders.

A lot of it is reactionary to a deepset pain and so I’m sympathetic but... it’s hard to remain 100% sympathetic when it just ends up furthering biphobic outlooks and erasure. So, I both understand it as a survival tool--a way to cut yourself up into discrete pieces so maybe a piece or two of you survives even if the whole does not--and as a way to kind of... cut us up to make us more easier consumed at the expense of our wholeness.

For every bisexual who “isn’t bi but pan because ewww aren’t they not attracted to trans people” or says “I’m just fluid. I’m gay some days, straight other days,” there is a bisexual who owns their biness who has to deal with ignorant non-bisexual people assume bisexuality is transphobic or fluid or half straight half gay or whatever the fuck else.

Bisexuals have found a way to become their own enemies when we were already surrounded and it sucks, it sucks a lot. Every fucking week I feel like I’m waking to a new “MGA” identity--pansexual, polysexual, omnisexual just to name the most prevalent--and it absolutely comes at the expense of bisexuals who just want to exist and own their label without skepticism or whatever the fuck else.

As for my ko-fi, the donation link is technically still up on my side bar but idk if I’m still comfortable accepting donations. I am faaar from financially in a great place but I’m in a much better place than I was when I set it up and I don’t feel like I ~need money in a way I did before. Here is a link but I’m only putting it up because its my birthday next Wednesday. After Sept 5, I don’t want anything from anyone because there are people out there who like... actually need money for emergencies or to survive and I’m doing okay right now, y’unno?

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Recently, I wrote an article outlining tips on how I deal with internalised biphobia when I am at low points in my sexuality. So, I got wondering why we deal with internalised biphobia. I looked at where my internalised biphobia stems from. Because when I know, I know what to not tell myself any more. It’s dangerous to live with that level of self doubt, but there are things that you can catch yourself thinking sometimes. And when you do, call them out. Tell them no. So stop telling and asking yourself these things:

Am I sure?

I think for me, this is the one I get caught in most. I know for me that this one comes from the time between me realising my sexuality and coming out. When I realised that coming out was a thing I felt I had to do (for a variety of reasons), every day I questioned if I was sure I needed to. And the answer was never certain. In part, as I was very nervous, but also I simply just wasn’t ever entirely sure. I am still not. But it is OK. A fellow bisexual friend I have said they question themselves a lot and that they hate the uncertainty of it. And if there is something like this you aren’t sure about, that can affect you. For me, it’s very much about what happens if it is just a phase? What if there was no point in coming out to anyone? The uncertainty is awful. And, if you are someone who is very fluid in their sexuality, as I am, what do you do then? Because your questioning then can go through the roof. I dislike the uncertainty.

But I have learned how to answer this question. All I can say to myself is, “Yes. You are valid, and you are real, and you are bisexual”. Most of the time, that is enough to shut down that thought process. Sometimes, it isn’t. And you just have to say, “No. But This is how I am feeling today, but tomorrow, I’ll review myself again and see.”

But I am not equally attracted to genders.

Lord.... no. I am absolutely not. I am (generally but I am fluid) much more attracted to women than men. This does confuse people. And I think that this comes very much from a society thing. I wonder if it genuinely comes from the fact that bisexual representation in our society isn’t that great. For me, in television, the only thing I have seen that has had really good and accurate bisexual representation was Crazy Ex Girlfriend on Netflix. There is even a song he uses to come out and the character is so lovely and genuine and an older guy, so it honestly challenges most of the stereotypes along with it. But it is the only thing I have ever seen in which a character clearly states that they are bisexual and challenge stereotypes. It is one of the greatest things to watch.

The point is, many bisexual people do not have a clear equal attraction to different genders. But for some reason people think that we do. However lots of bisexual people have unequal attractions to a variety of genders and are fluid in their attractions. So you can be bisexual and not always be equally attracted to just two genders.

Just A Phase

Again, this is a big worry for me. And it ties again into the uncertainty of this sexuality. And this is the one that I think that is truly truly biphobic. Because it is just a form of bi erasure, and saying it is not real. I think this maybe comes from the fact that a lot of people who are out as gay, originally came out as bisexual. And as they later come out as gay, people make the assumption that it is a stepping stone to coming out ‘completely’.

Well, for some people it might be. It might be that they are still questioning and want to just keep their options open. It might be that they use it when they come out to give the people they come out to a level of hope that they might still be able to be in a straight relationship. Some people see it as something that exists when you’re young but you grow out of.

All I say is that I hope it’s not a phase. It’s taken a lot for me to get to this point of comfort in my sexuality, including powerful struggles with my mental health. So if it is a phase, I will be very very annoyed. But, even if it is just a phase, what means that it isn’t real in this moment? I know right now that I am bisexual. Maybe in a year’s time, I’ll have gone through more self discovery and realised that maybe it will no longer be how I identify. But does that make my feelings right now any less valid? Because it’s what I feel right now that matters.

Internalised biphobia will make you unhappy. Try and give yourself some bi love, and appreciate yourself in all your bi-beauty.