Midnight. Time to rant.
Aug. 27th, 2001 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI just typed this in for the Bisexual Community. I want it here, too. Yes.
~//~
The following article by Jennifer Vanasco was printed in the August 5-11, 1999 issue of the BayWindows newspaper.
~Afraid of Bisexuals?~
We are afraid of bisexuals. Gay men, lesbians and straight men and women are united in this, if nothing else. How else to explain the way we treat bisexuals? We ignore them in the names of our organizations - National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists' Association, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. We ignore them in our newspapers, referring almost unilaterally to the "gay and lesbian community" - or just "gay community," which is worse. In the same way that women were once expected to see their own reflections in the words "man" and "he," we now expect bisexuals to look at "lesbian" and "gay" and see shadows of themselves.
If transgendered people are the divas of our community, then bisexuals are the invisible stagehands. We don't want to admit they exist - or worse, that we might be they.
After all, many of us who self-identify as "gay" and "lesbian" have had romantic relationships with members of the opposite sex, often fulfilling, wonderful relationships.
When Anne Heche decided she was in love with Ellen DeGeneres, we smiled and spoke about the transforming power of love, welcoming her into the family. When JoAnn Loulan found her soulmate in a man, we were bitter, angry, scorned. We pushed her aside.
If someone has a same-sex romantic or sexual experience - for example, Eleanor Roosevelt - we ignore their heterosexual side and claim them as our own. But when men who loved men turn to women, or when women who loved women turn to men, we abandon them while they still identify with us. Straight friends who appreciate our community but always stay straight are patted on the back. Gay men and lesbians who "turn straight" are exiled.
Bisexuals can't win. Straights see them as swingers. Gays and lesbians view them as indecisive. "Make a choice already," we sigh or shriek. While our rhetoric explaining why straights should accept those with a same-sex sexual orientation is all about love, when bisexuals with opposite-sex partners edge into our community, we fuss over straight privilege.
Why we do this is no secret. Partly, we worry that the term "bisexuality" allows people to have same-sex flings and then to slip unobtrusively into straight society without ever making the tough commitment to publicly come out into the gay and lesbian life.
Partly we don't want to include bisexuals in our community because we believe that our political identity (and thus our clout) depends on firm boundaries. Defining the gay and lesbian community is difficult - Do you have to actually have sex with someone of the same sex to be gay or lesbian? Could you be celibate? It is easier to define us by what we're not: we're not leather people, not transgendered, not bisexual, etc.
First, let's dispel a myth. Being bisexual means one has the capacity to love people of either sex - it doesn't mean that bisexuals are incapable of being satisfied with just a man or just a woman, or that bisexuals must have one of each at the same time. This might seem obvious, but I know many women who call themselves lesbians because they are currently in a lesbian relationship. They view "lesbian" as a temporary title, not a phase exactly, but a way to describe how they feel and behave now.
One woman told me that she couldn't be bisexual because, "It's not like I would be interested in both men and women at the same time." Another said that the word bisexual is too loaded, that she fears becoming an outcast from the lesbian community she loves.
Maybe, therefore, our avoidance of bisexuality is largely an issue of semantics. Just as many of us cringe at the word "queer," the word "bisexual" may make us flinch - it has too many dark connotations, seeming shady, slippery and very different from the ordinariness of our lives. We don't like the word so we don't like the people - but this is unfair. Like lesbians and gay men, bisexuals are beaten up, fired from their jobs and denied housing because of their sexual orientation. But unlike lesbians and gay men, bisexuals have no bisexual bars in which to seek solace at the end of the day, and only a few scattered organizations to support and nurture them.
There should be a natural affinity between bisexuals and the gay and lesbian community - and sometimes there is. My partner Kristina tells me that she recently met an undergraduate who said that most women at her liberal arts institution identify not as lesbian but as "bisexual" or "pansexual."
Why has the trend of identifying as bisexual not permeated more of the gay and lesbian community? Perhaps we are set in our ways. Perhaps we are afraid. After all, we have already put ourselves outside society once - to do so again, especially when it is a society we feel so comfortable with, seems radical and threatening. Perhaps we are truly gay and lesbian and not bisexual at all - though this seems doubtful.
I'm not denying the reality of a gay or lesbian sexual orientation. I just think there are more of us in the murky middle than on the clear edges - we just won't admit it. In fact, we try so hard not to explore the heterosexual aspects of our personality that we ostracize those who have, and who have found that they like it.
Let us take the time to again examine our identities - are we closet bisexuals? Some of us surely are. Some of us are not. But let us remember that bisexuals are our brothers and sisters in our movement. Their issues - equality, ending discrimination, seeking justice - are our issues. We cannot exclude them just because it is awkward to add "bisexual" to the names of our organizations; we cannot ignote them because "GLBT" is too hard to say.
Copyright 1999 Jennifer Vanasco. Reprinted with permission. [j-vanasco@uchicago.edu]
~//~
The following article by Jennifer Vanasco was printed in the August 5-11, 1999 issue of the BayWindows newspaper.
~Afraid of Bisexuals?~
We are afraid of bisexuals. Gay men, lesbians and straight men and women are united in this, if nothing else. How else to explain the way we treat bisexuals? We ignore them in the names of our organizations - National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Lesbian and Gay Journalists' Association, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. We ignore them in our newspapers, referring almost unilaterally to the "gay and lesbian community" - or just "gay community," which is worse. In the same way that women were once expected to see their own reflections in the words "man" and "he," we now expect bisexuals to look at "lesbian" and "gay" and see shadows of themselves.
If transgendered people are the divas of our community, then bisexuals are the invisible stagehands. We don't want to admit they exist - or worse, that we might be they.
After all, many of us who self-identify as "gay" and "lesbian" have had romantic relationships with members of the opposite sex, often fulfilling, wonderful relationships.
When Anne Heche decided she was in love with Ellen DeGeneres, we smiled and spoke about the transforming power of love, welcoming her into the family. When JoAnn Loulan found her soulmate in a man, we were bitter, angry, scorned. We pushed her aside.
If someone has a same-sex romantic or sexual experience - for example, Eleanor Roosevelt - we ignore their heterosexual side and claim them as our own. But when men who loved men turn to women, or when women who loved women turn to men, we abandon them while they still identify with us. Straight friends who appreciate our community but always stay straight are patted on the back. Gay men and lesbians who "turn straight" are exiled.
Bisexuals can't win. Straights see them as swingers. Gays and lesbians view them as indecisive. "Make a choice already," we sigh or shriek. While our rhetoric explaining why straights should accept those with a same-sex sexual orientation is all about love, when bisexuals with opposite-sex partners edge into our community, we fuss over straight privilege.
Why we do this is no secret. Partly, we worry that the term "bisexuality" allows people to have same-sex flings and then to slip unobtrusively into straight society without ever making the tough commitment to publicly come out into the gay and lesbian life.
Partly we don't want to include bisexuals in our community because we believe that our political identity (and thus our clout) depends on firm boundaries. Defining the gay and lesbian community is difficult - Do you have to actually have sex with someone of the same sex to be gay or lesbian? Could you be celibate? It is easier to define us by what we're not: we're not leather people, not transgendered, not bisexual, etc.
First, let's dispel a myth. Being bisexual means one has the capacity to love people of either sex - it doesn't mean that bisexuals are incapable of being satisfied with just a man or just a woman, or that bisexuals must have one of each at the same time. This might seem obvious, but I know many women who call themselves lesbians because they are currently in a lesbian relationship. They view "lesbian" as a temporary title, not a phase exactly, but a way to describe how they feel and behave now.
One woman told me that she couldn't be bisexual because, "It's not like I would be interested in both men and women at the same time." Another said that the word bisexual is too loaded, that she fears becoming an outcast from the lesbian community she loves.
Maybe, therefore, our avoidance of bisexuality is largely an issue of semantics. Just as many of us cringe at the word "queer," the word "bisexual" may make us flinch - it has too many dark connotations, seeming shady, slippery and very different from the ordinariness of our lives. We don't like the word so we don't like the people - but this is unfair. Like lesbians and gay men, bisexuals are beaten up, fired from their jobs and denied housing because of their sexual orientation. But unlike lesbians and gay men, bisexuals have no bisexual bars in which to seek solace at the end of the day, and only a few scattered organizations to support and nurture them.
There should be a natural affinity between bisexuals and the gay and lesbian community - and sometimes there is. My partner Kristina tells me that she recently met an undergraduate who said that most women at her liberal arts institution identify not as lesbian but as "bisexual" or "pansexual."
Why has the trend of identifying as bisexual not permeated more of the gay and lesbian community? Perhaps we are set in our ways. Perhaps we are afraid. After all, we have already put ourselves outside society once - to do so again, especially when it is a society we feel so comfortable with, seems radical and threatening. Perhaps we are truly gay and lesbian and not bisexual at all - though this seems doubtful.
I'm not denying the reality of a gay or lesbian sexual orientation. I just think there are more of us in the murky middle than on the clear edges - we just won't admit it. In fact, we try so hard not to explore the heterosexual aspects of our personality that we ostracize those who have, and who have found that they like it.
Let us take the time to again examine our identities - are we closet bisexuals? Some of us surely are. Some of us are not. But let us remember that bisexuals are our brothers and sisters in our movement. Their issues - equality, ending discrimination, seeking justice - are our issues. We cannot exclude them just because it is awkward to add "bisexual" to the names of our organizations; we cannot ignote them because "GLBT" is too hard to say.
Copyright 1999 Jennifer Vanasco. Reprinted with permission. [j-vanasco@uchicago.edu]
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no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 05:29 am (UTC)While we're on the subject of classification, can someone tell me what "pansexual" means?
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 06:51 am (UTC)To me, though, "pansexual" differs from "bisexual," as the latter refers to the potential to engage in meaningful romantic/emotional relationships with either men or wimmin. "Pansexual," however, would include transgendered or gender fluid people who may not feel that the words "male" or "female" succinctly define them at this time.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 06:54 am (UTC)In my perfect world, people would just be and we wouldn't need labels. Not just for sexual orientation, but for gender expression and other things, too. However, we haven't reached my perfect world (yet). People label me every day. As long as they are going to do that, I might as well have one of MY choosing, rather than theirs.
'They' are still free to call me whatever they want, but it gives me something to rebut, something that shows that I've likely put a liiiiittle bit more time into myself than they have.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 07:25 am (UTC)But the problem isn't necessarily the labels themselves. In George Orwell's 1984, Big Brother creates a language that all the citizens are speak. Newspeak doesn't contain any words that might let the speaker express "unacceptable" thoughts. If the government didn't want you thinking about gays and lesbians, they could just remove the word.
The problem was that removing the word only removed peoples ability to articulate their thoughts. It didn't stop the thoughts themselves. So removing the labels doesn't stop the bigotry (either from withing the GLBT community, or from society as a whole). It just makes it a little more difficult for them to come up with catchy slurs to use against us. And it denies us of a way of classifying our selves for the purposes of legal action (and legal protection), support groups, academic research, social change, etc... We can't use the label for good uses either.
I think that this whole idea just smacks of Foucault-like systems of oppression. We're diluting our labels by blurring the lines between one label and the next. The word "gay" has been so mis-used over the years that it means totally different things to different people. How can you rally behind a label that no longer really defines anything. The labels are starting to lose their usefullness. But what is the alternative? To exclude people so that we have nice tidy boxes for everyone to fit into? That diesn't work either.
We've kind of got this "Flea Market Gay-Rights Activism" happening. We can choose any one of a thousand flavors of activism within our community, and find a healthy following for it. But it seems to me that over-arching Equal Rights movement is faltering a little. The same thing is happening to feminism. It's too fragmented to be of much use as a whole.
Anyways, that's MY rant. The slightly pessimistic view of a wishy-washy Libra girl who took WAY too many womens studies/feminist philosophy classes. =)
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 11:06 am (UTC)I wish there was a way to fragment AND unify. I know, I can't help it, I'm a Libra too. :) But seriously...
I find comfort in the bi- and pansexual communities in ways I don't necessarily connect with the G&L community as a whole. Then again, I also feel more comfortable in a group of women when discussing sexuality, too. So people like to be understood, and surround themselves with likeminded people. There's nothing wrong with that.
However, when we're talking about overarching civil rights, we should ALL be unified. We should ALL be fighting. And not just the people who see themselves in a letter on a chain (somewhere in the alphabet soup we call LGBTIQ-whatever), but everyone.
We're not free until EVERYONE is free. So I will fight alongside gay men and lesbians and bisexuals and pansexuals and transgendered people and questioning people and straight people and purple people and everyone else. But at the same time, give me a little circle of people who understand where I stand in the world, and every once in a while that helps a lot, too.
(And I think labels help with that. Because it helps us identify ourselves a little. And because it can spark dialogue. Like this!)
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 01:37 pm (UTC)Sigh.
My Perfect World.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 02:08 pm (UTC)And nothing at all exists without comparison. We have 'young' because we have 'old.' We have 'tall' because we have 'short.' We have these sorts of concepts that don't mean anything without other people to compare them with.
So in that sense, maybe all of the alphabet letters in the queer community serve a beneficial purpose. To compare, and to make parts of a whole.
How Zen.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 03:49 pm (UTC)So is political activity and visibility the key to acceptance from the gay community? (Perhaps the gay community would care to comment?)
At the risk of sounding flaky... (divergence)
Date: 2001-08-27 03:52 pm (UTC)Has anyone studied the statistical distribution of astrological sun signs in the bisexual population? I ask because there seem to be an awful lot of libran bisexuals around.
(OK, I admit it, me too.)
Re: At the risk of sounding flaky... (divergence)
Date: 2001-08-27 03:54 pm (UTC)I've been told by some of those bogus online tests that there are more Libran androgynes. But who knows? I love fake statistics. I will make one up now.
97% of all people in the world are in love with me.
On using labels
Date: 2001-08-27 04:01 pm (UTC)As time passed, though, I came to realize how loaded a term "bisexual" really was, all the expectations and stereotypes that came along with it, and I began to hate the notion of labels at all.
Now, I feel the need to take up the bisexual label again and wear it proudly. I need to take it up because if I don't use it and define it, someone else is going to use it and define it for me. I am bisexual. I am not an experimental straight woman; I am not a lesbian in denial. Calling myself bisexual allows me to set and define my own boundaries, to declare myself separate from the straight and gay labels. Being bisexual does not make me half gay, or somewhat straight, or in the middle of the Kinsey scale or whatever spectrum is used to "measure" sexuality; it puts me in a different bracket altogether, one of my choosing.
I still think that labels can be dangerous, and I wonder if one day they might not be able to be abolished, but right now I wear that label proudly and use it as a weapon against any prejudice that anyone might want to throw at me.
Re: On using labels
Date: 2001-08-27 04:49 pm (UTC)I mean, does that make me a 'currently-married-to-a-man-but-also-skirt-chasing bisexual'? Or should I just be a 'hey! look-at-me-I-got-dumped-and-I'm-jonesing-for-emotional-contact-and-smooches bisexual'? Does it need to be qualified?
However, when I was a Professional Queer , I always made it a point to let people know that I wasn't a lesbian. Not because there's anything wrong with that - but because that can't even begin to entirely describe who I am.
I read a story once by a brilliant friend. Coming out wasn't the subject of the story, but there was a brief snippet mentioning one of the characters, and how one character was glad that the other had come out over a year ago, because that first year is spent completely absorbing into 'the community' and eating/sleeping/breathing gayness. I don't ever want to be absorbed like that, into one tiny segment of who I am.
I'm me.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-27 09:30 pm (UTC)Maybe that's why I had all these problems with my label up until now. I tried so hard to absorb myself into the GL(BTQIA) community that I wanted to make myself into a lesbian in order to feel like I fit in better. I went for a whole year with rarely if ever thinking about men as potential attractions, partially because I'd never given my attraction to women free rein before, partially because I spent so much of that year in relationships and tried to keep myself from thinking about anyone other than the person I was with, and partially because I let myself believe all the stereotypes the gay community has about bisexuals.
These days, I think I'm becoming more confident in who I am, and allowing myself to just see where my attractions lead. I don't need anybody to tell me who I am. I'm a person, not a label, and I will do what I feel is right for me, not for a non-inclusive movement.
Individual identity and individual rights. That's what it's all about.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 01:56 am (UTC)But after a year of living where being attracted to men was the anathema, well, now you're needing support on the other side.
Oh, the life of a switch-hitter is never easy. :)
The part I hate the most is the assumptions, though. If I have a female partner, I'm a lesbian. If I have a male partner, I'm straight. And if I should have both? Well then, obviously, I'm either confused or selfish.
I'm glad you're gaining confidence. I think you're pretty amazing. 19. Wow. I wish I had half your guts.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 10:59 am (UTC)But I don't know.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 01:17 pm (UTC)One of my supersupportive friends made her straight and largely ignorant of GLBT affairs boyfriend attend a workshop I set up on bisexuality. Apparently, it had never occurred to him that I was bi because he thought that bi people always dated men and women simultaneously. *laugh* Does he have no conception of rejection, or of how much coordination that would take? "Sorry, Bob, I think you're a really great guy, but I can't go out with you because I don't have a girlfriend to balance you out." It's funny, but horribly pathetic at the same time, how ignorant some people can be.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 01:39 pm (UTC)When I got married, or, well, right before (about two months before), I got really scared that I would never be with a woman again. So (perfectly consentually, I should clarify) I had a brief little lovely fling with a lovely girl. I was scared, though, that that was it.
Now, I'm not saying I could coordinate a well-balanced dating life. :) But I can see how even the stereotype holds a little pull for me. I think, though, that that is because right now I *am* selfish and I *should* be selfish, and want to date, and all kinds of things, because my nearly 6 year monogamous (except for that one time) relationship is over.
But I digress. I think there should be more workshops on bisexuality, both for the straight and gay/lesbian communities. Like, what's this about being attracted to everyone? I'm sorry - I'm shallow and selective and picky. I only go after cute people. Cute boys, girls, and genderqueers, yes, but they have to be *cute*.
I have a button on my backpack that reads, 'I'm bisexual and I'm not attracted to you.' And most of the time, that's true. 'Cept for you, noog-y, of course. :)
Ignorance /can/ be funny. But it needs to be stopped by the people in the know. A tremendous burden, sure, but worth it. :)
no subject
Date: 2001-08-28 11:51 pm (UTC)There definitely needs to be more workshops on bisexuality. As far as I know, there is only one professor who has taught classes exclusively on bisexuality, and she now only teaches part-time. I'm fighting an uphill battle at my college to try and change a class called "Gay and Lesbian Identities" to be bi- and trans-inclusive, and in every queer retreat/workshop I've been to, there has not been a single bisexual keynote speaker.
And the gay community especially needs some education. At many of the workshops I've been to, I've seen gay people stare down, cringe, and mutter curses under their breath at couples they assumed to be heterosexual (my bi best friend and her straight boyfriend included). A little tolerance, I think, is in order.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-29 05:18 pm (UTC)I helped coordinate a conference here to education social service providers on GLBT issues. There was nothing about bisexuality at all. There was very little on lesbian health as well. And nearly nothing that even acknowledged trans- issues. There was a lot of stuff about "gay health and AIDS apathy" - we went to that one, 6 of us women who helped organize the conference, and the man leading the session only had AIDS/HIV stats for *men*. We were floored! PFLAG pisses me off a lot of the time, too, for almost entirely neglecting bisexual and transgendered youth. Phooey.
I made it my mission to educate my little section of the gay community when I was still working at Stonewall. YES, I was married. To a man. But NO, I wasn't straight. Is it that confusing? You'd think I was trying to explain relativity to a kindergarten class sometimes.
Le sigh. I have never seen a bisexual keynote speaker either, actually. Our conference did, however, have a woman of color as the keynote, and I was glad for that.
no subject
Date: 2001-08-29 05:39 pm (UTC)And if I know little about the risks and options for queer women, I know even less about trans health issues. That kind of information just isn't readily available. One thing I do know, and this angers me: while MTF genital conversion surgeries are fairly advanced, FTM surgeries are primitive, and don't see any sign of developing further. That angers me. And imagine how much angrier I would be if I knew just how much was being covered up...
When I was considering coming out to my parents, I looked all over the internet at all the major queer resource sites for a bisexual coming out guide. Guess what? They don't exist. There are gay and lesbian coming out guides all over the place, but not a single bisexual one in sight. And there are a few questions that might be especially pertinent to bi people that other coming out guides don't cover, such as, how do you answer your parents when they ask why you can't just act only on your attractions to the opposite sex? Trans coming out guides exist, but are scarce.
The big organizations need a major overhaul before they can even consider themselves to be queer advocacy groups. PFLAG, GLAAD, GLSEN... I don't care if it screws up the acronyms. They need to change their names and their policies to show support for all queer people. And the HRC needs to put its (vast amounts of) money where its mouth is, and campaign for the rights of all humans, not just gays and lesbians who can afford their services.
You are a wise womyn.
Date: 2001-08-29 08:34 pm (UTC)But you know, I've never had safe sex with a woman. And I'm one of those people that jumps up and down and says, 'I've never had unsafe sex!' Phooey. The fact of the matter is that the chance of HIV transmission from woman to woman is VERY small -- but it is STILL a possibility, and needs to be acknowledged.
Women's health clinics would also have these things, I would imagine. And hopefully better statistics.
And you're right about the coming out stuff. I think, in a lot of ways, it's harder to come out as bisexual because parents always have 'hope'. Hope that you will decide to settle with someone of the opposite sex. Hope that when you DO settle with someone of the opposite sex, you'll forget you're queer. Hope that it really /was/ a phase. I have a friend who came out lesbian. She's recently realized she also likes men. She dreads telling her parents because she spent SO much time getting her parents to accept her loving women, and she's afraid that will all go down the toilet. We should write a coming out guide. I wonder if the Bisexual Resource Center (http://www.biresource.org) has one? I should look.
And A-effing-men on the HRC. THe HRC makes people so complacent. They write checks and get newsletters and the people they're working for are only the people who can afford to keep writing checks. You are so right. Campaign for the rights of ALL humans. Yes!
no subject
Date: 2001-08-29 11:58 pm (UTC)I would love to help with a bisexual coming out guide. I don't know how much help I could be-- I'd be just as interested in the information we find as in contributing to the answers themselves-- but it needs to be done, and it needs to be out there. If you're serious about wanting to write one, count me in.
Hmmm
Date: 2001-08-31 09:51 pm (UTC)People should just mind their own business.
Re: Hmmm
Date: 2001-09-01 07:11 am (UTC)Unfortunately, it's not.