Sorry if this is the wrong comm, but I had to get this off my chest. I am so sick and tired of dealing with bi-erasure. I am a bisexual man who is I'd say 90% attracted to women and 10% attracted to men. Best I can explain it, I am mostly attracted to women and occasionally attracted to a man. It really is that simple, but for a lot of people I might as well be explaining calculus. I understand if most straight people can't fathom it, after all they are straight. But what really irks me is when other LGBT people erase it, telling me I am "in the closet" or whatever. It makes me so damn angry because I am not in the closet, I am open about my bisexuality, yet no one believes it. I have only dated women, but everyone in my life off and online including my gf who herself is LGBTQ+ thinks I am gay. I'm so sick of it I think I'll either just tell people I am straight or become gay.
I don't understand what is so hard for people to understand.
Even as a kid when I wasn't on the left, hadn't been exposed to much LGBT information, and was only slightly less homophobic than the average kid at the time, I never had any problem at all understanding or believing anything about being bi, and no one around me did either.
Like, okay, the majority of people are attracted to the opposite sex, and then some are attracted to the same sex, so it's not at all weird or surprising or counterintuitive that others get one of the attractions without losing the other one.
Cishet bigots seem to get really twisted up in knots about things like gender identity but I've never heard one be like BI??? HOW DO BOTH FIT?? OXYMORON? THOUGHT EXPERIMENT? DOUBLETHINK 1984?? Of course they do sometimes cast doubt and try to erase bi people but it's not a strong or prominent sentiment compared to their other mental hangups.
It kind of reminds me of trans lesbians who say that other trans women will sometimes be like, no you cant be gay sorry. I think bisexuals and transbians are both threatening to some gay and trans people because of the particular battles they are fighting against the wider society. For trans women, one of the main sources of paranoia and hatred is that they are somehow cloaking in order to get sexual contact with other women. For cis gay people, one of the big ideas they have to push back on is the concept that it's "a choice" which on an extremely, extremely surface level is true if you're bi. At least they think cishet people will see it that way.
An LGBT person who can't accept someone being bi or transbian or any other mix of sexuality or gender identity is just abandoning solidaristic struggle for a crab barrel approach.
You would think right? I don't know why that concept is so mindblowing
Real