Can we talk about bisexuality?

[Pluvia]

Just that really. I'm a lesbian, one of a number seeking to rebuild new lesbian and LGB networks after our established communities and events and hang-outs and culture have been trashed by the TQIA+ brigade.

Lesbians and gay men are feeling really beleaguered. We've seen almost every sphere of gay and lesbian life infiltrated by 'queer', trans and spicy straight people all using the events and groups we've founded for their own purposes — mainly of validation. Pride has been taken over by the T. Our cafes, pubs, bars, all gone.

I think a significant number of gay and lesbian activists are finding it increasingly difficult to work out where bisexuality fits into all this. I'm in a number of different LGB groups and this issue has started to crop up in them. People who join describing themselves as bisexual and wanting to get involved in helping rebuild their local LGB communities turn out to be in long-term, stable heterosexual relationships. Some of them for 20+ years. Some bi people in such relationships want to involve their straight partners on the basis that although the partner is straight, they are in relationship with a bi person who isn't — but who, to the outside world, looks straight.

Does it matter? Well, if you're in a heterosexual relationship you're unlikely to experience the everyday (usually minor) moments that most of us who are out still encounter. Things like the need to come out regularly to people who assume that we're in straight relationships, the slight but still palpable 'othering' that sometimes comes when people realise they're talking to someone who isn't just like them. Sometimes it's much more pointed. And if we hold, say, an LGB club night, so that LGB people can associate without the straight gaze, should we allow bisexuals to bring their straight partners? Doesn't that negate the intention of the event?

Bisexual people who are living in a heterosexual relationship have the security of being undercover. They may not see it like that, of course, but they pass as straight. I'm pretty sure that one of the bi women who's involved in one of the groups I'm in is a straight woman who bases her bisexual identity on the fact that she had a relationship with a woman while at university, many years ago.

I don't know if there's a solution to this. I think lesbians and gay men are much more cautious around the dangers of self-ID and identity politics than they ever were. How are other groups handling this?

There's access on paper and then there's acceptance in practice. Not the same thing.

@BreatheAndFocus I understand where you are coming from. If you wanted to revisit the lesbian community you would find a lot of varied groups and women.
It also sounds like you have some internalised lesbophobia, which is very common amongst women. But it might be worth thinking about?
Its never too late to come out.

Exactly. And the wording that has been used occasionally on this thread 'Bi people in hetero relationships' is similarly inaccurate.

Depends what you mean by acceptance?
If you go along to a small social womens group and every other woman has a female partner, they are going to find it strange if you start talking about your husband and children.

I mostly mean not being instantly snubbed as soon as the B word leaves my mouth.

I agree that discussing men in a lesbian or LesBi women's space is not appropriate. My Bechdel Test pillow talk comment applies also to these spaces.

I accept you are bi. But I do not think you have anything more in common with lesbians than a straight woman does

I'm not in a relationship with anyone but I have been in a reasonably long-term relationship with a man. But I have a longer experience in relationships with women, I came out when I was in my late teens, I was the first out lesbian at my university and got lots of shit for it, I set up lesbian and gay groups at university and workplaces, I socialised almost exclusively with lesbians for 10 years, I read lesbian writers, I know about lesbian history. That's massively different from straight women. How can you know anything about anyone's past just from knowing who they're in a relationship with right now?

No, I don’t think it’s internalised lesbophobia@JoyousGreyOrca The whole Lesbian Soc at uni was very, very much ‘femme with butch’. I was told if I didn’t fancy butch lesbians that I wasn’t a real lesbian by one girl. I was going through a difficult time personally unrelated to my sexuality, and that comment cut me and added to the stress. I started to think she was right (because I was young and lacked confidence) and because every girl I approached wasn’t interested in me, and every girl who approached me wasn’t attractive to me. I felt rejected/outside the whole scene there. I mainly hung out with gay men.

That was years ago and I know it’s different now for many reasons, me being that much older as a main one, but that early feeling of being outside everything and everyone is still in me.

Okay that is uncommon. Every bisexual women I have met, apart from a handful, have been primarily in relationships with men and have either had no relationships with women, or extremely short ones.

@BreatheAndFocus that was unlucky. The butch and femme thing has been a tiny niche subset for decades now. There are lots of groups with mainly older lesbians, many who came out at a later age.

Thanks for replying @JoyousGreyOrca - i'm not actually sure it is that unusual in my age group (50s) - I know quite a lot of women who wanted to come out as bisexual but were told bisexuals didn't exist, or because we were feminist and women-centred we didn't fit well with the bisexual groups of the time. So we ended up just in same sex relationships for years until either we just got older and more likely to do our own thing, and/or at the same time what used to be lesbian and gay became LGB and things became more relaxed. My life though has certainly been fragmented as one thing or another, maybe if I was in a big city it would be different, but in a small market town there's not much LGB socialising to be had anyway!

I see what you're saying and appreciate it's hard to articulate.

I have always been bisexual but only involved myself actively in LGB communities during my decade long relationship with a woman. I lost a lot of friends from that sphere which was hurtful when I started dating my ex (who is a man) and had all sorts of nasty comments about being straight now even though I am still bisexual. I distanced myself because of the hurtful comments to be honest, I'm dating a woman again now but just don't feel it's welcoming to bi women which is fine- could start my own community i suppose hah.

In my opinion she was attracted to masculinity and society told her, then and now, that the only masculine people are men. She however made an effort and found masculine women, butch lesbians, enjoyed sex with them and was looking for a full time partner.

I prefer her to the bisexuals, who always usually did wind up with men because it was easier and make family relationships 'comfortable' just like @JoyousGreyOrca said.

Yes, it's true many lesbians despise bisexuals. Many lesbians won't date them. I thought about it with 2 girls, but the fact that they'd been recently with men totally put me off. Men disgust me sexually.
I've known I was a lesbian from a young age and have never been with a man. I was proud to have resisted the weight of cultural enforced heterosexuality.
.Straight women and Bi women know nothing of that awful pressure.
Bi-specific groups are the answer.

@KnutsfordCityLimits Yes most lesbians and gay men in the past moved to cities because in a market town, the number of out lesbians used to be absolutely tiny. So your chance of meeting anyone you got on with was fairly small.

I was lucky enough to be in Stoke Newington in the 90s where there were three women only bars not too far away @JoyousGreyOrca, not sure whether it's still a lesbian hotspot!

Thats not reflective of my experience @JoyousGreyOrca. Since having children with my wife we’ve both been joining LGB parent groups and seeking out other two mum and two dad families when we encounter them, partly because we think it’s great for our kids to have some other examples of families like theirs in their lives. We’ve mainly come across female female couples (about 20 couples living in and around London and with young kids so probably mainly in their 30s or early 40s) and I’d say about 80% of those have been made up of one lesbian and one bisexual woman.

Perhaps you’ve encountered more bisexuals who are with women than you think and you’re just assuming they are lesbians. Some bisexual women who are with women just let others make the assumption they are lesbians unless specifically asked because it’s less hassle and you’re less likely to encounter possible biphobia (from all sides) in addition to the homophobia!

Stop being angry that lesbians and gay men don't understand/ aren't interested in/ don't have time for Bi issues. Instead of this 'I can't be bothered' number, stand up and start a Bi movement. Don't expect people who don't share your sexuality to include you, even if you're not a good fit with them. Stop whinging and turn your negativity into something constructive, like lesbians and gays do.

Yes, Stoke Newington was a lesbian paradise in the 80s and 90s. I'm told there's nothing specifically lesbian or women-only there now.

I've watched this thread without commenting until I came to this post.

Given your response, I wonder what place you think the 'B' (largely invisible) has under the rainbow/alphabet soup mascot in the first place. For me - personally only I would add - it has none. I've not felt part of 'The Community', no matter who I happened to be in a relationship with. I've been dismayed by the recent onslaughts against the rights of lesbians and would always support you to the hilt with that. I fully respect that many lesbians don't want to include bisexuals in their dating pool. Fine. I wouldn't want to date anyone on that pretext and I respect others' boundaries totally. I also respect that, when in a relationship with a man, I do not experience anywhere near the same prejudice and bias as I experienced when I lived with a woman.

But the prejudice against bisexual women on this thread has been illuminating - and accords with a lot of the attitudes I've long been familiar with. Biphobia, it seems, is still eminently acceptable.

Fine by me. I have no Pride. I've never belonged in The Community anyway, and this thread illustrates precisely why.

"For me, as a lesbian and a feminist, it's particularly about escaping the straight male gaze"
Then why have LGB events, why not women only (regardless of sexuality)?

It's straight men — and, increasingly, straight women — that I don't want to dance with. Gay men are fine. They're gay men, they're not looking at me as a potential sexual partner. I guess it's the Bi men I need to worry about.

Please don't do that passive aggressive 'no one's ever included me' number, I'm not buying it. Change things. Contact LGB Alliance. Tell them you want to do something about the lack of visibility of Bi people. Tell Bev and Kate how pissed off you are by the way you're treated by lesbians and then ask them to support you in creating a strong Bi movement. They'll be planning this October's conference: make sure you get in there with some Bi stuff. They are great: they'll work with you.

If you don't get involved and represent yourselves then you really can't grumble that you're not properly represented.

I'm not pissed off at the way I've been treated by lesbians. Far from it.

I simply don't care. You, on the other hand, were the one eager to talk about the bisexuality you so obviously resent and concerned enough to post a thread about it.

Sounds like a 'you' issue to me.

Well in the nineties there were plenty of places where there were lesbians not doing butch and femme.

I am making zero assumptions. But I am older, and women in same sex couples my age very rarely had children unless it was in a previous relationship with a man.
I accept it may be very different for younger women.

So you're not going to do something positive? Just snipe.

The "B" didnt appear out of nowhere, lots of people have fought for visibility and "done something positive" to achieve this
Its a bit disingenuous to suggest that biphobia doesnt exist within the community, it definitely does. From talking to my lesbian friends, a lot of it stems from the horrendous idea that women can be "turned" by the right man, so i get it (i dont agree, obvs as a bisexual woman!) But i can empathise that it must be interminably frustrating to meet this trope constantly and see that bisexual women who have relationships with men seem to validate it in the eyes of n*bheads who have no capacity for nuance or understanding