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?

Well, that's certainly an interesting way of looking at it.

I do also wonder if there is an element with this, of people who in the past might not have "identified" as bisexual doing so now.

When you say 'identified', do you mean privately or publicly?

Bi woman here, in a hetero relationship. As someone who is Bi I find it really frustrating that we don't really fit in the LGB community, and we don't really fit in the straight community either.

When I first came out as Bi, I was in a relationship with a girl (the only same sex relationship I've ever had, I've been too self conscious to look as an adult to be perfectly honest as some lesbian profiles on tinder etc can be really fucking insulting if you're bi) I was told quite bluntly "You can like one or the other, not both" and it still feels very much like that over 20 years later. I'm in a relationship with a man and still very much attracted to men and women, I just happen to have fallen in love with someone who is the opposite sex.

Why am I any less part of the community just because I'm in a relationship with a man? I don't go to parades etc because I feel so pushed out by everyone. There is little to no support for people who are bi.

TheCatsTongue It's interesting that 50 years ago, straight people and gay people didn't exist. You were just a person who had same-sex relationships. There was no identity around it. Think of it more akin to hair or eye colour.

1975?? In 1975 there were no straight people or gay people and no identity around sexual orientation?? And being gay was kind-of like hair or eye colour?
And you just got on happily with your life just like a blonde or a brunette with grey or brown eyes got on with their life without any problems from wider society?

This shows a deep lack of knowledge of lesbian and gay history, which goes way back before 1975.

Absolutely. It's as if the Gateways and all the secrecy around it never existed: as if AIDs and the wave of homophobia surrounding that never happened: as if lesbian mothers never had their children taken away by the court syste: as if the Admiral Duncan had never happened.

I think there are a number of women who call themselves bisexual because they had an early heterosexual marriage with kids, and then later discovered same sex relationships and never looked back. In that context it can be easier to say bisexual than answer more questions from people.

Ok I am very sorry that it came across that way. I will try again but as in my post I genuinely think that if you have a look into the complexity of deaf culture in a deeper way than you could ever explain here you would be very interested.

With you mentioning deafness I thought you had some experience as it rarely gets mentioned in cultural context outside of the community.

What I was trying to say was West Indian culture is narrow to the people who are from or interact with the culture and ethnicity.
Deafness is whole world.

What I ment about cross over both deaf people and homosexuals have been persecuted ostracised and otherd. Both have had cures forced upon them.

More to you interest both have formed groups to support each other where who gets to be in the club is challenging. Exactly like your thread. How culturally deaf do you need to be to be included and who doesn’t meet the criteria. How gay do you need to be to be included and who gets excluded.

I have no opinion on either as it’s not my place but both are very interesting from a human perspective.

So the 'LG+B' community isn't working for you either, ADHDspoonie?
I'm sorry you feel that way, but maybe it's just further proof that they are related - we're all all about rights - but separate communities.

What a shame we can't all just be people without needing labels.

Until reasonably recently many people considered bisexuality a bit of a cop out. Keeping a foot in both camps and being too much of a coward to commit.

Thanks, that makes sense.

Of course, but this is the real world. I think one of the main themes of FWR is that since labels do matter in society, let's make sure the labels are rationally-based and accurately used. So this discussion is an off-shoot of that.

I mean they did not think of themselves as bisexual.

@TheCatsTongue "It's interesting that 50 years ago, straight people and gay people didn't exist. You were just a person who had same-sex relationships. There was no identity around it. Think of it more akin to hair or eye colour."
Where was it like this-Alpha Centauri?

If you're bi in a straight relationship why would you want to go to lesbian events.

Also wondering why your straight male partner would want to attend.

open.spotify.com/track/0bzBVZPCRA4WA4bGJul72G?si=mU9DnBDvTFemxKkCgq5hZw

I know an awful lot of women you describe, @Sooz41 I'm an older lesbian and without stopping to think I could name more than 20 women who fit the bill. But all of them describe themselves as lesbians and a lot of them are actively engaged in lesbian activism.

This exactly.

Being bisexual in a same sex relationship isn't the same as being bisexual in. Hetero relationship.

Bisexuality is that, two differing sides dependent on how life pans out, then depends on differing views of others that needs the rights of lgbt.

So in a hetero relationship, viewed differently by society than in same sex relationship.

Totally different treatment by society as a Whole.
I get it op.

Well, that's complicated matters, hasn't it? Is Tom Robinson currently partnered with a man or a woman? It was a woman last time I checked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Robinson
Apparently not any more. But Robinson exemplifies a whole bunch of issues under discussion here.

I think it's probably more useful to talk about lesbian or gay relationships when it comes to bisexuality.

Assuming monogamy (most people) then a bisexual is, when in a relationship, in either a homosexual or heterosexual relationship. So a bisexual might be in a lesbian relationship but when in a relationship with a man they would be indistinguishable from any other heterosexual.

For the purposes of events involving the LGB, I don't think bisexual people in a heterosexual relationship qualify to be involved any more than any other heterosexual person. That is, they should take a step back unless any straight person could also sensibly be involved.

But that's just my opinion.

Exactly.

50 years ago is too recent, but it's absolutely true that the idea of a gay or lesbian person as an identity, as a type of person, is historically relatively recent. Historically it' also very unusual, and some of the most similar examples are some of the third sex categories for gay men that existed in some cultures.

In most cultures, even those where there were no real taboos around same sex sex (actually, probably especially those), it was just something that some people liked to do. It often wasn't exclusive from marriage and family life, either, which had much more utilitarian ends.

There is some thought that being gay and lesbian emerges as a social identity mainly where it is in some way suppressed. Otherwise it doesn't coalesce into the same kind of sense of a community apart from others.

From that perspective, the OP questions could be interpreted in terms of changes in the community as a result of more widespread acceptance of same sex oriented sexuality.

Also this... I am just me. I happen to love.and spend my life with my wife to be.

I don't use my sexuality as ny identity, tend to be private in that regard.

I do get if it comes to more deeper social events etc why op has this issue.

However, I am a lesbian, i am a private lesbian, most wouldn't assume I am.

You raise some interesting questions @Pluvia.

I agree with you that anyone straight coming along to an LGB event is off, but surely there are firm polite guardrails you can set around this without needing to exclude bi people? L,G and B are generally grouped together either because they all have same sex attraction, or because they all experience some of the same prejudices because they are same sex attracted. I don’t see how you can think bi people don’t fit into that group, unless you have totally different criteria?

Otherwise I don’t really agree.

For clarity, I am bi and married to a woman who I’ve been with for ten years and we have two kids together.

Your point about bi women in straight relationships not experiencing day to day prejudices because they pass as straight. Yes that’s probably true. But bi women do experience some of the same prejudices as lesbians, as well as some that are unique, some of which come from within the LGB community. Even women currently with men will have experienced these prejudices in the past and probably still experience some now if they are open about being bi.

So, why draw boundaries based on the level and kind of prejudice being experienced? This will also hugely differ within the lesbian community. Would a butch lesbian experience more casual homophobia than a straight looking one - yes of course? Would you say one has more right to be in your group than the other, no of course not, they are both welcome. If a straight woman chose to wear her hair very short and dress in a stereotypically lesbian way, and experienced homophobia, would she belong in your group? No of course not, she’s not same sex attracted.

Why let hostile bigots who dislike some people more than others, or make assumptions based on appearance, but ultimately still hate us all, determine who you let in?

By excluding bi women or distinguishing between acceptable bi women and unacceptable ones, you also risk doing real harm.

Coming to terms with being bi, is hard. A combination of compulsory heterosexuality and biphobia mean being bi is not an appealing prospect for many women young and old, and lots of bi women will consciously or unconsciously feel they should just be straight because it’s easier. They will feel even more like this if you exclude them from a setting where they could see women loving women being nice, normal and acceptable and tell them they are not welcome!! Compulsory heterosexuality also means plenty of women who will later identify as lesbians marry men. Are they not welcome in your group either?

You may think, well yes it is easier for bi women to just go out with only men, what is the harm. They have an easy option, so if they chose it they aren’t welcome in my group.

Would you say the same thing to someone saying it is easier to only date people the same colour as them, or the same religion, or the same social class - so they should flatten and repress any attraction or love they feel towards other people? I imagine not. Repressing or denying a part of yourself is damaging. As a teenager lesbian was a slur so when I felt crushes on girls I agonised over whether this meant I was one and used to lie awake at night visualising a hammer smashing into my head whenever I had sexual thoughts about girls. It took until I was 26 to accept that maybe it was okay to be interested in women too and I still feel some degree of self hatred about it now - because that’s how being part of a hated minority affects you - how much harder it is if that minority also excludes you. It takes many others longer to accept themselves, and many will end up with men, more if they feel excluded from the LGB world. Once I did come to terms with it, I had to content with loads of biphobia from lesbians who thought most bi women were unreliable, slutty, cheaters or in denial about being lesbians. From men who thought I was slutty, up for threesomes, or that it was a kink. And from straight women who thought I couldn’t be trusted around their husbands, or was doing it for attention.

By the way, in Days of Yore when there were actual lesbian venues, we - us lesbians, or at least me and my pals - knew that there were bi women and straight women enjoying an evening of women-only company, and it mostly didn't bother us.

It did bother us a bit if we felt that there was a group of straight women who were watching us as if we were a different species - that did happen occasionally, but not often. And of course it got complicated if you were chatted up by/chatted up somebody you thought was a lesbian, because it was a lesbian venue/event, who turned out not to be.

My comments have been about groups organising around specific issues, not personal or social interactions.