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?

Someone who enjoys queer culture but is by society's terms straight or heterosexual.

I can happily confirm to any straight or bi women who has had relationships with men, and then decides, at any stage in their lives, that they are in fact lesbian, that they will be warmly embraced
I can verify that because...let me see, where's my abacus.... slightly over half of my exes had been previously straight. And let me check...yup, they are all still happily 100% lesbian. Or 100% happily lesbian

I'd also like to reiterate that I wouldn't feel that a straight or bi woman was 'intruding' if it was a big lesbian social event [not that they exist any more..]

I can't even imagine a woman bringing a male partner to a lesbian event.
My comments are more about the identities that constitute the group known as 'LGB' than personal and social interaction.

I’m a woman. My partner is a lesbian.

Would I be “lesbian enough” for you? Was I “not lesbian enough” when I was with my exDH?

What is my sexuality? I honestly don’t know. Are you saying my sexuality is entirely dependent on who my partner is?

If I can’t fit myself into a neat box how do I know which social event to attend????!

Someone who shags the same sex for shits and giggles or to please the partner they're with. Or who is open to anything because it's "naughty".

There are lots of LGBT, LB groups and events, which I am sure you are aware of

I am bisexual.
In that, I find women sexually and romantically attractive and
I also find men sexually and romantically attractive.
I am happily married to a man with nearly grown up children.

I have never met a lesbian woman in person that was both interested in me and made me feel 'that way', whilst single. So I have never had a relationship beyond flirting with a woman.

That is just a numbers game. I am nevertheless bisexual.
I don't consider it an identity

I am not discriminated against on the basis of my bisexuality because no one in my life knows ( except my partner)
If they did and I was discriminated against on the basis of it , it would not be bisexualphobia, it would be homphobia.

Bisexuals have NO CLAIM over lesbian spaces, which are precious and rare and essential for women with such a tiny dating pool. I alway knew this on a gut level and stepped lightly.

It is another Trojan horse.
Give it no further moral consideration. Stand firm and please accept my profound apologies on behalf of society.

These spicy straights are not interested in vaginas

Well said 👏

@MoreAgreeableMyArse
Bisexuals have NO CLAIM over lesbian spaces..

The OP isn’t talking about lesbian spaces, she is referring to Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual spaces:
I'm in a number of different LGB groups

But wants to gatekeep out Bisexuals who are being openly bisexual…..

I think you'll note that a lot of lesbians and gays are also too scared to set up a gender-critical L or G group.

Fair enough. What about bisexual women who are dating women, or married to women. Why exclude them? In meaningful terms what is the actual difference between me - bisexual and married to a woman for ten years with two kids together - but dated three men and two women before. And my friend - lesbian, in a relationship with a woman for the last two years, but tried dating men and on a purely numbers basis has slept with more men than me. I only know this because she was upset about someone being unkind about non gold star lesbians and she was making a point that it’s super common for lesbians to have slept with men and asked various friends.

I wouldn’t want to come to a lesbian event, if it was made explicit that bisexual women weren’t welcome of course and I expect my lesbian (gold star) wife wouldn’t either tbh. But my question is why wouldn’t I be welcome? Why make it a lesbians only event and not an event for LGB women, or women who love women or same sex attracted women or whatever. What is the actual difference and why does it matter?

Did you want to go to LGB spaces with your exDH?

@LeopardSnow because it is not acceptable to advertise that an event is open to lesbians and bi women only in relationships with women.

But is is acceptable to say, lesbians only, bisexual women not welcome?

I repeat, why not welcome and what difference does it make?

That's understandable, but does make them rather difficult to find.

Surely it would make more sense to exclude bi women in current relationships with men and admit those who are coupled up with lesbians or single?

I think it’s ok to say “lesbians only” and have splinter groups, what isn’t acceptable is to advertise “gay, lesbian and bisexuals plus their partners” and then insist bisexuals can only bring a same sex partner.

She doesn't though does she. She wants to keep the people out who arent really interested in women.

But even is they are interested in women, so what if a few bisexual women are excluded. It is such a tiny pool.
Lesbians make up 2.5% of the population BEFORE it became social suicide to say you were straight (based on my daughters cohort, I think its more like 75% claim bisexuality now. They are ashamed of being straight. Yet they definately aren't sexually attracted to women).

If you are female and bisexual you have access to 53.5% of the population.

Crack on OP. Gatekeep. You don't need our permission.

Sorry that’s bullshit. A bisexual person in a relationship with a man is still “really interested” in women, for real.
So what if a few bisexual women are excluded? Really? If an event is LGB then that should mean all B are welcome and you just need to get over your biphobia because, yes bisexual women are also interested in men. Who are you, as a lesbian, to gatekeep which bisexuals can attend an LGB event?

you are female and bisexual you have access to 53.5% of the population.
I fail to see the relevance to this. We are a minority and we don’t have “access” to fellow bisexuals nearly as often as anyone else, lesbians included. LGB groups aren’t speed dating events.

I'm also autistic and I suspect that the way I think about sex is very different from neurotypical people, or at least neurotypical women, and may be part of why I'm bisexual.

I struggle to understand "romance" at all. Dates are generally a means of vetting a prospective sexual partner to filter out the ones likely to try to kill me. I suspect this may contribute to my struggle to find female partners.

Definitely, "relationships" in the sense of "see person repeatedly, do things together" have been based on shared interests and sex with people who, in hindsight, were probably also autistic, not on "dinner and a movie". The one time I lived with someone was a trainwreck and I am never doing it again.

The "orientation" model, which centres innermost feelings and felt attraction rather than observable behaviours or lifestyle, isn't the only possible model to organise around. It's just a model that has had a lot of good PR over the last couple decades.

Why not?

OP, At these LGB events, will you be asking the bisexual men in relationships with women (bi or straight) to not come either?

It seems like you think an LGB event should be an LG and LG passing Bs event….?

Because it is gatekeeping out bisexuals who don’t happen to be LG passing at the moment. It is almost like pretending bisexual isn’t its own sexuality, that who our current partner is defines us as either lesbian or straight.

Being lesbian is more than just sexual orientation, it's also about who your primary commitments in life are made to. I chose, and choose, women, and it's a social and emotional choice as well as a sexual one.

A woman who is as likely to have a male significant other as a female one has made different decisions and different choices about who to have primary relationships with. Totally valid choices for her as a bisexual woman, but different from the choices made by me as a lesbian.

Lesbians make up 2.5% of the population BEFORE it became social suicide to say you were straight (based on my daughters cohort, I think its more like 75% claim bisexuality now. They are ashamed of being straight. Yet they definately aren't sexually attracted to women).

I'm not in touch with what young people are facing nowadays, but when I was a teenager, attracted to women, it would have been 'social suicide' to admit it. You could get hounded as a 'lesbian' for having the 'wrong' hairstyle or shoes, let alone confessing attraction to a member of the same sex. I'm sorry things have gone so far in the other direction that being straight is something to be ashamed of. I hope this is a case of 'swinging pendulum' and it will eventually settle to a place of equilibrium.