smoke-wheat-everyday:
atreeisatree:
bifeministagenda:
its really great to want LGBT+ solidarity but i feel there’s still so much rampant biphobia (and transphobia) within LGBT+ communities that and we need to address those issues because we’ll be able to achieve solidarity while they’re still issues.
people who talk about monosexism and stuff like that are making an attempt to address the biphobia, and honestly, even if you don’t like the terminology they’re using, focusing on that terminology instead of what’s actually being said is just derailing and ignoring the actual issues they’re trying to talk about.
like, if you see somebody saying “I don’t like monosexual people telling me that i’m confused about my sexuality”, they’re saying that they don’t like people, gay or straight, telling them they’re confused about their sexuality just because they’re bi (or pan or poly etc). If your reaction to that statement is “don’t use the term monosexual because i don’t like being grouped with straight people”, you’re kind of missing the point.
i know some people have an issue with the term monosexual, but these endless debates about the terminology is distracting people from the actual issue (aka biphobia within and outside of the lgbt+ community) people are trying to talk about, and without talking about those issues, we can’t address the
some
issues preventing lgbt+ solidarity
TL;DR - derailing discussions to focus on terminology you don’t like is preventing people from discussing actual issues within the lgbt+ community
I don’t think it’s good to approach lgbpq solidarity with the suggestion that bi people’s concerns are the first/most prominent issue that needs to be addressed, while gay people’s concerns are just ‘distracting from the actual issue’ (= biphobia). Working toward solidarity isn’t just “how can we make gay people listen and be more supportive of us;” it should be more like “how can we be listen and be more supportive of each other.”
If a lesbian sees a post like your example, recognizes the take away message not to tell bi people they’re confused, and also goes and makes her own post that says, “I agree that it’s important to address biphobia, but I wish bi people could do this without calling us monosexual”… can we expect that to be respected too? Are we going to hold ourselves to changing the terminology/frameworks we use once we see lesbians’ objections to it? Or will it just perpetually be on backburner as ‘not the point?’
Cause I don’t really see how we can come into it with the mindset that lesbians talking about homophobia from us is always just ‘missing the point’ and ‘a distraction.’ There are still people talking about ‘monosexual privilege,’ and defending blatantly homophobic ‘jokes’ about monosexuality as odd, an arbitrary and specific kink, and limited, because ~gay people don’t face biphobia therefore privilege therefore nothing i say can be microaggressive.~ Views like this deserve to be addressed, and it’s not really acceptable to use “but I’m just trying to make a point about gay people being biphobic / to vent frustration about biphobia” as an excuse once the homophobia has been pointed out. When does that end? Are we always supposed to overlook homophobic comments if they’re made in the name of addressing biphobia? Do these comments ever amount to homophobia themselves?
I think one of the problems with the monosexism framework is that it positions bi people as uniquely having an ‘additional’ struggle in terms of conflict with ‘the gay community.’ It sets up the conversation as if there is a one-way direction of antagonism and possibility for microaggressions from gay people to bi people, that biphobia & bi people’s concerns are always a more prominent problem than homophobia, that our homophobia is understandable because we’re upset by biphobia, and that gay people are so heavily invested in denying biphobia that it’s likely their concerns about “homophobia” are really just derailments. (And therefore we don’t have to listen to gay people talking about homophobia.)
While you aren’t using “monosexism” here yourself, I still feel like that is the attitude you are bringing to your post… and I worry that this is the attitude that makes “monosexism” seem so compelling to many bi people who affirm it… and I think that underlying mindset is more than just differences in preferred terminology, and gay people are entitled to address it. (And btw gay people not wanting to be told they share a sexuality in common with straight people is a perfectly fine reason to stop using monosexual, just as bi people not wanting to be told they’ll eventually pick a side is a perfectly fine reason to stop joking about bi people’s ‘confusion.’)
also fuck off with the transmisogynist and lesbophobic forced grouping of “bi people and trans people” as somehow joined “issues” in a larger lgbt+/queer “community”
statements like “the LG doesn’t understand/care about/respect the BT” are so so so obviously made by non-trans-lesbians that it’s hilarious, as if “bi people” are any less transmisogynist than any other non-trans-women, and as if the struggles of being a trans woman / non-masculine person are even remotely comparable to the struggles of being a cis or masculine bi/pan person..
and as if any of y’all “i date everyone regardless of gender.. omg monosexuals are so close-minded” snowflakes have ever looked at a trans woman twice
it’s one thing for trans masculine people to step out of line and appropriate struggle by refering to violence against the “trans community” but cis bi/pan people doing that is a whole other level