STFU Biphobia

sourcedumal:

I Love My Boo campaign features real young men of color loving each other passionately. Rather than sexualizing gay relationships, this campaign models caring, and highlights the importance of us taking care of each other. Featured throughout New York City, I Love My Boo directly challenges homophobia and encourages all who come across it to critically rethink our notion of love.

GMHC is the world’s first and leading provider of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy. Building on decades of dedication and expertise, we understand the reality of HIV/AIDS and empower a healthy life for all. GMHC fights to end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected.

(via bi-pride)

sucharodthing asked:
What do you think? And I'm sorry for crowding your inbox and also if I sounded bigoted in any way. Let me know if I did, because I certainly did not mean to. But I'd love to hear your opinion on this ;) Thanks for reading.

I see what you’re getting at with your question, and in an ideal world, your theory seems logical. However, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a time when homophobia is gone, and even if it does go away, we certainly won’t be seeing a time when heteronormativity is gone. In my opinion, the answer to your question doesn’t matter because it’s not going to happen.

If you want me to hypothetically try to answer your question, then yes. If prejudice against gays and lesbians was over, that would help biphobia a lot. Yes, we do get hate from the straight world for being “too gay” and from the lesbian/gay world for being “too straight”. You’re very right, we can’t switch the gay button on and off, and we can’t switch the straight button on and off (something a lot of people don’t get). Maybe prejudice from the gay/lesbian community does derive from some kind of envy- I don’t know, and I’m sure it’s different depending on the person.

However, biphobia includes more than just the hate from the straight community thinking that we’re “too gay” and the hate from the gay community thinking we’re “too straight”. There are other stereotypes that I think come from a place that is not just homophobic and not just envy of “the ability to pass”. For example, bisexual people are thought of as cheaters, greedy, and nonexistent. Even if all the straight people and gay/lesbian people were to hang out together happily, the problem of needing to place people on one side or the other would probably still be there (again, this is hypothetical so anything could happen, so it’s actually a really irrelevant example). The idea that bisexuality is just a phase is one of the biggest forms of biphobia that has affected me, personally. I have such a hard time seeing bisexuality as an actual identity, and I constantly question whether I’m actually straight or gay, depending on the gender of my significant other. I have to constantly reassure myself that I’m right, and even then the actual “sure” feeling is fleeting.

So, yes I do think homophobia has a lot to do with biphobia, but the reason we specify biphobia as different from homophobia is because of the way things are, not how they could be. Bisexual folks experience both homophobia and biphobia, which I think is an important distinction to make. I hope I answered your question. Feel free to ask more, and thanks for reading my blog :] 

sucharodthing asked:
Do you think that is the case? Because then, if homophobia were to be over and all straight people and homosexual people were to hang out together happily (call me utopic, alright? haha), then I think there would be no reason for biphobia to exist any longer. Straight people would have no problem with the "homosexual behaviour" and gay people wouldn't have that urge to diminish bisexuals any longer since there wouldn't be such a thing as the "advantage of passing off as a straight person".

sucharodthing asked:
(...) as if you could just switch off the gay button and switch on the straight one. Like "oh, so I pass as straight, even though I might get interested in people from the same gender, so I'll just stop this gay interest and focus in straight relationships because they are more acceptable" which is, obviously, not true. And I think the prejudice from the gay/lesbian community derives from a sort of envy, some kind of wish that they could pass off as straight too.

sucharodthing asked:
(I hate those Tumblr asks. They can only take it to some characters). But anyway, don't you think that if prejudice against gays and lesbians would be over, that would help biphobia a lot? I mean. I might be saying loads and loads of bullshit and please stop me if I am, but I understand biphobia as getting the worst of both worlds. I mean, it's like you guys get hate from straight people from "behaving gayly" and then you get hate from gays/lesbians for "passing as straight" (...)

sucharodthing asked:
(...) I see what you mean when you say the head of the LGBT community are white cis gay men. Only recently I've opened my eyes to that glorious amount of social injustice (though I've always been sympathetic to them) and I do believe women, POC, trans*people and pan/bi need more representation. I'm not saying that as a speech of "oh, i'm such a nice guy", i just thought I needed to point that out because I liked your arguments and I'd love to talk those issues over with you. (...)

sucharodthing asked:
Hey. I really like your blog. I've just found it out because of that Monosexual Privilege Checklist post in which you discuss all the controversy there and etc. I'm a gay male and I do realize there is biphobia out there. When I was younger I thought I was bi (what I noticed later wasn't true) and up until now I hear a lot of people (gay and straight men and women) say that bi is just the road to gay. Even media does that.(...)

holycheeseandcrackers:

I’m going to start responding to every ‘bisexuals are selfish/greedy’ comment with pictures of myself laughing and eating delicious food that you can’t have

Bisexuality.

buxombibliophile:

I suppose it’s because I’ve posted so many things about my bisexuality today that I’ve been receiving some asks about it. I seem to have some doubters among my followers as well as the tumblrverse in general. It saddens me that such doubt comes from the LGBT community as much as it comes from heterosexuals. Since I don’t have anon on, I’ve blocked the foul ones and answered those that were polite. In any case, I thought I would make a general post explaining how I feel.

I was incredibly repressed growing up. Sex was not discussed in my household and was barely allowed to date. Any lustful thoughts I had were shoved down inside and I didn’t even masturbate until college. Just because I’m 22 and “not as experienced” as I “should be” at this age does not mean I don’t know who and what I want. I still don’t think my parents would know how to handle it. Fortunately for me, my older brother is on my side and doesn’t think my sexuality is a big deal. I know I will have him on my side when I finally come out to everyone.

I am not confused or going through a phase. For a long time, I denied my sexuality. I remember in junior high and high school telling myself that I just had a “deep appreciation of the female form.” I also had a list of celebrity women for whom I might “switch teams.” I had to wait until college when I went abroad and got away from overbearing forces in my life and spent a significant amount of time alone in order to know who I truly am. 

I do not identify as bisexual because I’m “too fat for men” to want to fuck me. This is definitely not true, evidenced by both my followers and men who exist in real life. My attraction to women did not occur as a reaction to sexual assault, my attraction preceded that event. I do not identify as bi to “increase” my chances for a partner or because I’m greedy and want everyone to fall at my feet, consumed with lust. 

I am not “too femme” to be attracted/attractive to women. Trust me. The way in which I choose to express my femininity has nothing to do with my sexual orientation and I’ll never understand why people seem to think they are inexplicably linked. Saying things like that to me just indicate you are making an assumption about people based on a stereotype.

I am bisexual. I do not need your approval to validate my sexuality. 

» STFU Biphobia: The monosexual privilege checklist

girlsandgifs:

stfubiphobia:

girlsandgifs:

stfubiphobia:

gaynotqueer:

There is only one problem with this checklist…most of these things apply (or often apply) to gays and lesbians!  Maybe this is just a badly written list, but as a gay male it leaves me unconvinced that I have some sort of privilege over bisexuals.  I can say with certainty that I DO NOT have privilege over heterosexually-partnered bisexuals, for example.  Bisexuals are certainly oppressed, but I really don’t buy into the notion that bisexuals are more oppressed than gays and lesbians.  Differently oppressed, yes, but more oppressed?

in response to the controversy over the monosexual privilege checklist, please see my response here.

Monosexual privilege can not exist because homosexuality doesn’t have the oppressive structural power of heterosexuality. When a homo doesn’t want to date a bisexual, it’s just discrimination, not oppression. The truth is bisexual identity has more structural privilege than homosexuality because there’s a foot in the heterosexual door that you don’t have being lesbian or gay. Good lord, can people stop making privilege checklists if they don’t know how privilege works?

Obviously didn’t read my post. 

I did, though not as thoroughly as I should have. I’m not taking away from the shitty treatment you’ve gotten, or belittling your feelings. I don’t like the things I’ve heard about bisexual women either, they tend to be misogynistic. But I still find this use of the word “privilege” problematic for the reasons I stated above.

Nobody was ever suggesting that lesbians (or gays) have the same privilege that heterosexuals do. However, folks can still have privilege within an oppressed group. I see what you mean when you say the use of the word “privilege” is problematic, because linking privilege to an identity such as lesbian feels wrong in many ways. However, disproving the use of the word privilege to completely discount what the post is saying is unfair. The idea that power dynamics can exist between lesbians/gays and bisexuals deserves attention if the LGBT community is truly concerned about all of its members. There is a power dynamic when we talk about “gay rights” and the interests of bisexual folks and trans* folks get left behind if even on accident, and there is a power dynamic when lesbian and gay folks can feel safe and accepted in queer spaces while bisexual and trans* folks cannot always feel those things. Certainly not the same power dynamic as between heterosexual folks and queer folks, but it still exists. 

(Source: radicalbi.wordpress.com)

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