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charlottewithac:

I’m currently starting to work on my research paper , I still have a lot of time before it’s due but I want it to be perfect. The topic is bisexuality. It’s a really personal topic for me. This paper is pretty much my baby, I’m literally gonna give it my all.

Here is a general list of Bisexual Academic/Queer Theory “stuff” for you to use (copied from posts in Bisexuals For Marriage Equality & BiNet USA)

I think that for monosexuals , they may tend to view bisexuality as like ‘having two monosexualities’ hence they imagine a bi person can never be content with just one other person.
says LintLass, a very smart and thoughtful bisexual person

Words, binary and biphobia, or: why “bi” is binary but “FTM” is not

bialogue-group:



This is a long post. TAKEN FROM AND EVEN LONGER ESSAY THAT SHOULD BE READ In its ENTIRETY But trust me, it is good. Take your time in reading in, it will be worth it

Before I write – a disclaimer: this post contains criticism of the non-bisexual-identified transgender community and discourse. Please be aware that I am writing this criticism not as an outsider, but as a genderqueer person involved in transgender community, and activism. I hope this criticism is taken in the same spirit in which it was written – that of passion and solidarity.

It appears increasingly acceptable of late, in transgender/genderqueer communities and activist discourses, to portray bisexuality as a binary identity, and thus intrinsically transphobic. As the claim classically goes – since the word “bisexuality” has “bi” (literally: two) in it, then it is inherently gender-binary, pointing to only two genders/sexes as its sources of reference – thus erasing non-binary sexes and genders out of existence …

I think I know this song…The argument claiming bisexuality to be binary situates bisexuality as an oppressive identity perpetuating hegemonic ideology. Less academically – to say that bisexuality is binary is to say that bisexuality is an oppressive identity contributing to dominant social order. Now, where have I heard that before? …

Apparently the first people to make this binary claim were not at all trans people, but one gay male and one straight female (gay-male-identified) academics. I mean, of course, Eve Kosofski-Sedgewick and Lee Edelman (separately) …

To say that the stance on bisexuality as binary has been initiated, it appears, by an academic gay white cisman and an academic straight white ciswoman is to say that these people had a political and academic interest in the elimination of bisexuality from their theory and studies …

So what does this remind me of? Claims of bisexuality as an oppressive/privileged identity are not new. As anyone who wanders the world as bisexual knows, we are often accused of bearing heterosexual privilege – especially by, but not limited to, lesbian communities. These accusations – classical by now – rely on the presumption that bisexual people are, in fact, straight, and that by refusing to relinquish our “attachment” to male-identified people we are accepting and perpetuating heteropatriarchal hegemony (in plain English: heterosexual and sexist oppression of women and queers).

What else does this remind me of? The same arguments were (and in some cases, still are) used against transgender people, too.

A short summary, and suggested solutions

So, to summarize:

  1. I’ve been writing this post for three hours now and I’m tired and want to sleep.
  2. The allegations of bisexuality being binary are a load of bullshit.
  3. The allegations draw not from actual transphobia within bisexual words, communities or bi-identified people, but from wide trends and long histories of biphobia within the gay and lesbian movements.
  4. Transgender people have historically (and currently) suffer(ed) from similar allegations by the same sources.
Suggestion solutions:
  1. Solidarity
  2. Love
  3. The revolution
  4. Sleep

Shiri Eisner is a radical bisexual-genderqueer-feminist-anarchist activist and writer. She resides in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she runs the bisexual organization Panorama – Bi and Pansexual Feminist Community and participates in the struggle against the occupation, radical queer activism, feminist activism, transgender and genderqueer activism, animal rights activism, and many more. She hopes to incite the revolution very soon.

In addition to Bi radical, she keeps a Hebrew-language blog Bi dyke And she’s on tumblr, too (in English): Bi radical

That’s not my bi history! It needs us to tell it how it is – and how it was

Concerned? We are too! As Jen Yockney wrote in Bi Community News:

In 2010, I went to two events to mark LGBT History Month. Both of them left me thinking, ‘this is not my history’.

One was an event that promised to talk about bisexuality, but the presentation skipped most of the last 25 years worth of bisexual community activism. When I asked a question that referenced Bi Community News – one of the longest running bi projects in the country [ed note Great Brittan], after all – it got blank looks from the speaker.

So many theorists, activists, events, publications, erased from the record presented. And knowing that for other attendees, if I didn’t challenge what was being said, then it was likely they’d go away taking the history presented as fair and true.

In complete bewilderment we have watched the wholesale attempt to rewrite and redefine all of modern bisexual history to make us disappear. A trend that really started picking up steam in late 2005/early 2006 and it seems continues unabated.

One of the latest stunts being buzzed about in the Bisexual Community? A re-editing this past July 2012 of the meaning of the familiar rose lavender and blue gradient (the bisexual pride colours) that has been used since the 1970’s in the familiar “Bi-Angles” symbol and then later was adopted into the Bi Pride Flag. As was calmly noted someone changed the meaning specificially so as to give, “more detail on non-binary erasure in the flag”.

Why? What is the point? What is being gained by this? And by who?

So you want to define bisexuality?

finalowen:

  1. Go to any number of bisexual websites that give helpful definitions and FAQs on bisexuality.
  2. Look on the internet to see what bisexual people have written about how they define their sexuality. It’s quite easy to do.
  3. Politely ask a bisexual person (if they’re agreeable to being asked) about their definitions of what the term means.
  4. Do some research into the historical context of the phrase and how it originated.
  5. Do all of the above.

Here’s a quick guide on the way NOT to do it.

  1. Look at the “bi”, assume the ‘two’ is referring to a male/female binary, and decide it means that bisexual people can only be attracted to two genders.
  2. Act like an authority from your few seconds worth of half-caring about what it might mean, and paint bisexual people as transphobic based on this conclusion.

Sadly, it seems like that latter is becoming more and more common, and people don’t seem to realise how biphobic it is.

I think that often femme-phobia is related to the presumption that all femmes are actually bisexual, and all bisexuals are actually straight.
bidyke on femme-phobia as directed at queer femme women (2011)

University of Missouri: Sexual Orientation Fluctuation Correlated to Alcohol Misuse, MU Researcher Finds

bisexualftw:

A study looking at nonmono and questioning students.

it is entirely possible that the poor woman was totally misquoted everywhere, but right now it looks to be an expensive, useless, exercise in bisexual erasure and invalidation not to mention extensive victim blaming and seems to be more along the line of a bad joke: wacky professor drives students to drink and depression by insisting they don’t exist

would have helped if she had given almost any sign of having even heard of current research (Lisa Diamond on Bisexuality as a stable orientation; SF 2011 Bisexual Invisibility Report; BiUK Bisexuality Report, practically anything and everything in the Journal of Bisexuality, etc.) for say the last ten years or so … *sigh*

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