Originally published at: Battle-axe bisexuals and LGBTQ infighting | Boing Boing
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Wait, where do I get my battleaxe? I always considered myself more of an ornate rapier bisexual, but if I can get a battleaxe, I’m not about to say no.
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So where do these people whose only goal a few years ago was to be seen as valid human beings get the idea that sending death threats is the right response to someone else’s identity?
Is this new, or just more visible thanks to the internet?
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I got my battleaxe at one of those highland games I went to a few years ago.
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Really how hard is: “This is what I am, It says NOTHING about what you are” and the obverse “Ah, thanks for telling me about what you are and that says NOTHING to about what I am” ?
This, I think goes for everyone, for pretty much anything I can think of. The idea that someone else’s identity has any influence on your identity needs to die.
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I’m going to guess more visible because of the internet.
See the Emo Philips joke that taps into the same idea.
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
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So are you an M-Spec Exclusionist if you think that Pan and the other M-Spec identities that are well within the definition of Bisexual (being attracted to people who share your gender identity and people who don’t) are the result (not cause) of Biphobia and bierasure?
If you think that it’s fine to identify as Pan, but not fine to say that people who identify as Bi are transphobes?
If you are sick and tired of the wasted energy infighting between the different identities and wish that everyone could just get onboard the Bibus and realize that it’s cool to identify as Pan but you need to support Bi people and the rest of the identities as well? (And that Bi people should support Pan people and the rest of the identities?)
That you suspect that Pan is often used to deny people a seat at the heart of the LGBT+ community because Pan is new and fighting for scraps and “just kinda Queer” instead of realizing that they are one of the big four the community is actually named after and that they totally have a place within it? (Note that Queer people who don’t identify as one or more of L, G, B, or T but rather fit into the + are full members of the LGBT+ community and should be treated that way.)
Asking for a friend…
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We can keep adding letters and eventually somebody will notice that perhaps we could be nice to everyone…
Who and how you love shouldn’t matter to anyone but your partners, same goes for what is under your clothes, and policing it only ever divides people.
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This is why I really like the rainbow flag. Each stripe has a deep and significant meaning: It’s that everyone is included. 
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Confusing as fuck for me, and I identify as Pan. I used to be Bi, but I understand that I can hold attraction for trans and gender non binary individuals.
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As I am in no way an expert in queer theory, can someone explain me why some folks see pansexuality as anti-trans? And why bisexuality, which (apparently) leans into binary gender distinctions, is less anti-trans?
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Under other people’s definitions i would fall under Pan, though i hesitate to label myself as anything in particular and i really hate the conversation around my sexual preferences/identity. I like who i like and that changes moment to moment, and i also don’t define who i am based on who i like and my attraction is usually based on personality first, and looks second, and then gender comes in a distant last. That said that’s not a criticism toward anyone, others’ identities are more closely tied to who they are into.
I don’t really understand conflating pansexuality with being anti-anything, if anything it is the opposite of it. This whole thing seems silly, is it really a thing?
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Pansexuality can be read as an attempt to fluidize, subvert or eliminate gender distinctions or identities, whereas bisexuality can be read as reinforcing them. But neither is necessarily the case, and nor is it the case that any of those outcomes are necessarily anti-trans. It’s all a big mess.
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I am tempted to go on at length about my favorite bugaboo of category debates, but also Names Have Meaning, and Identity Is Real And Important, and reducing this problem space to a category debate risks real harm to existing identity and culture.
I will instead give my favorite one-liner about systems and the categories therein defined:
“When a person doesn’t fit into a system, it’s the system that’s at fault, not the person.”
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At some point in the recent past, someone had the idea that all LGBTQ+ people would take back the pejorative “Queer” and use it for the entire spectrum of non-straight sexual and gender types. It seemed to me that that solidarity was the important thing, rather than having to describe the exact mechanics of everyone’s personal sexuality.
The big question there, of course, is whether it encouraged solidarity at all. But at any rate, somehow, some people came to believe that it’s a zero-sum game; that gains made by L must come at the expense of G, B, T, Q, and + (and all combinations and permutations thereof.)
Someone has been shaking the jar and making the different ants fight.
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Could be worse; the Ace/Areo community has been destroyed and rebuilt a couple times, and yet we remain, the ignored sub-group because we don’t have a gender preference or attraction.
Hell, I didn’t even know that there was an Asexual / Aromantic community until I read something on a Tumblr post and started doing some heavy digging. Up to that point, I thought it was just something to fill out a stub on wikipedia.
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This bullshit is why I didn’t come out until I was 38, last year.
Anything outside of strict bisexuals have always been marginalized in the queer communities I’ve been adjacent to. ESPECIALLY pansexual, in that being attracted to everyone on the spectrum, including trans-humans, means that you’re fetishizing them. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, but that’s been the general judgement that I’ve seen nearly everywhere. Forget that you’re also attracted to men, women, and gender-nonconforming people…you’re transphobic and are only attracted to trans-people as a fetish.
Glad to know that it’s a thing, and that it isn’t just me that it kept in the closet, and made to feel like I wasn’t welcome in a community that I supported and should have been a part of for 20+ years.
Thanks Jessica.
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Exactly. The human obsession with labeling and classifying other humans is only really useful for defining in- and out-groups, or to avoid judging someone for themselves, which is harder, but using their group identifier instead, easy-peasy, no knowledge of them required. Who you love is an issue between you and the object of your affection, none of mine at all. Who you are is even less my business, other than accepting you for whatever that is and moving on. I honestly do not understand people who make it their life’s mission to make people they do not even know miserable. It must be a very sad existence.
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Stealing this, thank you very much!!
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I’ve never heard of “Battle Axe Bisexuals” and all the bi community groups I’ve been in have been very clear that exclusion does us no favors.
In all the bi spaces I’ve been in, you’re much more likely to see people memeing or complaining about people who try to hold bisexuality to strict standards.
We constantly mock gatekeepers.
I have no idea who got a hair in their ass and thought it’d be a good idea trying to define bisexuality more strictly than sexual attraction to same and other genders.
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