![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
via https://ift.tt/2YtufFW
star-anise:
The idea that bi/pan/multi-spec people are only queer when we’re in queer-enough relationships does so much damage. Like I don’t think people imagine how that fluctuating identity shit works when you’re a real person in real relationships.
Imagine if your memories, your identities, your experiences, your way of seeing the world, is only valid because of the gender of the person who fucks you occasionally. Imagine if people literally believe that if you get dumped, that literally changes and diminishes you as a person, erases everything that happened to you, and takes away who you are. It makes you fundamentally less important, less capable of solidarity, less deserving of empathy. If the person you’re dating dumps you, you don’t just lose them; you lose an entire community.
Like, it’s hard to find LGBTQ+ people to date fundamentally, because we’re a smaller part of the population; and then of those who are potentially into you, a lot won’t date you because you’re bi, like they literally go “Oh you’re cute. Wait, you’re not 100% gay? No thanks.“ So 90% of the people who want to date you are a different gender than you. And if you let that happen–if you date one of the 90% of your dating prospects–then you’re a traitor, you’re turning your back on a community that’s turned its back on you. Your entire history doesn’t count. It’s turned to smoke, invisible, impossible to wrap your hands around.
Like you have to imagine how much more vulnerable “your relationship determines your sexuality” makes m-spec people in appropriately queer relationships. We aren’t in charge of our identities; our partners are. In this view of us, a vital part of who we are is held in the hands of a very small number of people who have decided, for the moment, not to be biphobic. They are the ones who validate us. Do you know how much power that gives them over us? How much shit I’ve seen m-spec people put up with because they’re dating a gay person and who else will ever put up with them?
And maybe then you’ll understand why we want to be understood as whole people whose identities remain stable regardless of who’s fucking us this month.
(HERE IT IS HERE’S THE ESSAY)
(THANK YOU I HAVE BEEN HURT BY THIS TOO)
star-anise:
The idea that bi/pan/multi-spec people are only queer when we’re in queer-enough relationships does so much damage. Like I don’t think people imagine how that fluctuating identity shit works when you’re a real person in real relationships.
Imagine if your memories, your identities, your experiences, your way of seeing the world, is only valid because of the gender of the person who fucks you occasionally. Imagine if people literally believe that if you get dumped, that literally changes and diminishes you as a person, erases everything that happened to you, and takes away who you are. It makes you fundamentally less important, less capable of solidarity, less deserving of empathy. If the person you’re dating dumps you, you don’t just lose them; you lose an entire community.
Like, it’s hard to find LGBTQ+ people to date fundamentally, because we’re a smaller part of the population; and then of those who are potentially into you, a lot won’t date you because you’re bi, like they literally go “Oh you’re cute. Wait, you’re not 100% gay? No thanks.“ So 90% of the people who want to date you are a different gender than you. And if you let that happen–if you date one of the 90% of your dating prospects–then you’re a traitor, you’re turning your back on a community that’s turned its back on you. Your entire history doesn’t count. It’s turned to smoke, invisible, impossible to wrap your hands around.
Like you have to imagine how much more vulnerable “your relationship determines your sexuality” makes m-spec people in appropriately queer relationships. We aren’t in charge of our identities; our partners are. In this view of us, a vital part of who we are is held in the hands of a very small number of people who have decided, for the moment, not to be biphobic. They are the ones who validate us. Do you know how much power that gives them over us? How much shit I’ve seen m-spec people put up with because they’re dating a gay person and who else will ever put up with them?
And maybe then you’ll understand why we want to be understood as whole people whose identities remain stable regardless of who’s fucking us this month.
(HERE IT IS HERE’S THE ESSAY)
(THANK YOU I HAVE BEEN HURT BY THIS TOO)
