On Biphobia & Homophobia in LGBTQ Spaces

Hurt queer people, hurting other queer people.

Rainbow-colored lights with scan lines covering them. Photo by Sharon McCutcheon, courtesy of Unsplash.

If you’re bisexual and you run in LGBTQ circles, you’ve had some flavor of this experience. A gay or lesbian person sees you with an opposite-sex partner, surmises you’re just an ally, and proclaims you straight. Or you’re passed over for a leadership role in a queer group, because it’s assumed there are aspects of queerness you don’t actually get. Maybe somebody with a few beers in them says something outright terrible to you: you pass as straight in society, you could always date a straight person, you could forever opt out, fade into the background, and be safe.

And it hurts. And it makes you feel excluded you from queer spaces you hoped would be welcoming. And it reminds you of every cruel, biphobic thing that every straight person has ever uttered to you. And it makes you feel, maybe for a moment, as if being bisexual is Harder, Really; you’re maybe tempted to believe it’s Harder Than Being Gay(tm). Maybe you even say that. Maybe you come to think of bisexual people as somehow more enlightened, less judgmental — and start to see gay folks as yet another oppressor class.

You’re hurt, and you’re on the brink of something dangerous. If you keep thinking that way, you’re gonna isolate and diminish queer people who are suffering just like you. You’re gonna deal out some pain yourself.

…

If you’re gay or a lesbian and you run in LGBTQ circles, you’ve had some flavor of a different experience. Someone has called you closed-minded for not considering the beauty of the opposite sex. You’ve been accused of being a powerful member of a gay elite, oppressing bisexuals and pansexuals the same way you were once oppressed. Someone has gotten drunk and put a hand on your arm and asked you, are you really just gay? Do you really never find anyone of the opposite sex attractive? What about that guy over there? Have you ever tried to be with a girl?

And it hurt. And it made you feel unsafe or uneasy in queer spaces you had hoped would be your home. And it reminded you of every cruel, homophobic thing that every straight person has ever uttered to you. And it evoked for you all the times you were pressured to compromise your gayness, to try and hide it, to fade away…