Thread by @KateBrauning

I am so tired of people thinking being a bi person married to a person of another gender makes you somehow less queer. Like you’re basically straight and can live a straight life.

A) it’s not being “basically straight.” Your brain and body are still bi. Your relationship is not a straight one.

B) it’s not all “I get to pass as straight.” Sometimes I pass as straight, but it’s not always that I GET to. Passing as straight sometimes SUCKS

There are aspects of privilege to not having my orientation immediately guessable by everyone around me. This is very true. Those of us with no option there so often deal with massive trauma because of it.

However, there are really nasty side effects to passing as straight, too. Bisexuals+ in particular deal with this. Bi erasure means if we don’t carve out our space and declare “I am not straight,” we are assumed to be. And I hate it so much.

One reason being assumed straight because of your relationship SUCKS is that everyone thinks you are a safe dumping ground for their homophobia. I can’t even count the number of times this has happened to me.

I had to sit in my family’s church 2 weeks ago while the pastor flat-out said “gay marriage” & church acceptance of “homosexuals” is part of God’s judgment on America. And everyone around me nods. And everyone assumes he’s talking about “the other,” not a person right there.

I had a conversation just this week with an old friend who suddenly starts talking about how there are suddenly so many “gay people” because it’s a way to stick it to the previous generation. He says this to me because he thinks I’m straight-I’m safe. Surely I’ll agree.

I’ve walked into a room and heard my family bashing the ACLU for protecting trans kids and they keep at it—until they suddenly remember. Because they forgot I’m not straight. I’ve come out to them, but they FORGET. It kills me.

They forget because I’m femme and I’m married to a man. It’s a huge part of me and how I see the world, and they forget. They force me to come out repeatedly to them, because of bi erasure. They see me as straight, until it’s time to argue.

Being “straight-passing” has really nasty downsides. It’s not all privilege. It’s not being “queer lite.” It’s catching all the secret homophobia around you because the barista thinks it’s ok to roll his eyes at YOU in reference to the clearly lesbian woman he just served.

The position that puts me in—reject the hate and protect my queer sister, but open myself up to his hate, too? Freeze, don’t react, know he assumes I agree with him? Some middle ground that objects but doesn’t out me?

I just wanted coffee, not to have my values tested in public with no warning.

The other nasty downside is that bi and pan people are so often left out of queer circles. We get mocked by other queer people, like we are some kind of half or a desperate pretender or “the lucky ones.” Like our sexuality is somehow equivalent to a semester abroad.

So we get hate if we carve out our space with straight people, & are expected to absorb & affirm the hate when we don’t & allow ourselves to straight-pass. Daily rejection. And then even in queer spaces—rejection. Mockery. Lacking community from what should be our circle too.

Maybe, if bi people seem desperate to join your circle, and constantly remind you that they are bi, it’s because they are often alone. It’s because they’re told “you don’t belong here” and “you don’t belong here, either.”

Wanting to be included isn’t pathetic or weakness.

I am NOT HERE for queerness that excludes. If you’re excluding bi people or Native people or POC or asexuals or nonbinary people, change that. Equality that exclaims “it’s my turn to be on top of the pile” is not equality.

They cannot have my orientation. Queerness is mine, too. They cannot have my gender or my relationship or my community or the people I love. It is not theirs to dice up into bits they approve of while they toss out the trimmings. My queerness means wholeness to me. Not exclusion.