Case (
case) wrote in
fandomsecrets2013-09-09 06:40 pm
[ SECRET POST #2442 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2442 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #349.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Re: Oh wow.
"We," meaning "the activist queers who were involved in that process." Which included a fair number of people under the bisexual umbrella, many of whom at the time were trans*, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming, and genderqueer ourselves.
if i am wrong in your meaning here then i apologise, it was not with the intent to mislead or lie to people.
You're wrong.
Re: Oh wow.
Re: Oh wow.
The answer there is right there in your post. And you must have been in a radically different community in the 1990s. In the community I was in, bisexual and genderqueer people overlapped more often than not. Why would we, in creating a bisexual community, define ourselves as unfuckable? (The answer is, we didn't.)
the implication seems to be that you don't think i have the right to use the word, given your mention of privilege in the same sentence.
You don't get a free ride to use the language my generation of queer activism reclaimed, and erase the work we put into reclaiming bisexual as well. If you want to critique bisexuality you need to do your homework, step a bit beyond somebody that you used to know, and address what we've actually said and written over the years about the gender binary.
Starting points:
* The soc.bi faq.
* The 1990 Manifesto
* Robyn Ochs
Re: Oh wow.
i'm queer, i'm genderqueer, and i am using vocabulary that i do have a right to. your insistence otherwise, your vehemence that you have more a right to "genderqueer" as a bisexual than i do as a genderqueer person makes no sense. bisexuals ALONE did NOT reclaim or redefine "genderqueer." that was the work of all queer groups, of which i am part, and thus i DO have a right to use the word. that's final. object as you will but you are not taking my identity from me in your conniption fit.
Re: Oh wow.
Straw man. Go directly to fail.
i'm queer, i'm genderqueer, and i am using vocabulary that i do have a right to.
I'm queer, I'm bisexual, and I am using vocabulary that I do have a right to.
It's stupid that the conversation has come this far. When a bisexual tells you your definition is wrong, your response should be to SHUT THE FUCK UP. When a bisexual tells you your definition is offensive, your response should be to SHUT THE FUCK UP. When a bisexual points you to the definitions that are authoritative for a community, your response should be to SHUT THE FUCK UP AND READ.
Of course you have a right to use the word. You're a hypocrite for not respecting the rights of bisexual people to reclaim our language in non-binary ways. (And apparently dismissive of the fact that many movers and shakers in the bisexual community were non-binary gendered as well.)
Re: Oh wow.
you have not been listening at all and it's hilarious that you are demanding that from me despite me actually following through with that. you've lost sight of the original implications of my statements. your claim was that bisexual people don't shun nonbinary people; mine was that many bisexual people actually do, enough so that the pansexual label is necessary or at the very least beneficial. i find it particularly useful as a nonbinary person myself because it helps me decide from the start whether or not a person is going to respect and accept my existence. i have had bad experiences with some bisexual people. i understand this is not a flawless representation of the bisexual community. even still, i feel safer with the pansexual label than i do with anything else.
to clarify, i do not think all bisexual people are a threat to me. i’d even wager that most are inclusive. i’ve not once stated the contrary, regarding my view of bisexuality as a whole. that said, i wish more bisexual-identifying people adopted/aligned themselves with the more inclusive definition. there’s a large enough population of people who don’t for me to not be fully comfortable using the bisexual label myself. until that is rectified i see no personal problem in me using pansexual to describe myself, despite your insistence that using the label somehow “fetishises” myself and somehow slanders the bisexual community on top of that.
i have accepted your definition. i understand and acknowledge it. that does not mean all bisexual people apply such a definition to themselves. that's my point. unless you're claiming that this NEVER happens, then we are not in disagreement.
also just for future reference "gendered" is an inappropriate way to refer to people, as it implies temporary condition to their gender. it is thus "nonbinary gender" not "gendered."
Re: Oh wow.
Yes it is because I explicitly did not do so. (Hint, "overlapping" does not mean only. "Only" means only.)
you have not been listening at all and it's hilarious that you are demanding that from me despite me actually following through with that.
You have not chosen to shut up about defining bisexuality, therefore, you are not following through.
your claim was that bisexual people don't shun nonbinary people;...
No, my claim is that the bisexual community, as defined by its organizations, literature, politics, and culture explicitly includes non-binary, queer, fluid, pan-, and omni- sexual people. I have no problems with pansexuality, up to the point when my fellow pansexuals start defining bisexuality in ways that we explicitly rejected as offensive.
... despite your insistence that using the label somehow “fetishises” myself and somehow slanders the bisexual community on top of that.
I didn't write that either. What I did write is that some expressions of pansexuality define trans* people as a third-gender "male, female, and trans" and superficially appropriate trans* politics to be shitty to bisexual people.
Often those bisexual people are also trans, non-binary, or genderqueer as well, which leads to lots of rage mixed with lols.
Re: Oh wow.
i am following through by reconsidering my blanket assumptions about the bisexual community, but i am letting bisexual people define bisexuality for themselves. i accept your definition. i also accept the definition that excludes nonbinary people as sexual interests for bisexual people. i am not attacking your definition; i have no issue with it. it is the latter definition that i take issue with, and have taken issue with, throughout this discussion. you can say it is not a representative definition and that it's not applicable to bisexuality but your gripe is in reality with other bisexuals who disagree with the description you've give to the label.
so in my eyes i see both labels as "correct" which is the precise reason why i've strayed from it personally. i want my identity to be clear when i use a label, not left up for discussion. in turn it should follow that you would consider all definitions of pansexuality, both the good and bad, and then notice that i do not associate with the bad, just as you with bisexuality.
i reject bastardised and offensive definitions of pansexuality because they do not apply to me and to many other pansexual-identifying people. i certainly don't mean to dehumanise myself or people like me, nor do i mean to demean those who share my thoughts and opinions but simply opt for a different label. again, it's not about the label more than it is about the definition used and its intention.
Re: Oh wow.
Can you try not talking down to them next? I know you might be in charge of LGBT club at your school but the posters aren't your subordinates.
Re: Oh wow.
Re: Oh wow.
Probably because you appear to think the only way to defend genderqueer people is to insult others. That's sad. Can I have a link to your tumblr?
tw rape
so forgive me for insulting the people that institutionalised me, who r*ped me while i was in state custody, who locked me away because i was all sorts of "wrong" to them. forgive me also for not giving a flying fuck about being nice to those people, or appeasing you, or appeasing anybody else here. this phobia of nonbinary people is rampant all over the place, and just because bisexual people face discrimination doesn't mean that phobia should not be examined from within their community. i could go on and on about phobia in other communities too if i have to but bisexuality became applicable here the moment CB brought it up upthread.
put yourself in my shoes as a scared teenager, fucking alone and hundreds of miles away from safety, at the mercy of people who were not sympathetic to my identity. put yourself in my shoes, feeling unsafe, being violated, being placed in such a dangerous condition by my bisexual guardian - who, according to many in this thread, should not have been discriminating against me in the first place. guess fucking what? it still happened. so don't you, or anybody else in this thread, dare try to tell me that it doesn't happen. that it's not worth mentioning. that i should ignore it because so many other people in the bisexual community wouldn't ever do that. if anything, this phobia within that community is the most disgusting place to find it. i don't care that not every bisexual person falls into this line of thinking. all it took was one person to ruin my life and drive me away from those who aligned themselves with similar mindsets.
eta: i should clarify that it wasn't my guardian's bisexuality that left me bitter. it's more so the fact that so many people here are claiming people like me are openly welcomed in the bi community when that is obviously not always the case. if it's not 100% safe then you can't blame nonbinary people who opt to distance themselves from it. the fact of the matter is that i only feel safe enough in nonbinary-friendly spaces, and i can be sure that other pansexual-identifying people will always welcome me. i can't say the same for bisexual people ALL the time which is why i prefer the pan label.
if a bisexual person would like to welcome me as who i am then that's great, but i've no reason to just assume, against all that i've built as a defense, that any old bisexual i meet is going to be safe for me to interact with. binary bisexual people hold privilege over me and sometimes this is abused. i learned this the hard way. i am fully aware that there are welcoming bisexuals and ignorant ones. i would rather be critical of the ignorant ones, risking hurt feelings from the former, than trust the wrong person. and i would MUCH rather refer to myself as pansexual, risking people misunderstanding my label, than associate myself with a community that is only maybe 70% behind me.
now that i've been triggered i don't want to be a part of this discussion anymore. i'm done interacting with you.
Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 03:22 am (UTC)(link)It's not welcoming bisexuals that are the problem. Many are immensely supportive and have done great things for non-binary acceptance. It's the bigoted bisexuals who express phobia of non-binary individuals who are the problem, who do exist. And when people claim that bisexuality is supposed to be welcoming and so those bisexuals were just doing it wrong! and people who have been hurt by discrimination and abuse should accept it and embrace the label... that is a problem.
It's the exact same problem as people who try to claim 'womanists' and 'humanists' under the overarching label of 'feminist,' ignoring the, for example, classist and racist issues that those people have with the 'feminist' label because these issues aren't 'supposed' to exist. Feminism is 'supposed' to be an aracial, class-inclusive movement. But these issues do exist.
It's worse when, on top of all that, the feminists insinuate that the 'womanists' and 'humanists' are mislabeling themselves, don't know what they're talking about, or somehow going against the main goals of the movement by preferring a different label. They aren't. They're simply not comfortable doing it with that particular group and choosing to distance themselves. Many pansexuals I know distance themselves from bisexuality for the same reasons: they have been hurt by internal issues that exist.
Stating over and over that isn't how feminism or bisexuality is 'supposed' to work doesn't change the fact that this is how it does work in practice in a large enough portion of the time to drive so many people away, as evidenced all over this thread. Instead of blaming the people who were so driven away, perhaps scrutiny should be directed against those that did the driving.
Re: tw rape
Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 03:34 am (UTC)(link)Re: tw rape
It's usually an MRA. I just think it's funny it always comes up. The womanism thing's totally valid. A lot of the "humanists" have a hilariously North America-centric view of the status of women, though.
Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 03:37 am (UTC)(link)Or rather, I am a feminist who does not think people who choose to distance themselves from the movement are phobic or anti-feminist. I can admit to huge issues within the movement, and admit that the movement is not nearly the ideal. I call myself a feminist because I believe in its goals and I would love for it to be ideal. But I cannot blame those that choose to leave it because it has hurt them.
Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-13 03:46 am (UTC)(link)So why are bisexuals the only group that repeatedly, as a group, gets blamed for it?
Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 03:29 am (UTC)(link)Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 03:35 am (UTC)(link)Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)Re: tw rape
(Anonymous) 2013-09-11 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)