Where do the Bisexuals sit?
You can sit with us. But can we finally sit with you?
Earlier today a friend confided that she was beginning to question whether her long standing identity as a lesbian could be maintained. With her current partner self-identifying as non-binary, which is, incidentally, how many of her previous partners had also identified, she began to wonder whether her trans inclusive radical feminism and her identifying as a lesbian could co-exist in such a way.
[Non-binary: relates to any gender identity that does not fit within the binary of male and female.]
This led to a discussion on whether she should or could identify as bisexual, after identifying as a lesbian for a decade. This has become somewhat of a pattern in recent years whereby people in queer relationships begin to question their identities based on the changing nature and approaches of gender identity, catalysed mostly by forcing open a discourse in queer circles that sought to move away from the struggles and campaigns of white cis gay men.
My answer to whether she could identify as bisexual was, of course that she could. But would she want to?
Entangled within the requestioning of sexuality and the detraction from monosexuality, there are a plethora of issues and oppressions surrounding bisexuality that I will attempt to deconstruct. To begin with I will, and not for the first time, define bisexuality.
Bisexuality is not an orientation transfixed on gender. It finds gender an arbitrary measure for romance. It may have its preferences in terms of attraction (not necessarily sexual) that manoeuvre within and around masculine and feminine presentations but a persons gender identity is not important to the development of that relationship. Mistakenly identified as being an attraction to one gender or the opposite (genders have no opposites), bisexuals often have to end the myth that their love must be fixed within a gender binary. This is not the case.
It is instead a sexuality against binarism. It means loving one or loving another. Gender need not be a factor if it doesn’t have to be. However, bisexuals are victims of queer discourse. Our sexuality as defined before now, and usually not by bisexuals themselves, means that we have been placed into a suspect position among the queer community. Our ability, if chosen, to meander through variances of percieved monosexual relationships (having a partner who is perceived as either the same gender or another within the binary) has created a debate without us towards the legitimacy of our queerness and sexuality. Our relationships are defined as being heterosexual or homosexual depending on who we are with at the time.
My relationships are always bisexual. I am bisexual. My attraction is bisexual. My identity is bisexual.
This identity crisis transcends bisexuality. It maintains a rigorous focus on monosexuals to retain their identity so as not to deligitimise their queerness in the face of an increasingly gender queering society. As trans and non-binary people continue to reclaim space that is rightfully theirs and campaign for their recognition outside of queer spaces they are also creating a new means of practising relationships that were previously unspoken. As cis monosexuals are confronted with the developing gender identities of their trans partners, they are also confronted with how their sexual identity must be labeled and to do that they must engage with the preconceptions they have of non-monosexual queer relationships.
To do this, bisexuality must be heard, as being ferociously legitimate. It must be allowed to exist within a queer struggle without being questioned.
The queer community must extend its campaigns beyond gay marriage and recognise that as well as trans struggle, bisexuality suffers. We must be trusted to define ourselves. We must be provided for in a struggle that includes us.
Substantially moreso than cis monosexuals, bisexuals have worse health and an increased propensity to substance abuse. We have lower incomes compared to our homosexual counterparts. Our mental health is worse, and on a more personal level, it is upsetting to see my sexuality made a symptom of my borderline personality disorder; a disorder that has an incredible focus on low self worth and fractured identity. If I have made bisexuality a part of my identity it is because I reclaim it. When you have been told since coming out that your sexuality doesn’t really exist (you’re either one side or the other of monosexuality) or that you’re not queer enough because your partners are not the same gender as you or that your traits as a bisexual are sinister and greedy then it’s easy to start seeing a splintering of the self based on the prejudices of others, both queer and non-queer. But beyond that other queer monosexuals recognise this prejudice that we fall victim to and do not want access to it.
They want their queerness to be legitimate.
And it can be. It already is. Sexuality is fluid and it can only be defined individually at an isolated point in time. There is no invalid sexuality, there is no spectrum upon which queerness can be quantified and it certainly can not be determined by something as arbitrary as a partner’s gender identity. To label oneself as queer, to act and think and be queer, is not to perpetuate a binary logic which uphold structures of cis and heteronormative, patriarchal and capitalist society. To remain uncritically within a binary based on prejudices enforced and created by those who do not understand our struggle, or even solely those radical queers who came before us who did not have our experiences, is to continue to uphold our oppression and restrict our movement within a fabric of queer space and time; a queer dimension that we shape ourselves.
Come sit with us. There’s always a space.
