Skill issue. I'm a massive butch dyke who loves women, AND I love fat fuzzy bear men in a very faggy way. Fat sweaty butch/bear sex is incredible.

If you really, genuinely, absolutely do not like men or want to date them, fine, that is perfectly allowed, but as a nonbinary bisexual, I do get very tired of the "bisexuals don't ACTUALLY like men" thing. It's just another aspect of gender essentialism and blaming random individual men for systemic patriarchy instead of working toward true liberation and gender equality.

tme/tma are not exclusionary, they're for describing trans folk directly targeted by bigotry against transfemininity and those who aren't. like black/non black in discussions of antiblackness

these terms also don't imply your sex whatsoever, tme =/= afab

intersecting oppression means certain folks in trans spaces will be more vulnerable than others ( transfems and also tpoc, disabled trans folk, etc ) interpreting that as "competing" for oppression/erasing yours is deeply ignorant and harmful.

transfems calling out their oppression are not the ones infighting.

transfems calling it out from other trans people are not the ones infighting.

being trans doesn't make you incapable of transmisogyny

There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.

And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.

But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.

Pansexuals and queer women said that bisexuality is binary and means attraction to cis men and women and they also “felt that claiming a bisexual identity indicated an outdated, offensive belief that there are only two genders”.

whereas actual bisexuals defined bisexuality as broad and inclusive of all genders.

It’s also interesting that all the people claiming bisexuality was transphobic were cis whereas the trans people interviewed didn’t have a problem with the bisexual label.

In addition, bisexuals expressed that they found the debates around whether bisexuality is inclusive very upsetting and it made them consider hiding their bisexuality or changing their label.

1. it displays that you have no understanding of basic research concepts such as the difference between quantitative and qualitative research, what they’re used for and what kind of sample sizes are viable for them

2. trying to dunk on peer reviewed research with a snappy one liner because the findings make you feel bad or clash with your pre-existing beliefs

1. people saying you cant generalize this to mean all pansexuals are biphobic because the small sample size and qualitative nature of this study means it doesnt represent larger trends: sure, maybe. but what it does prove is that it exists. there are pansexual people whose understanding of bisexuality are biphobic and differ from the definitions of bisexuals AND that this difference causes tension and distress to those who do identify as bisexual. it may not be representative of every pan or bi person, but it does prove the existence and lived experiences of relevant people. (as an example, i would not discredit a qualitative study that interviewed 20~ single mothers about their experiences with the available social structures on their city and their effectiveness in supporting single mothers, simply because the sample size is small. their opinions are still reflective of real life issues that real life people experience, and that is worth acknowledging and considering.) so if you’re saying this isn’t generalizable, you’re right! but it wasn’t meant to be and doesnt have to be. if you’re saying it is useless and social sciences are bad as a result, i need you to consider that even the most niche group of people need their struggles considered and validated in the social sciences. small as the sample size is, if its a problem that exists, it deserves to be documented and discussed and if possible fixed. if there are 10 separate single mothers saying social services suck and theyre living in poverty, we need to acknowledge that this is a real issue. the same goes for these bisexual people saying that they experience tensions as a result of biphobic understandings of bisexuality by pan people.

2. people saying “but i’ve never met a biphobic pan person” or “X person in my life is pansexual and i love them, vice versa”: good for you! thats genuinely great and i don’t want anyone to experience biphobia either, so im glad to hear it. at the same time, this isn’t (necessarily/always) a critique of pansexuals as individuals. this is a critique of the label that functions exactly the same as ‘bisexual’ but constantly aims to distance itself from bisexuality. in doing so, the meaning of bisexuality keeps getting muddied because people who are, essentially, bisexual keep trying to define themselves differently. this is how biphobic and tranpshobic definitions of bisexuality come about. and so i have to ask: if bi and pan are the same, why do some people prefer to identify as pansexuality? to say “it just feels right” ignores the element of social influences that people often subconsciously act upon (in the same way some women will say they get plastic surgery to feel confident, but if you asked them why they get the specific procedures that they do, or why they felt unconfident before, you find that the root cause is the social influence of the existing beauty standards that make them dislike how they looked while also making them want to look a certain way).

we do not exist in a vacuum - our choices are often influenced by the views of society, even when we think they aren’t. it makes sense to want to distance oneself from bisexuality when the label is so vilified. but distancing yourself doesnt allow you to challenge the stigma attached to bisexuality, instead allowing it to perpetuating while the people who do allow themselves to identify as bisexual are further villainized. to concretize this idea, consider the stereotype of bi people being exclusive of trans/nonbinary people. if i were to be someone attracted to all genders, i may feel like bisexuality doesnt fit me as well as pansexuality does. and i may feel this way subconsciously, without even realizing that it’s because i don’t identify with the stereotype associated with bisexuality. and so i decide to identify as pan, and when people ask why, i just say “it feels right”. and so i never question whether or not the stereotype is true, and i never challenge it because i don’t have to, now that I’ve decided to identify as the newer label that i feel is “better”, all without ever questioning why it is i feel that way. and if i, subconsciously, judge bisexual people as being transphobic in the future, well then so be it, i guess. and so when someone asks me whats so different between pan and bi, i come up with something that furthers the misunserstandimg of bisexuality, like “i care about hearts, not parts”, or “i dont just like 2 genders”, which erases the lived experience of decades of people who have called themselve bisexual all while miseducating others on what bisexuality means and furthering the stigma.

how many times tv shows and movies about lgbt issues have shied from saying bisexual by saying “no labels”, and how they’ve found a new way to avoid saying bisexual. how this feeling of “bisexuality is too restricting” has become so mainstream, how so many people are convinced pansexuality is freer, more fluid than bisexuality. how dating a trans person automatically makes u “not fit” into bisexuality.

but also the core of the lgbt community is rooted in mutual survival and support. it was a shield against systemic and personal violence on the basis of lgbt identities.

bisexual women experience almost double the rate of assault and abuse in intimate relationships compared to heterosexual women, more than lesbians as well. recent studies have shown 3/4ths (75%) of bisexual women reported intimate partner violence. the statistics are even higher for bisexual women who experience multiple forms of marginalization, such as disabled bisexual women, trans bisexual women, and bisexual women of color.

feminists have, for years, attempted to get domestic violence against women listed as a form of hate crime (with unfortunately little success) but the same logic can, and should be, applied to violence against bisexuals in relationships that occurs due to their sexuality. this is not simply another form of misogyny, tho the intersection of biphobia and misogyny plays a key role, as bisexual men also experience higher rates of abuse and assault.

violence against bisexual women in their intimate relationships is a form of hate crime and bigoted violence that the lgbt community was designed to address and protect against. the idea that bisexual women should refrain from bringing their relationships into discussion in lgbt circles is directly against the very fucking purpose of the community in the first place.

All people have a tendency to be unconsciously biased toward seeing trans women as untrustworthy, unsafe, lacking vulnerability, the problem to be solved rather than a person to be taken care of. And this is not less true in trans and queer and feminist communities. It’s just more unconscious, and more propped up with social justice, feminism, queer lib, leftist, and anti-oppression beliefs. This book is talking about this in context to a physical public situation of harassment, but this is true of social conflicts too, including on social media, in friend groups, in all kinds of situations. The unconscious bias also gets taken advantage of by people who know what they’re doing and hide behind that bias to make their mistreatment of transfems seem reasonable—again, often supported with social justice and anti-oppression rhetoric. TERFs aren’t the only people who do this! It felt so incredible to see this spelled out in print, plain as day, an actual book calling out a real thing I’ve experience more times than I can count, that all transfems I know go through, and that I still feel crazy for seeing because there’s so much gaslighting about it. You know how when you KNOW something is real, but you feel defensive about that knowledge, like you have to be ready to hold onto it, and then you see something confirming that knowledge for you in no uncertain terms and it feels like “wow maybe I wasn’t crazy all this time!” That’s how I felt seeing this.