BIPHOBIA

it’ll be slightly different for everybody, so it’s not absolute, but i’ll give you a general outline.

if you find someone cute or nice looking, you just appreciate them - kind of like art or something else that looks pleasing, without any romantic or sexual feelings. you can still feel ‘drawn’ to them but not really want anything. this often leads to attraction, but you aren’t going to be attracted to or interested in everybody you think is mildly good looking. for example, i think most of my friends are nice looking, but i don’t want to like, hold hands with them or kiss them. 

attraction to someone usually means that you want things with that person, whether or not you’d ever act on them or not, and whether or not they’re rational. you might get excited about seeing them or develop a crush on them. it can be either romantic or sexual or a mix of both. 

you don't need to use the split attraction model (separating sexual/romantic orientation) since 'sexuality' originally included romantic orientation anyway, although I can see the need if you're on the ace spectrum. either way, though? you can use which ever label you like. 

You don't need to 'know for sure' right now. I know it feels like you need an absolute label right now, but you don't. You can take as much time to work it out as you need. You can even use both if you want! Their meanings  can be pretty similar and it's often blurred which one means what.

lots of lg people and allies are reeeaaally showing how much they don't care about bi and trans people right now.  i'm sorry that you're going through this. Bi people and trans people (who also get the 'if you're a het relationship don’t show pda at pride!!’ bs) have lead pride from the beginning, and it's horrible to see what pride has become. 

lol i can’t fathom what kind of mindset you have to come up with something so stupid but i’ll try

 imagine:

‘babe, i'm not a lesbian anymore. i'm in a relationship with you, not every woman, therefore invalidating any attraction to women i have had before or may have in the future :)'

or 

 'i have no sexuality until i'm dating somebody!'

stupid, right? that’s you. that’s what you’re suggesting. sexuality apparently disappears when you’re dating someone but also doesn't exist until you're dating someone.

I’m sorry that you’re going through this!

Your friends and parents don't understand bisexuality, like most non-bi people. You could try and educate them on bisexuality, and explain how harmful their words are? There are lots of resources online if you feel that you’re struggling to get the message across yourself.A lot of biphobia is just ignorance rather than malice, but it doesn’t always feel that way when you’re the target of it.

*I’m assuming that you meant ‘not a lesbian’ for the last part

‘Femme’ along with ‘butch’ have historically been lesbian terms, although the distinctions between lesbian and bi women came after their usage (and women in f/f relationships are often classed as lesbians regardless). 

I think the problem arises from when feminine women and gay men started to use the word 'femme' to refer to simple femininity, rather than the particular use that lesbians usually employ, and thus appropriating the term that has a lot of history. 

There’s also the idea that bi and pan women’s experiences and lesbian experiences are completely mutually exclusive, so mga women don't need to use 'lesbian terms'. 

Romantic attraction is more than just finding people attractive.  You can think some men are attractive without wanting to be in a relationship with them.   If you're only interested in dating women & think you’re a lesbian, then chances are that you are a lesbian.  

You don’t need to be 50/50 to be bi. Any kind of attraction to more than one gender ‘qualifies’, even if it’s 0.1%. It’s also not about who you date, so even if you didn’t ever get in a different-gender relationship, you’d still be able to call yourself bi.

Sexuality fluctuates all the time, especially for bi people. The same way some people might find different features or traits attractive at different times, we can be attracted to different genders to different degrees at different times. You can call yourself whatever you want to depending on what makes you feel most comfortable, but you’re not suddenly ‘not bi enough’ because one day you like one gender more than another.

It doesn’t. Being bi means attraction to more than one gender. For some people that may be two, for some people that might be four, etc. Etymology is silly when words mean different things all the time depending on how we need to use them as a society. 

Attraction to people of different genders isn’t based on whether that person is cis or not, so no they don’t need to just be binary cis people. You can be attracted to binary people, which includes trans and cis people, or non binary people, as well as other genders.