normally, this is the type of post i would put on my side blog, but i think i want to make a point that people actually see. feel free to unfollow for this i guess, but please finish reading before you do.
i'm gonna start out saying this. i am pan critical. please, if you're pansexual or pro pan, don't stop reading this. just listen for a second, with an open mind. i used to be pansexual, actually, and after that, when i realized i was a lesbian, i was just a supporter. however, the more research i did, and the more bi people who were critical of the label i listened to with an open mind, my preconceived notions stopped lining up with the facts i knew.
i'm gonna let you in on a secret: nobody who's "panphobic" thinks pansexuals aren't lgbt. nobody! well, that's a bit of a generalization, but what i'm saying is thats not the argument.
one thing i want you to know is that if you are pansexual, you and your experiences with sexuality are valid. the only issue i and many others have is not the people, but the label.
it's been covered in many posts before, and in some of my own, but the tl;dr of it is that the label itself not only has a problematic past, but a problematic present.
there have been a few different definitions of pansexuality. in order to prove my first point that there is no fundamental difference between bisexual and pansexual, i'm going to go through the most common ones i see in order of use and briefly go over why they perpetuate biphobia and transphobia, and i will link to some sources explaining stuff in more detail, and probably better because i am not an expert, nor am i bisexual. i am operating off of the information that trusted articles and bisexuals have shared. bisexuals, please feel free to correct me if i present any innacurate information or it i mess up my wording, and feel free to add on if i missed anything!
"hearts not parts": pansexuality is inclusive of trans people while bisexuality is not - this is completely false. it's incredibly transphobic to say that some sexualities include trans people while others don't, and it is also incredibly biphobic to insinuate that bisexuals don't like trans people. trans people are included in every sexuality.
pansexual means being "gender blind"/ caring more about personality while bisexuals have preferences - also false. this is wrong because bisexual people without preference have existed for ages. to say that they are pan instead of bi because they don't have a preference is ahistorical and biphobic. additionally, saying bisexuals only care about gender/ physical appearance is literally a biphobic stereotype. it insinuates that they're in it for the sex and they aren't committed/ they don't care about the emotional connection they have with people.
pansexual means all and bisexual means two/ two or more (most common definition i see today) - false. this is where i direct you to the bisexual manifesto from Anything That Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality (1990) by the Bay Area Bisexual Network, where it states this: "Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or dougamous in nature; that we must have "two" sides or that we MUST be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don't assume that there are only two genders." pansexual has always been inclusive of all genders, and this is also evidence as to why bisexuality has always been inclusive of nonbinary people. saying that nonbinary people are not included in every sexuality is entirely wrong. nonbinary people are not a monolith, nor are they some magical third gender. you can't say you're only attracted to some genders. you can't divide attraction to nonbinary people based on identity when it comes to sexuality, because no nonbinary person looks the same! please read more about this here, this explains it way better than i can.
now that i've gone through that, i'd like to point out the problematic history of pansexuality, a masterpost on what I've gone over and more by a bi person, more reading on why pansexuality perpetuates biphobia, and even more evidence.
i would recommend checking out all of these sources, as they do a fantastic job covering some of what i tried to cover in this post but much better.
now, where do we go from here? the reason pansexuality rose to popularity, in my opinion at least, is because of internalised biphobia. knowing what you know now, that pansexuality and bisexuality are in no way fundamentally different, why do you choose to identify as pansexual?
i know how it feels to have the word you use to describe your identity, which is such an important part of you, attacked. trust me, i get it. but you have to step past that and look inside yourself a little bit. that discomfort you might feel with the bisexual label? that's internalized biphobia.
i can relate to this to some extent, but obviously not in the same way. as i stated before, i identified as pansexual before i identified as a lesbian. i liked the word. it was inclusive and it had none of the negative connotations lesbian or bisexual had. later, i realized i wasn't attracted to men, so i made the switch to lesbian, but it was hard. because of all those negative connotations from society, i still feel uncomfortable with being a lesbian sometimes. and i recognize that it isn't because i'm not a lesbian, but it's because of how society views lesbians. pansexual is a relatively new term to come into popular consciousness, so it has much less stereotype surrounding it compared to bisexual.
i'm not asking you to change your mind because of one post. i'm asking you to seek out information and other posts by bisexuals, ones you may not agree with, in order to get a clearer picture. and then just think about it for a while. that's all i'm leaving you with. come to your own conclusion. all i ask is just for you to listen, and PLEASE stop acting like actual arguments are in any way similar to "exclusionism" like aphobia, truscum bullshit or making fun of people with unconventional pronouns or ways of describing their genders.