I hate to see this from fellow queers in the global south. I get it, your âborn this wayâ and âI canât control that Iâm not attracted to the opposite gender at allâ narrative helps you gain some sort of conditional acceptance based on pity from a materially dangerous society. Rather than thinking of you as a deviant pervert, they can view you as helplessly sexually disabled instead. Or maybe it helps them accept queerness as something naturalâwhich is what we want and is great for all of us without being dehumanising or infantilising, right?
The thing is, queerness may be perfectly natural however there is no evidence saying itâs bioessential. This palatable âborn this wayâ narrative being pushed by the media has been what led to hijra communities (roughly, a culturally significant transfem umbrella) in South Asia being temporarily fairly accepted as a âthird genderâ, only to receive a recent wave of phobia towards âself-realised trans peopleâ when the general public realised not all hijra-identified people are born intersex as previously believed by deliberately ignorant and bigoted idiots.
Socially, we know for a fact that gender is a human construct and as a result sexuality is a fluid concept. (Yes, this applies to everybody, even monosexuals that are settled in their identities for their entire lives, even if that makes you uncomfortable.) Relying on the censorship of the scientific facts only leads to conditional, limited and highly precarious acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community from larger society as well as divisive intracommunity conflicts and respectability politics that fracture the movement. [Exhibit A where the existence of bisexuals who identify as gay/lesbian (a historically consistent but stigmatised intersectional occurrence deliberately erased by the media) is suddenly the âreasonâ that homophobia exists; Exhibit B where the existence of trans endosex hijras (a historically consistent but stigmatised intersectional occurrence deliberately erased by the media) is the âreasonâ that intersexism towards hijras existsâOh no! The straights realised we were sociopolitically double-crossing them to placate them and now theyâve gone back to mistrusting all of us!]
You might think contemporary label purity and the idea of âlâm only engaging in queer relations because I didnât have a choiceâ serves you, a cis lesbian or gay man in the global south. But what about bisexuals that did still have an âoptionâ to suppress their queerness and assimilate with straight society ⌠but chose to follow their hearts and engage in queer relationships anyway? What about the bisexuals that are literally committed in visibly queer relationships alongside you? How is your agenda helping the bisexuals who canât help that theyâre queer, too? Or did you think âbisexualâ is a synonym for âbasically straight person that makes the rest of us look that way too when they associate with our gay/lesbian communitiesâ? Are only monosexual lesbians and gay men deserving of their agency and freedom to love who they want in the global south?
You say in our part of the world âthe distinction between lesbian and bisexual has real, material consequencesâ. Well, in my native language nobody even knows the word for âbisexualâ, though anybody and even their grandmother in the village would recognise the universally prominent English terms âgayâ and âlesbianâ. In fact, the same conversion abuse is levied at any queer person; if anything, my long-term girlfriend and I coming out as bi (and painstakingly explaining what the hell âbiâ even means) would probably put us in more danger of being sabotaged because our families will believe âthere is still hope for usââIs that the so-called âdistinctionâ that is supposedly protecting queers in the global south? If I ever come out, I donât care to reveal Iâm bi and would rather say Iâm a lesbian. I donât particularly care if self-important netizens think bisexuals are somehow putting âthe reals queersâ in danger by âappropriatingâ (rather than literally embodying) globally significant queer identitiesâthat have historically also belonged to bisexualsâwhenever weâre literally trying to survive. And Iâve seen with my own eyes the kind of abuse bisexuals in our country face from their monosexual partners who falsely accuse them of cheating or threaten them to âpick a sideâ, but I guess âabuse and murderâ are only wrong when you didnât consciously âchooseâ queerness? The statistics of bisexuals being at comparitively higher life-threatening risk of intimate partner violence, poor health, substance use and poverty compared to monosexual peers donât lie.
Biphobes are so incoherent. You say bisexuals have a choice (unlike the âreal queersâ, who donât) and itâs some sort of privilege that bisexuals abuse by always choosing heteronormativity, but then bisexuals trying to engage in gayness/lesbianism (as they have always done) is obviously counterfeit for clout, some sort of new western invention, so these bisexuals should âuse a different labelâ. (Which in itself sounds eerily familiar to how local phobes in my country talk about queerness itselfâa figment of âwestern invention poisoning societyââbut I rest my case.) However, judging from your own fears of being associated with âchoiceâ narratives often applied to bisexuality (that you yourself are eagerly affirming), you reveal that even you are fully aware how dangerously those viewed as functionally bisexual are treated in the global south. Bisexuals are the ones who âthink of queerness as a fun exclusive club rather than a real identityâ and âare desperate to appear actually oppressedâ so âthey make up words like monosexismâ, but there is an obvious inherent societal safety in claiming monosexual identity that lesbians and gay men are fighting tooth and nail to not share with bisexuals, deliberately blocking bisexuals from accessing this privilege. Queerphobes (hey! that includes you now!) claim sexuality is a choice because they want to punish people that, in their eyes, chose wrong. And instead of advocating for every personâs right to choose their own lifestyle, youâre saying âNo! Iâm one of the good ones! I swear!â If the âdistinctionâ or separatism between bisexual and gay/lesbian (that is a fairly new, western phenomenon, actually) has indeed ever played a role in keeping a monosexual gay man/lesbian safe in my experience of the global south, itâs been at the selfish expense of further marginalising bisexuals.
