✨ reflecting on lesbian visibility week! ✨
as a brown, muslim, south asian bisexual/acespec wlw
Why are bisexuals in sapphic relationships being highlighted in LESBIAN visibility week? It’s not “Sapphic Visibility Week”!
From the official sites: “LVW is inclusive: our umbrella covers many identities, including lesbians, queer women, bi women, trans women, nonbinary folks, and those connected to lesbian culture.” “Our aims remain clear: to build public understanding of LGBTQIA+ women and non-binary people’s lives, to increase lesbian visibility and to create a legacy that benefits our community everywhere.” So why didn’t they name it “Sapphic Visibility Week”? Probably because the term “sapphic” is not as well known and does not carry the significant multicultural weight of the word “lesbian”—just naming it is an act of power, and it can work as a descriptor as well as an identity label (just like the word “gay”).
Besides, many characters/public figures being highlighted for LVW that never identified themselves as bi have also never identified themselves specifically as lesbian either. Nobody is complaining about that, though. Are we taking a “lesbian until proven bisexual” approach? Should we really be strictly categorising sapphics entirely based off their potential attraction and/or relationship history with men? Doesn’t it simply make more sense and isn’t it more unifying to celebrate sapphism as a whole in LVW just as the founders intended?
If that’s the case, why is there a separate Bisexual Visibility Week? You don’t see lesbians being celebrated during BVW, so why are bisexuals centering themselves in LVW? It’s just greedy! “Bisexual” and “lesbian” are literal oxymorons (“involves attraction to men” vs “zero attraction to men”) and there can be no overlap. Only lesbian spaces are asked to be inclusive of everybody else and it reeks of lesbophobia!
LVW and BVW are not meant to be mutually exclusive! “Lesbian” is usually defined by homosexual (similar gender/sex) attraction between women. It was a traditionally gendered term but lesbian spaces have always historically been gender- (and by extension, sexuality-) diverse. Bisexuality is often seen as the simultaneous embodiment of both homosexuality and heterosexuality. Therefore, bisexuality is highly diverse and intersectional, and throughout history bisexuals have been involved in “lesbian”-labeled communities, movements, and identities (such as—lesbian bar culture, lesbian butchfemme, lesbian support during the AIDS crisis, dyke marches). “Bisexual” is a fairly new identity label and the term “lesbian”, before radical feminist separatist movements in the 70s, was also more often used as a generalised descriptor much like the word “gay” is still used today.
It naturally follows that plenty of bisexuals’ experiences will remain relevent during LVW, while a small number of lesbians consider themselves multisexual/bisexual as they are attracted to multiple non-cis men genders—which would be relevant in BVW. There’s nothing wrong with the overlap! It’s not really a men vs non-men dichotomy: Some bisexuals aren’t attracted to men, and some lesbians are attracted to nonbinary and/or trans men. Bisexual visibility also aids lesbian visibility and vice versa, as both work to encourage queer women’s agency. Bi and lesbian pride destigmatise the experience of questioning and switching identities—because neither is inherently less sapphic!
Bisexuals were only referred to as lesbians because bisexuality was stigmatised and purposefully erased. Bisexuals deserve their own identity to organize for recognition! Lumping bisexuals in with lesbians keeps promoting the worldview that bisexuality is only a series of phases of “straight” and “gay”. Many institutions celebrating LVW don’t even bother talking about BVW. People only advocate for bisexuals still being bisexual when they’re in hetero relationships but never in gay ones.
I don’t doubt that some people citing bisexuals during LVW (particularly those who don’t care about BVW) may be engaging in bi erasure. However, the solution to bi erasure isn’t more separatism between “bisexual” and “lesbian”—this implies bisexuals and monosexual gays/lesbians have nothing in common: Only bisexuals have fluid identity and monosexuals are all “born this way” while the rest is comphet (this is bioessentialist with no scientific basis, and a pipeline to transphobia and gold star glorification), les4les relationships are inherently queerer than relationships involving bisexuals as bisexuals can never fully decenter men (this is bimisogynistic purity culture), and that bisexuals should stop “infiltrating” lesbian spaces (which fractures and encourages witch hunts in already small sapphic-centered communities and discourages questioning folks from adopting the “lesbian” label when they’re struggling with comphet). Separatist terminology shifts like this further feeds the misinformation campaign that bisexuals were never involved in “lesbian/gay” history in the first place, immediately erasing centuries of bisexual history and credit bisexuals deserve as active participants of queer movement.
While bisexuality is often a singular identity, it’s still literally defined as more than one-way sexuality. It’s definitely frustrating that folks are biased towards highlighting bisexuals in hetero-presenting relationships (and not those in same sex relationships) as an excuse to claim that bisexuals are only appropriating queerness and/or partaking in patriarchal oppression. We might temporarily deflect these attacks by claiming, “Leave bisexuals alone! Bisexuals are in queer relationships that exist outside the dichotomy of straight and gay!” which is often true but it fails to clearly address monosexist stereotypes or holistically communicate bi lived experience. Instead, if folks are so enthused about bisexuals in hetero-presenting relationships potentially passing through cisheteronormative society with certain privileges, the same folks should also be asked to show equal concern that bisexuals can belong in queer spaces and face similar oppression to gay/lesbian individuals. After surviving the majority of queer history suppressing our full identities just to be accepted, bisexuals do deserve to start anew with their own unique coalitions. To drive home that bisexuality is queer therefore inherently exists outside of cisheteronormativity even in cis M/F relationships shouldn’t need 1:1 mirroring by completely divorcing bisexual sapphic/achillean couples from lesbian/gay communities too. In order to establish bisexuality as a stable identity, we don’t need to deny our multifaceted and/or fluid nature and completely sever ourselves from lesbian/gay (or even straight) communities themselves—just from their patriarchal, monosexist standards.
When unlabeled sapphics are readily accepted in LVW but bisexual-identified sapphics aren’t, it lends to the stereotype that all sapphics are by default lesbian because bisexuals can only be perceived as authentic if they explicitly express (completely arbitrary) levels of attraction towards multiple genders. It also implies that simply realizing your bisexuality is stepping away from committed sapphism, when in reality many bisexuals are involved in sapphic/lesbian culture even despite the patriarchy pushing the narrative (often through queer communities as well) that everyone inevitably prioritises attraction to men.
Bisexuals can NOT be in “lesbian” relationships. It’s only a lesbian relationship when two actual lesbians are involved. Bisexuals are in sapphic/queer relationships that may at most be lesbian-presenting.
Labeling is not an exact science and terminology is always evolving differently around the globe. Most activists, organisations and academics approach language with curiosity and as a dynamic device to understand queer cultures. Some bisexuals in similar gender relationships only prefer the terms “sapphic” and/or “WLW” alongside “queer” (or the masculine counterparts “achillean”/“MLM”). Some bisexuals refer to their different gender relationships as “hetero-presenting” but “queer”, others may use “heterosexual” and even “straight” with no issue.
And many, many bisexuals in similar gender relationships refer to them as “gay” and “lesbian” relationships! It’s actually quite common. And there’s nothing wrong with that, especially since “lesbian” is a historically and globally powerful word that deserves to be kept in use as a descriptor for sapphism, which will take many decades to collect the same level of heritage. There isn’t necessarily an inherent difference among sapphic relationships simply based on the specific sexualities of the individuals involved. Most countries don’t have separate terms like sapphic/achillean/wlw/mlm/queer anyway so this entire argument is very western-centric. While most people have their own opinions and preferences, the pseudoscientific attempt to prescribe these categories as bioessential fact is also colonial and white supremacist.
Lesbians, the smallest sexuality group and the only group that excludes cis men, are asking bisexuals, the majority group in the LGBTQ+ community, to back off from lesbian labels and spaces—or else it propagates the idea that lesbians are all secretly bisexual and are attracted to cis men. All this infiltration is causing fewer people to identify as lesbian these days. Historically, bisexuals were only included amongst lesbians because they were either forced to identify as lesbians or mistaken as lesbians anyway. You don’t want this either!
In real life, most “lesbian”-labeled spaces and events are welcoming of various identities. There isn’t a real consensus among lesbian populations on labels, especially as the LGBTQ+ community does not behave like an authoritatative democracy. That would antithetical to queer movements that fight for personal autonomy and the right to self-realisation. There is also no way to justify that any one subgroup should have the authority to establish such changes in historically shared umbrella terminology. And there is no evidence that gatekeeping identities, labels and spaces for the sake of respectability politics (ie appearing more palatable to cisheteronormative society) would actually protect marginalised communities. Historically, this has only led to unsustainable movements that eat themselves (like political lesbianism, LGB without the T, and transmedicalism). It’s feminism 101 to not blame the existence of misogynist men on the existence of women who have consensual relationships with men. Men don’t abuse women because they’re “confused” about sexuality labels, but when they simply don’t care about consent. Statistically, bi women are actually the sexuality group that are in most danger of intimate partner violence (as well as: identity suppression, health issues, substance abuse, poverty), showing that a quantitative majority within a minority doesn’t necessarily correlate to a lack of marginalization. (Conversely—I support any non-bisexual labeling themselves as bisexual for their own safety or comfort, even if they switch labels later. I don’t care if that fits stereotype that “bisexual” is a stepping stone, it is the public’s responsibility to not be bigots and just believe queer identities at face value.) In addition, not all bisexuals are even attracted to men; asexuality and aromaticism also exclude attraction to men and are even tinier groups—Fortunately, radfems have yet to astroturf aro/ace communities to spread the kind of exclusionary, divisive rhetoric (biphobia and transphobia) that have ultimately caused imposter syndrome among folks that want to identify as lesbian or get involved in lesbian coalition. It’s nice that folks have more options for mainstream sexuality labels now—but if we’re concerned about lesbian community shrinking, lesbian bars closing down, etc—we need to be inclusive.
There is, however, plenty of historical evidence showing many bisexuals thrived within lesbian cultures and willingly adopted lesbian language whilst also advocating for their authentic sexualities to be recognized and destigmatised. And we will continue to do so! It warms my heart to see us included in LVW. :)
Hope everyone had an amazing Lesbian Visibility Week! 🤎🧡🤍🩷💜
