#discourse talk

on one hand, pansexuality itself carries some pretty heavy biphobic ideas woven into the very identity. The predominant of these is that bisexuality is exclusionary of nb/non-gender conforming people, which is 100% false. bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders whilst pansexuality is the attraction to ‘all’ genders. The other is that bi people are more shallow, and are attracted to physical appearance over personality, while pan people are people who care about personality and cannot be superficial by definition uwu. In my experience, when I was still trying to find a label that fit me, I did initially identify as pan because of the whole “hearts not parts!” rhetoric that I found so prominently there, before educating myself better and eventually settling with bi. To me personally, there is no distinction between bisexuality and pansexuality. They both are about having attraction to people across multiple genders and both are inclusive of nb people! To a lot of people though, bisexuality as a sexuality rooted in attraction to traditional genders - which is an upsettingly common misconception. Some people also believe that the distinction between bi and pan is that bi people have to have a preference for a particular gender over the other whilst pan people are neutral, which is false again. 

on the other hand though, I am strongly for people choosing the labels that they personally feel most comfortable with (there are a few exceptions, usually incredibly specific made up sexualities but especially the appropriation of lgbt identities eg. straight men calling themselves he/him lesbians ://). And to some people, there is a distinction between the two that makes them feel more comfortable identifying as pan than bi. Sometimes it can be a simple as liking the sound of one more than the other, or even the flag, and you know what? That’s totally okay and I respect that! However, if your logic boils down to the fact that you don’t believe bisexuality is inclusive of non-gender conforming people, or that bi people are more inherently superficial than pan people, then you are biphobic. 

and to make this extremely clear: I DO NOT THINK ALL PAN PEOPLE ENFORCE HARMFUL BIPHOBIC STEREOTYPES. I DO NOT THINK ALL PAN PEOPLE ARE BIPHOBIC BY VIRTUE OF BEING PAN. I JUST THINK THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN ASPECTS SURROUNDING THE IDENTITY THAT ARE DESERVING OF SCRUTINY.