Do you think of LGBT as one entity? Have you ever thought of each letter as individual, or separate, or even segregated?
Homophobia isn't just restricted to heterosexual discrimination of LGBT. LGBT can discriminate against straights, and LGBT can discriminate against each other. It's hard to talk about inner-LGBT discrimination, especially since the more prevalent issue by far is straights against gays. It isn't nice to think of the LGBT community as divided and even occasionally pitted against itself in times when it needs as much strength and solidarity as it can get.
In this post I'm going to address one particular issue, which is bisexual erasure. Bisexual erasure is the skewing of evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, news media, and more. It is done by ignoring, removing, falsifying, or re-explaining information on bisexuality and is all too common in our society-- among both heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Bisexual erasure can be harder to identify than straight out homophobia, because part of it is simply denying that bisexuals exist. Why bother insulting a fake sexuality? Gays are fags, lesbians are dykes, transgenders are trannies. There is no one word that serves as a bisexual slur, because bisexuals aren't seen as the same "threat" that the L,G and T are.
The gay movement has come a long, long way, and we forget that much of what the slower-to-rise bisexual movement is experiencing is also what the gay movement experienced at first. Gays were categorized as confused, as going through a phase, as doing it just to be cool or different or rebellious, as not real.
Many people claim bisexuals are cowardly closeted gays who want to retain straight privilege. Others claim bisexuals are straight people just trying to get attention and into the gay crowd. Bisexuals are all too often classified as slutty, easy, greedy, indecisive, confused, cheaters, liars, fakers, indiscriminate of who they sleep with, nymphomaniacs, going through a phase, trying to convert straights, STD-ridden, spreading AIDS from gays to straights, and more.
Haven't heard all of these before? They're not easy to find in academia, in events, in the news, in LGBT protests about their issues. Has anyone heard of how an LGBT community in Massachusetts refused to include "bisexual" in its Pride March title? But go on yahoo answers and you'll find thousands of questions ranging from "I'm confused, I feel bisexual but they're not real" to "Why do gays hate bisexuals?" to "Do I look bisexual? But I am not gross or attention-hungry...". On television shows you'll see Tila Tequila as the drunken bisexual icon, and you'll see Kurt from Glee saying "Bisexual is a term that gay guys in high school use when they wanna hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change" (for more on that episode, click here). On The L Word, the show that was supposed to be all for LGBT advocacy, you'll see the few bisexual characters realizing they're actually gay and insulting the one who wants to date a man. Go to school as openly bisexual and you'll more likely than not hear most of them. And yet, go to a GSA meeting to talk about LGBT issues and find that this is not one of them.
So why is it that this problem seems to be addressed de facto, but not de jure? "Gay political groups often protest that there are no 'bisexual issues,' that bisexual rights are subsumed under gay rights, and that bisexuals will be liberated and accepted fully once gay rights are won" (GL vs BT). I can't say it any better than that. How often do you hear the terms "bisexual marriage", or "bisexual couple"? Some say you can't have a bisexual marriage/couple because you can't tell they're bisexual by looking at them. Many people say that since many bisexuals settle down eventually with just one gender, it means they eventually turn straight or gay. But if you like blondes AND brunettes, and you marry a brunette, do you stop liking blondes?
Just like everyone else, bisexuals have standards. They have likes and dislikes and aren't any "easier" than any other sexual preference. They have the ability to stay in a committed, long term relationship with one gender just like a monosexual person has the ability to be loyal and happy with a partner of one characteristic they like and not another.
Perhaps you noticed how in previous posts I've said sexual "preference" as opposed to "orientation". Sexual orientation is a term exclusive to homosexuals. It does not include gender identity for transgenders, and it implies that one is oriented in a particular sexual direction, unlike many bisexuals. This makes bisexuality "stand out as a failure of orientation or a dual orientation, a product of confusion, promiscuity or indecision" (seriously, this site is awesome; GL vs BT).
Our world is based on dichotomies, white and black, man and woman, straight and gay. It cannot be said too often that everything comes in shades, and sexuality is no exception. While gay issues are quite relevant to bisexuals (and, indeed, relevant to everyone-- the civil rights issue of equality for all is political, not just personal-- when we fight for LGBT rights, we fight for everyone's rights, for me, for you), there are issues neglected which the bisexual movement is pioneering, such as new forms of responsible nonmonogamy like polyamory. As a rectangle is not a square, bisexuality is not polyamory-- but polyamorous people can be bisexuals.
The point is, LGBT is made up of L, and G, and B, and T. What people say about bisexuals now is the same as what people said about gays before them and interracial couples before them, and in the end, they're just as legitimate as the other two. Let's not forget that.
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