vaspider:

kediperry:

bigirlsaregreat:

allotrans:

bigirlsaregreat:

leiaaaorgana:

allotrans:

unpopular opinion: biphobia does not exist as a form of systematic oppression separate from homophobia

That’s not an unpopular opinion (at all), it’s just flat out wrong.

Unpopular opinion: if you are not bi, you do not have a say in what biphobia is and isn’t and need to shut the fuck up 

bi people face homophobia for being same gender attracted. like?? biphobia is inherently rooted in homophobia?? bi people face discrimination that gay people don’t, but biphobia as a form of systematic oppression can’t be separated from homophobia.

that’s nice, and its a discussion bi communities have been having bc the majority of bi people do suffer from homophobia. but i fail to see how a non-bi person has any fucking business in that discussion bc, to my knowledge, you. are. not. bi. 🙂

hey im bi could u explain how op is wrong tho?
what i as a bi woman am being discriminated against at its core is my attraction to women and non-men. and then the additional fact that i am attracted to multiple genders is what makes me vulnerable to biphobia. but those 2 are linked and intertwined obvsly. biphobia doesnt just mean the totality of the oppression that a given bi person experiences? its obviously not separable into, gay people experience homophobia and bi people experience biphobia. biphobia is one of the ways we are marginalized, but in itself not extricable from homophobia, from the same gender attraction that makes us bi in the first place?
pls im trying to understand im at a loss here how that was factually wrong, even if op may have been out of line in saying it.
ty for responding if u care to

Ok, so, here’s the thing. You’re discriminated against because you’re *not straight* and because you’re *bi.* Bi* folks face heterocentric oppression, which is BOTH homophobia and biphobia (among other things which I won’t address here). The two are, as you say, linked to an extent but biphobia does exist as a separate form of oppression and discrimination.

Example: a woman at a gay bar was hitting on me. She found out I was bi and slapped me for not disclosing that up front. Is that homophobia? Obviously not – she thought I was a lesbian and got angry when she realized I was bi. That is biphobia that is separate from homophobia.

Example two: My ex-girlfriend was kicked out of the house she was living in (and paying rent) when the gay man she had as a roommate found out she was not a lesbian, but bi. This is clearly not homophobia. This is biphobia, rooted essentially in her bi status and not in her “being attracted to women and non-men.”

Example three: Bi folks have unique slurs and stereotypes which are inherently rooted not in being attracted to people other than the strict opposite sex, but in their status as bisexual people, e.g. “bi women are inherently interested in threesomes,” “bi people are just greedy,” “bi people are just halfway out of the closet, they’ll eventually either come out at gay or ‘go straight,’” “bi men are terrible monsters whose inherent infidelity is responsible for spreading AIDS to the straight population.” That last one is courtesy of TIME magazine, btw.

Example four: you really should look into how bi people were erased, and still are, from the history of the AIDS crisis, from the fact that the “Mother of Pride” was a bi woman, and our general erasure from queer history. That is expressly because we are bisexual, not for any other reason.

Are bi people affected by homophobia? Yes! But we’re also affected by biphobia, which is a *separate and distinct* thing and has been recognized as a separate and distinct thing for literally decades.

*For the purposes of this post, “bi” will be used in place of m-spec, because I don’t expect you to necessarily know the term m-spec, which means “people who are neither gay nor straight nor ace but experience sexual attraction across the multi-sexual/multi-romantic spectrum.”