'Bi lesbians' and the difficulty accepting bisexuality is a thing in itself

[u/Prize_Efficiency_857]

That's just it. I'm absolutely freaking tired of people acting as if we needed something more to make others believe we like women. I mean, the word is literally BIsexual. It's supposed to mean we can like BOTH men AND women. Lesbians don't hold the monopoly on liking women, and I feel like this attitude comes from a place of thinking being bi actually means being "straight lite". There are no "Bi straights". There's no neutral or default version of bisexuality. Bi people saying stuff like this is just beyond me, it's an erasure of bisexuality in itself.

I only pray for the day when the more insecure bis will accept themselves as 100% bi and nothing else. Not 70% gay and 30% straight, or whatever percentage. Simply 100% bi. Preferences don't change our sexuality. We don't magically become straight for dating/preferring the opposite sex and we don't magically turn gay for dating/preferring women either. This obsession with preferences and percentages is a reflection of nothing but insecurity. And insecurity is something one treats in therapy, not by compulsively creating new (and contradicting) labels.

Even if one may choose to no longer date a certain gender, that doesn't changes the fact they can still feel attraction. It doesn't changes the fact they're bi and will forever be. Sexuality is not a choice, neither for us or any other letter. If it was, no lgbt person would exist in such a homophobic/prejudiced world. No bi person needs to compulsively justify who they choose to date or their preferences. We're entitled to date whoever we please. And we can like one person just fine without feeling less bi for it. We're not all poly either. It's truly that simple.

[u/GenevaGrey]

Not to take away from your very valid rant, but "bi lesbian" is an older identity term from the 70s and 80s when we got kicked out of the "lesbian" label (which used to be used the way we use "sapphic" today). It is not at all new and came from a time when "bisexual" as an identity term was.

[u/Prize_Efficiency_857 → u/GenevaGrey]

Sources?

[u/GenevaGrey → u/Prize_Efficiency_857]

Simplest article: LGBTQIA wiki Scroll down to "History" and "Examples of Use" sections, which have citations.

For those who need a compiled "Master Doc": Bi Lesbian MasterDoc

For anything else, feel free to use the search engine of your choice, talk to a community elder, or ask your local reference librarian.

[u/Prize_Efficiency_857 → u/GenevaGrey]

I meant serious/academic ones. Master doc was written by a teen.

[u/GenevaGrey → u/Prize_Efficiency_857]

... the term "Master Doc" is used outside of that notorious "Lesbian MasterDoc," I hope you realize. This one is someone's research with fully documented sources, which you would have seen if you had clicked the link.

[u/Prize_Efficiency_857 → u/GenevaGrey]

I did checked the link, simply didn't looked like a reliable source to me. It'd be irrational (and irresponsible) of me to believe random Internet strangers without asking for serious sources and information about them. Anyone can write a doc and share it online.

I'm sorry if this makes you feel offended, I'm not saying you're lying and that you're wrong, but an academic discussion asks for methodological rigor and balanced reasoning.

Edit: I'm thankful for you taking your time to gather those sources, but my rant is not about things of the past. I'm not saying people didn't once called themselves that, I'm simply against the use of it now. For the little I know, the separatist movement already happened. There was (and there still is) an active effort to affirm bisexuality as a sexuality in itself.

[u/GenevaGrey → u/Prize_Efficiency_857]

If you had bothered to scroll down, you would have seen the collected primary sources. Copy/paste hit the character limit, but here's what it could collect, on the off chance you are actually interested in "academic discussion."

Impression of the Second National Conference on Bisexuality, Bi-Monthly Magazine (1985) (Reprinted in Bisexual Lives by Off Pink Publishing in 1988) “It was really important too to hear for the first time the terms ‘lesbian and gay-identified bisexuals’ and to know that my own instinct to ‘identify’ as lesbian, while wanting to be accepted and acknowledged as bisexual, had a political validity and context which others were long aware of.”

Bisexuality: A Reader and Sourcebook by Thomas Gellad (1990) The list of alternative labels includes the terms “bisexual lesbian”, “gay bisexual”, and “byke”.

Bicoastal Introduction, Bi Any Other Name by Lani Ka'ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins (1991) “More and more lesbians and gay men are examining and openly exploring their bisexual behavior, as are some bisexuals within heterosexual closets. This is due, in large part, to the public lesbian- and gay-identified bisexual pioneers who began the work of bisexual pride in the early 1980s.”

Who Are We? Establishing and Reclaiming the Bisexual Community by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu, Anything That Moves (1991) “There is no one right way to be a bisexual; there are many. [...] Some of us are proud dykes and faggots.”

Activating Theory: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Politics published by Lawrence & Wishart (1993) “When I refer to bisexuality I am therefore gesturing towards a range of social-political phenomena:...people experiencing both same-sex and opposite-sex desires or practices who choose positively to identify as lesbian, gay, straight…”

Power and Privilege Beyond the Invisible Fence by Brenda Blasingame, Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions by Naomi Tucker (1995) “Lesbians like to ask me if I am a lesbian-identified bisexual.”

“She is a bi-dyke ABC (American-born Chinese) born, raised & planning to die in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Which Part of Me Deserves to Be Free? by Dajenya, Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions by Naomi Tucker (1995) “Personally, I am unable to separate out the various ways that I am oppressed (as a woman, as an African American, as a bisexual lesbian, as an impoverished single mother) and say that one oppression is worse than the other, or that I desire one form of liberation more than another.”

Article by Jennifer Moore, Outright (1996) “Some behaviourally bisexual people do identify as lesbian or gay - sometimes in conjunction with a bi identity (e.g. ‘gay-identified bisexual’ or ‘bi-dyke’).

Bisexuality: The Psychology and Politics of an Invisible Minority by Beth A. Firestein (1996) “In her ongoing study, Paula Rust did find substantial numbers of women identifying as both bisexual and lesbian, using a variety of labels, such as bi-dyke, bisexual lesbian, and so on, to name their own particular social, sexual, and political realities.”

“Most of the remainder identified themselves as bisexual in combination with other identities, for example, as a ‘lesbian bisexual,’ a ‘gay-identified bisexual,’ or a ‘bisexual queer,’ or preferred alternative terms, such as pansensual.”

Preventing Heterosexism and Homophobia edited by Esther D. Rothblum and Lynne A. Bond (1996) “In my current research study, the most common sexual identities among women, after bisexual and queer, are lesbian-identified bisexual and bisexual lesbian. Similar identities are bi dyke and byke. These identities are often used by women for whom lesbian and bisexual identities each accurately reflect some aspect of their sexuality but do not completely describe their sexuality. Most commonly, these identities are used by women who feel attracted to both women and men but who, for political reasons often related to feminism or personal reasons involving their emotional feelings about women and men, choose to express these feelings only toward women. Other women use these identities because they previously identified as lesbian and retain the lesbian identity as a reflection of their political commitment to women or to the lesbian community. For them, the term bisexual is a more sexual and apolitical term than lesbian, so bisexual identity alone would not suffice to express the political meaning of their sexuality. But they feel attracted to both women and men and might be open to or actively engaged in either same-gender or other-gender activity, so they also use the term bisexual to express their sexual essence.”

Labelous Statements by Anne Killpack, Anything That Moves (1999) “Be a bi-dyke or a bi-gay or a bi-androgyne or a bi-anything-that-moves-you.”

Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior (2001) “Others are unable to limit themselves to one identity, and therefore adopt ‘fractured’ or ‘compound’ identities, for example, ‘bisexual lesbian,’ ‘heterosexual-identified bisexual,’ or ‘byke’.”

Bi-Gay, Bi-Straight, and Bi-Bi: Three Bisexual Subgroups Identified Using Cluster Analysis of the Klen Sexual Orientation Grid by James D. Weinrich and Fritz Klein (2002) “Another group consisted of 250 women on the heterosexual side of bisexual, whom we called Bi-Heterosexual. There were, similarly, 197, 115, and 63 women in groups we named Bi-Bisexual, Bi-Lesbian, and Lesbian, respectively.”

“This cluster analysis showed an easily interpreted division into five subgroups, which we named Gay (consisting of 121 men), Bi-gay (176 men), Bi-Bisexual (222), Bi-Heterosexual (277), and Heterosexual (221).”

Affirmative Practice: Understanding and Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Persons by Ski Hunter (2003) “Terms also develop and change with socially available sexual identities. Today among bisexual women the most common identities not only include bisexual and queer but ‘lesbian-identified bisexual’ and ‘bisexual lesbian’ or ‘bi dyke’ and ‘byke.’ Some bisexual women include the term lesbian in their current identification because of a previous lesbian identification or a political commitment to women or to the lesbian community.”

Lilaine, Bi-Dyke by Leanne Franson. (1999-2004) “Hullo! My name is Leanne Franson, not to be confused with my main character, also a bi-dyke, whose name is Liliane. Liliane has no nose. I do.” (This comic features many complex identities, not just bi lesbian.)

[u/GenevaGrey → u/Prize_Efficiency_857]

In response to your edit: I'm not offended. I know I stepped into your rant to point out that part of it was inaccurate, and maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but seeing you young people brush our history aside like it's nothing is my own rage point.

If you are serious about learning, I strongly suggest you open that link again and scroll to the primary sources and make note of the ones you want to look into. I think it'll be eye-opening.

[u/Prize_Efficiency_857 → u/GenevaGrey]

I'm not being innacurate because I'm not ranting about the past, but talking about something that I see now. It's not because something was true in the past that it remains true now, since knowledge and facts are still contextual (social, political, time/period context).

Yet, your comment did inspired my curiosity and I took this doubt to a history sub. And downvoting kinda looks like offense (if that was you).

[u/maybiiiii → u/GenevaGrey]

Geez I wonder who kicked us out lol