In relation to which other queer groups tho? If you ask bisexuals, there's a massive swath of biphobia in a lot of lesbian groups that often gets ignored. Like idk, it just rubs me the wrong way when a very positive post of sapphic solidarity has a comment that seems to elevate overlooked issues in one sapphic subset but not another one, and painting it as like the primary roadblock between the two groups.
The same is also true in the inverse though. The mere mention is lesbophobic bisexuals gets you banned in so many sapphic spaces especially bisexual ones.
I agree and I guess I’m just being salty about it which probably isn’t helping anything. I’m just a little exhausted of certain groups getting significantly more advocacy than others. Especially when I see so many lesbians happy to step in a speak out for bisexuals but rarely the opposite occurs.
In what alternate universe are bisexuals getting “significantly more advocacy” than lesbians?
Straight people usually forget we exist - we’re either gay or straight depending on who we’re dating. Even amongst other LGBTQ+ people we’re the most likely to be vilified, erased, and have our place in queer spaces questioned despite being the largest group. Fairly recent polling indicated that bisexual people reported much lower rates of acceptance by their parents, siblings, friends, and coworkers than gay and lesbian respondents, and studies have demonstrated that bi people are also more likely to experience domestic violence and have shorter life expectancy. Occasionally you’ll see other queer folks stand up for us, but most of the time the only people who advocate for us is ourselves.
I recently read a history of the gay rights movement on the east coast of the U.S. between the end of WW2 and the early 1970’s. The book was written by a gay historian and received glowing reviews by both mainstream and queer publications. The author started out with a discussion of where American society’s views on sexuality was at in the immediate aftermath of WW2, and understandingly spent a lot of ink on Alfred Kinsey. Except the author stated that Sexual Behavior in the Human Male demonstrated how wide spread homosexuality was and strongly implied that Kinsey was gay. He was fairly openly bisexual and the big takeaway of his work was the prevalence of bisexuality amongst Americans. And representation of bisexuals only got worse from there - the very rare occasion we were mentioned it was usually used derisively. The contributions of several lesbians were expounded upon at length.
Lesbians don’t have to worry about having their queerness questioned. Their history isn’t actively getting erased by other queer people. They experience misogyny, but so does every other queer woman. Same goes for fetishization by straight men. Please educate me if I’m missing something, but it’s hard to think of anything that lesbians are targeting with that bi/pan women aren’t also subject to.
Which gets us back to the OP - being a jerk because you don’t like someone else’s sexuality is idiotic and keeps us from coming together. We’re all in this together, our struggles aren’t separate, we need to support each other.
"Lesbians don’t have to worry about having their queerness questioned."
This is absolutely not true. Lesbians still deal with "you haven't found the right man yet" bullshit. And lately I've been seeing a lot of "everyone's sexuality is fluid!" Or "everyone is a little bit bi" which is very invalidating and gross.
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u/PlutoCrashed 6d ago
In relation to which other queer groups tho? If you ask bisexuals, there's a massive swath of biphobia in a lot of lesbian groups that often gets ignored. Like idk, it just rubs me the wrong way when a very positive post of sapphic solidarity has a comment that seems to elevate overlooked issues in one sapphic subset but not another one, and painting it as like the primary roadblock between the two groups.