Why aren’t the attractions and labels of monosexuals scrutinized to the degree those of bisexuals are? I have never seen it. Have you? I don’t see the same kind of hand-wringing about monosexuals dating nonbinary people and whether or not they must switch to identifying as pansexual as there is about bisexuals.

We’ve all heard this one before: “Saying you’re bisexual but attracted to nonbinary people is saying those people are really men or women because bisexuality means you only like the binary! Binarist douchefuck!” Even when we say that, yes, we are well aware there are more than two genders and we know that nonbinary people are not binary but we still prefer to identify as bisexual for whatever various reasons we may have, it doesn’t matter because BINARIST DOUCHEFUCK I CAN’T HEAR YOU LA LA LA

Some claim we are never attracted to nonbinary/trans people. Two common attitudes that come from this are: we are either willfully and deliberately bigoted by identifying as bisexual rather than something else, or it’s a more pitiable “well you can’t choose your attractions, so they can’t help if they aren’t attracted to nonbinary people, poor things.”

Either way, we are made into lesser beings, and the dialogue has been framed so that the only way to escape is to abandon bisexuality as an identity altogether.

It doesn’t matter one bit that all of these things are lies, that many bisexual people are attracted to and identify as trans/nonbinary and that we say so repeatedly. We are inconvenient to their biphobia and so are dismissed as an insignificant minority, if not outright ignored.

Because biphobia is what it’s about. If it really were about fighting binarism or supporting trans/nonbinary people, bisexuals wouldn’t be singled out because everyone has said something at some point that reinforces the gender binary, nor would the existence of trans/nonbinary bisexuals be completely disregarded.

In the time I’ve been on Tumblr, I’ve noticed something about “social justice” activism here: rather than learning to examine and root out their prejudices, some people have learned only how to better cloak them in activist language. They know they can’t say “Bisexuals are cheaters/will leave you for cock” without looking like an obviously biphobic asshole, but they can say “Bisexuals are more concerned with genitals than other orientations.” They can’t say “Bisexuals care only about sex and not about activism” but they can say “Identifying as bisexual is evidence one is ignorant about social justice issues.” Others just nod and accept it because it reinforces their preconceived notions in a way that isn’t so obviously biased and inflammatory.

These are often people who also give lip service to the idea that we are all living in a society steeped in prejudice that we can never fully escape no matter how much we try and that our thoughts and actions towards others will always be colored by those prejudices, yet they insist they are not at all biphobic but simply explaining bisexuality in a completely objective, rational way.

Yeah, sorry, I don’t think they are somehow magically exempt from the biphobia that pervades society. Maybe if more people actually practiced what they preach and tried to confront their prejudices particularly against bisexuals we wouldn’t have to keep having this stupid argument all the time.