Things I Call Biophobia (Reposted from Tumblr)

(Reposting this from tumblr.)

Biphobia I have personally experienced:

• sexual education materials in the 1980s that described homosexuality but did not name bisexuality and treated bisexual attraction as transitory and irrelevant if not acted on
• death threats because I "give straight women aids"
• pressure to have an open relationship because "you're going to cheat anyway"
• followed by abuse when I negotiated another relationship
• having my relationships interpreted as inherently casual by partners
• sexual and physical violence within a relationship
• being blamed for sexual and physical violence because I was "deceptive"
• harassment and physical violence because I don't present as straight
• having my mannerisms exaggerated and mocked by partners and friends after coming out
• being personally mocked by a conservative clergyman (part of an organized anti-gay protest that bussed into the meeting) after outing myself in front of a city council meeting
• attempts to shorehorn my non-binary sexuality and spirituality into dichotomous binary "sides"
• having a psychological therapist repeatedly focus on my sexuality in sessions (thankfully only once)
• hearing my sexual orientation and corresponding politics, spirituality, and aesthetics dismissed as a "phase," "fashionable," and "rebellion"

Biphobia I've witnessed in my culture:

• retributive outing by ex-partners
• bisexuality used as evidence of bad faith in divorce and custody hearings
• the apparent bisexuality of people used to sensationalize crime and scandals
• over 100 years of psychological theory describing me as incomplete, immature, unbalanced, in transition, and confused
• the use of that theory in a century of medical and therapeutic atrocities including criminalization, forced hospitalization, castration, reparative therapy, electroshock, hydrotherapy, medicalization, and mass murder
• seeing my sexuality debated as false on the basis of dubious scientific research in the New York Times
• discovering that the man who "falsified" my sexuality is still getting research funding to explain it as essentially straight or gay
• Bill Donohue using "bisexual" as a slur in describing David Bowie
• non-apologies from a leading sexuality columnist putting the blame for stereotypes on bisexual people for not coming out, in spite of having a presence at pride marches since the early 90s, speaking in front of city hall, and devoting hours to educational work
• monthly articles and op-eds on blogs treating my sexuality as titillating, threatening, problematic, or something to be kept secret
• a mass epidemic of relationship violence and abuse including rape against bisexual people (A "privilege" that can be violently withdrawn by straight partners at any time with the support of legal, medical, psychological care, and religious systems isn't a privilege.)
• bisexual non-monogamy used as the slippery slope argument against same-sex marriage, again, and again, and again, in the 1990s when same-sex marriage was first used as the conservative wedge issue, right up to the current month
• the murder of Lawrence King in 2008 while he attended middle school (and the hate-murder of other bi-identified people since)