Being Bi+

Last Thursday, September 23rd, was Bi+ Visibility Day. I didn't really know about it until just a few days beforehand. But I'm glad that I found out about it - because it gave me the opportunity to attend multiple sessions from a forum/conference run by Stand Bi Us, which has been really awesome. They've had sessions over Zoom talking about so many different issues for bi+ people, including bi-erasure, pronouns, breaking out of the binary, polyamory, talks from writers, First Nations people, an inter-generational panel, a poetry reading space, discussions around pets and books and games and plenty more. It's been a lot of fun, and a great opportunity to connect more in to queer community. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk a little bit about what this means and looks like for me in a bit more depth - what being bi+ has meant for me.

To start with, let's talk about what I mean when I say bi+. Bi is short for bisexual, which is someone attracted to two or more genders. Bi+ is then inclusive of other more specific identities that people have used for multi-gender attraction, including polysexual, omnisexual, pansexual, and more. And, of course, this also includes romantic attraction, not just sexual attraction; but I won't talk about the split attraction model too much here. I'll leave that to its own post, or feel free to do some of your own research there.

As I've noted before, I come from a Christian background. The sort of Christian that tended to assume people were straight and cisgender (though I hadn't even heard of the word cisgender until a few years ago), that that was the default, and anything else was a deviation from the norm and probably either sinful or a result of the broken nature of creation. And though it's been quite a while that that hasn't resonated with me or felt true to the God that I know and love, I still fell into that same thinking when it came to myself.

Because as early as I could talk or really understand sexual attraction at all, I could tell you that I was sexually attracted to men as well as women. From early in high school. But my background said that that wasn't okay - and so I called it lust. I labelled that attraction as lust, and not okay. And it took a very long time (much too long, honestly) to come to the realisation that actually, this attraction was just the same as the sexual attraction that I had to women. There really wasn't any difference. Nor was there any difference for non-binary or intersex people, people of other genders or sexes. There were different bodies and body types, yes, and I'd find different things attractive with different people - but I could be sexually attracted to any gender pretty much without differentiation that I could tell. And that's why I say that I'm pansexual.

Romantic attraction is a little bit different, though, because that wasn't as equal. I didn't find myself romantically attracted to guys when I was younger, so that wasn't something I had to try and wrestle with as well. Though perhaps if I did, maybe I would have figured these things out sooner? Who knows. More recently, though, as I've started to connect better with myself, and also just know more people; there are definitely non-binary people that I can find romantically attractive, and even some men (goodness! radical). It's kinda on a sliding scale from masculine to feminine - the more masculine someone presents, the less likely I could be romantically attracted to them, and the more feminine someone presents, the more likely I could be romantically attracted to them. But it's not a sure thing. It's just an increased or decreased likelihood of the possibility of something happening. And so that fits within me being omniromantic. I'm still romantically attracted to all genders, but not equally so.

It's interesting entering into this new space of being at home with this part of myself and who I am over the last - ten months or so now? - in a time when there's more and more knowledge and acceptance around multi-gender attracted people, but still plenty of ignorance or phobia or discrimination and the like. I haven't been at the receiving end of much of that yet; but I've also had the benefit of being in lockdown for much of the time. I'm sure difficulties and hardship will come in time. But right now - I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to know myself, and be honest with myself, and live as myself, not as someone else.

Some myths to dispel. It's not about "being greedy" or "indecisive". This is who I am. You don't call pizza greedy or indecisive for being bread, dairy, fatty, and possibly also protein or veggie groups all at once. That's just what it is, it wouldn't be pizza without that.
It also doesn't mean that you need to be scared about me flirting with you if you have no interest in me. I want relationships with people that are interested in me, not that aren't. I'm not trying to change what your sexuality or way of being attracted to people is. That's yours. Me being me doesn't change who you are.
We're also not just one in a million. In actuality, we make up the largest piece of the LGBTQIA+ pie - I believe it's over 40%. You might not be as familiar with us as you are with folks that are lesbian or gay, but there are actually more of us.
Being bi+, though, doesn't automatically equate to having sex with lots of people, or the desire to do so. There are folks like that who are bi+, yes. There are folks like that who aren't bi+ as well. And there are plenty of bi+ folks who are more reserved sexually too, just like there are non-bi+ folks that are. If you're wondering which I am; sorry, that's not the sort of thing that I put up on a blog post! Feel free to start a conversation; but that's not permission to be lewd right out of the gate. In all things, consent is important.

Think that's it for now! I'll probably do another one like this around being non-binary, and another around polyamory, at some point. Perhaps around neurodivergence, as well, since it's been a while since I've written about it. But I hope you liked that dive into things.