Sunday Dispatch: My Queer Reflections on My Bi+/Pan Identity
If you read my piece on bisexuality that I published here on Substack a few weeks back (or basically any other reputable resource on the topic), you already know that bisexual/pansexual/+ folks comprise the largest slice of the LGBTQIA2S+ pie. And, that we face a kind of isolation specific to bi-identity: isolation from both the straight community and the queer community.
What I did not go deeply into in that article was the personal impacts and ramifications of bi+ identity in my life. So, as I generally do in my Sunday Dispatches, let’s dive deeper.
A Storied Past
I knew I was attracted to people of all sexes from the time I was aware of being attracted to people. In my early sexual development, queer women were intriguing, attractive, and compelling in a way men just were not. In my mid-teens, I shared my first sexual interlude with an older queer woman. This was about a year-and-a-half before I had my initial sexual encounter with a (slightly more age-appropriate) straight, cis guy. This relationship was followed by a few other relationships and encounters with male-identified folx, and continued sexual interludes and dalliances with AFAB and femme-presenting folx in a variety of circumstances.
Later on, in the early ‘90s, for a while I dated and slept nearly exclusively with queer-identified AMAB folx, all of whom existed at a variety of different points on the gender-expression spectrum. This was, in addition to the most accurate representation and sexual expression of my gender identity and sexual orientation at the time, a conscious act of love and solidarity (and facing down stigma) with my community in response to the AIDS epidemic.
That period was followed by a very extended period of very gender-indiscriminate, very pan, very actively slut-identified sexual activity which included me sleeping with a lot of my friends, and a lot of strangers. The range of genders, sexualities, activities, and relational formats was an array across all the co-existing spectra.
Along the way, I got pregnant with and married a cis man. We had kids, and I slowed my roll a little bit, for a little while. When I rolled back around to actively engaging with other liaisons and lovers outside my marriage, the first person who brought me to the question of “Is it time to re-enter the fray?,” was a genderweird friend with whom I had been in community for a long time. The simmering attraction had always existed, barely below the surface.
And, throughout the years, even though I have at most times in my life, from my preteen years through the present day, had lovers and/or close romantic and/or semi-platonic friendships with people of more than a single gender almost always concurrently, I have not always identified as bi+ or pan. There have even been periods of time where I identified as resignedly/uncomfortably heterosexual.
Why?
Internalized Biphobia
Unarguably, I had, and have, internalized shit to work through. I have early conditioning that results in some internalized homophobia and biphobia that I have had to work through—and continue having to work through as vestiges arise. I mean, truthfully, the early conditioning is explicitly about existing on any range of the LGBTQIA2S+ spectrum, and I have had to unpack a lot, just like most folx in this culture (or many others).
That conditioning did not end in my early years, and into my teens and twenties, I was slandered and slurred by someone I should have been able to look up to when I was at all public/out about my same-sex relationships.
Concurrently, I have faced a considerable level of internal fear regarding bi-fetishization, and this is also based in very real experiences. People (especially cis-het men) can be really gross about bisexuality in a lot of directions, and when it’s in the direction of AFAB (and especially on the spectrum of femme-ish presenting) bisexuality, that can come about as the assumption and expectation of threesomes from (some) partners, and leering “Can I watch?” comments from sometimes random passersby.
On another axis of hesitation is the fear of bi-isolation, again, based in lived personal experience. The fear of ostracization by straight folx, and the concurrent disqualification by other queers as “not queer enough.”
And finally, the biphobic accusations of greediness get tiring—but I’m generally non-exclusive, soooo. (And then we veer over into the biphobic myth of sluttishness. Well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I guess!)
Exhaustion, Ostracisation, and The Ceaseless Din of “Choose a Side”
I was a Witch (still am), an Anarchist (who according to some is not Anarchist enough), an imperfectly polyamorous/nonmonogamous slut (with some remaining attachment issues), a (sacred) whore/sexual healer, and a rural queer/genderweird mom of two young kids. And, I lived a fairly public life.
I still am many of these things, though my kids are grown now, and minus the whoring—and TBH my sluttishness has definitely decelerated in recent years.
Back in the ‘90s and aughts, my wasband—who was in support of all these activities, more or less—and I had a plan for keeping custody of the kids if I was ever arrested for doing sex work. We knew that all the other lifestyle factors would also come into play—polyamory, Paganism/Witchcraft, sex-positivity, queerness, Anarchism—if the shit hit the fan, so we were prepared; the plan was that he would disavow knowledge of and/or agreement with my illegal and “immoral” activities, we would divorce, and he would keep custody of the kids. And, that privately, he would safeguard my place in their lives.
That we had to have this plan was stressful, and real, and exhausting.
I chose (to some extent) to live out loud—and still do. I get that this is—to an extent—a choice. And, I come from a highly visible and storied rural family. For example, my parents’ divorce was front-page news on the local rag, The Mendocino Grapevine, when I was a teen. The headline read, “The End of an Era.”
Why do I continue to choose visibility? As an author and a person invested in creating change on multiple levels (political, social, cultural), visibility is the name of the game.
Still, at times, over the years, out in the sticks, I grew tired of fighting the rural prejudice and castigation. Presenting as visibly heterosexual and allowing myself to be perceived as cis was, for a time, the path of least resistance. While this choice offered other soul-crushing elements of isolation and invisibility, as anyone who has lived a closeted life for any amount of time knows, there are losses and gains to this decision or requirement.
Protectivity of My AFAB/AFAB and Femme(?)/Femme Relationships
Even when more publically visible, I have kept many (if not most) of my AFAB/AFAB and/or femme/femme relationships more under the radar than my het-appearing relationships. Some of my reasons for this I’ve already broached in the biphobia section of this Dispatch. But here I will explicitly call out the male gaze, and consumerism and the AFAB body—and specifically AFAB/AFAB sexual engagement. There is a cultural level of invasiveness inherent in a sexual and/or romantic relational AFAB/AFAB and/or femme/femme dynamic.
Partially due to these considerations, many of my lovers and loves who are AFAB and especially femme presenting AFAB folx, are not necessarily out as bi+. And further, when a relationship is not defined by the question of whether or not we are (currently) sharing a sexual connection, defining a relationship can get tricky.
I do not stand on principle, I do not judge these choices, and I know that my loves and lovers will do what is best for them as far as identification, being out, or living a more circumspect life.
I also do not want my relationships to be exposed to that level of invasion. These connections and commitments are tender and abiding, and vital, and close to my heart.
They are not always (or even often) for public consumption.
A Sweetly Tender Place: Biromantic Love
Throughout my life, I have had, and invested in, biromantic engagements. In most cases these have been long-term relationships with folx I love, prioritize in my life, and may on occasion share sensual or sexual interludes with. The sexual component of these relationships is not the most important nor defining factor, but is often undeniably a component.
These relationships, undervalued and unrecognized by dominant culture, have always been hard to define and live in the territory of queer-semi-platonic love.
These relationships are a large part of what defines my ongoing commitment to relationship anarchy; these relationships have been, and continue to be, central to my life, and to my identity.
My loves over the years have been many, and whether we were fucking, or sucking face, or what-have-you, or not had, and has, little to do with my level of love and dedication.
I cherish the flexibility of these connections. The fluidity. The lack of expectation and the ability to stay current in the connection—the contour, content, and context of it—as it arises, moment to moment. These relationships are, and have been, an integral part of the fabric of my life.
(And, if you are reading, you loves know who you are. I love you, and am grateful for your presence in my life.)
The only downside of these relationships and their lack of definition is often a lack of demaracation of the concept of “over,” and a lack of ability to properly mourn these connections, and little recognition of loss within the community context when it happens.
And I am reminded that so many queer relationships have been this way for eons; uncelebrated, unseen, unrecognized, and quietly and secretly mourned when they end or drift away.
Pansexual Identity and The Gift and Promise of T4T Connections
As the terrain of gender identity and sexual and romantic love shift—for me, and in our queer culture—the terrain of T4T connection opens up, transitioning my sexual orientation and identity more solidly from bi to pan; the binarist tone of bi just starts to feel more constricting, less and less accurate. Even the loose meaning of bi as “same-as and other-than” loses meaning as my gender shifts and my attractions continue to evolve and stay current and engaged. When gender is unique, and fluidly expressed, the concept of same-as and other-than really start losing relevance.
(And, while bi+ is still the dominant catch-all term, especially in regards to quantification of our community, I envision that someday that may shift to pan, so as to be more inclusive of those of us who are out exploring the/our edges.)
T4T connections open a whole new relational arena for me as I emerge more fully into my trans and pansexual identity. In my dawning villain arc, I hope to continue letting go of any reliance on what others think of and/or make up about my queer identity. I have so little to lose now that my kids are grown, and I don’t need to care any longer whether I’m “queer enough” by someone else’s standards, when my loves, lovers, and close-in community members accept me and affirm me as who I am.
An Unwillingness to Be Defined
As I write, a deeper understanding emerges—as is often the case with this process for me: I recognize my unwillingness, my lack of desire, to be defined. I will continue growing and evolving, and defining and redefining, as new language, and new opportunities for growth, arise.
For now, I comfortably identify as pansexual. (Although I will still say bi when folx don’t understand this term.) I comfortably identify as fluid and flexible and queer.
I have no idea what tomorrow may bring.
To quote Octavia Butler in the written-well-before-its-time Earthseed book, Parable of the Sower, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.” (And, BTW, if you haven’t read that book, do so. Now.)
With some excitement (and as always a tiny bit of unease or trepidation, thx C-PTSD!), I stand in the flow, ready to embrace the new days, and new ways, coming. This is the world we radicals are dreaming into being: toward our collective liberation.