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butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker · 4 years

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I'm glad we are talking more about "gay genders" and the way that being LG can often produce genderweird experiences, which aren't exactly transgender but are also not uncomplicatedly cis. It's always been true, but I'm happy that there's more discussion and visibility.

But team, the next step is absolutely to consider bisexual people. We are comfortable seeing cis[ish] gay men and women embrace these complicated gender places, it kinda figures, it makes sense, it feels organic. But why shouldn't this be equally true of bisexual people? (It's because on some level, we are seen as essentially straight, as straight people who sometimes have same-sex relationships)

there's no real reason why, if we accept that gay people often develop ideosyncratic genders, that bi people wouldn't too. Possibly, the gaygenders of bisexual people would be even more peculiar, because they are passing through straight and gay spaces, through same and opposite sex relationships, it's super messy.

I've thought before that perhaps we might understand the development of genderqueer, non-binary, agender identities as a bisexual thing. This isn't to erase people with those identities who are monosexual; but I guess I would like to survey how many "straight in every possible way except my gender" people are in these communities, because I suspect it's...very few. On the other hand, I think both bisexuality and asexuality would absolutely predict people who grow up watching gender on the television, and thinking "I'm not really any of these genders". Or, in reverse, I think being non-binary or genderqueer would predict people who can't exactly say whether they are gay or straight, and who would grow up watching gender on television thinking "I have no idea how I fit into any of these relationship structures".

And some partial evidence for this is looking at bisexual community heroes - Bowie, Prince, Janelle Monae, Lady Gaga, Annie Lennox - and observing that not only are they all subverting gender, they're doing it in similar ways, they're part of a recognisable bi genderweird tradition. This includes being kinda circumspect about whether or not they are gay while giving off gay vibes; artificiality and theatricality, but not quite in a camp way; and gender non-conformity. You've got Bowie and Gaga presenting their bodies as alien/other; you've got Lennox and Monae in suits, but in a very sharp and dapper way - not your traditional comfy/earthy butch, it's far more theatrical; you've got Prince's abundance of gender cues, combining feminine dress and styling with almost parodically heterosexual lyrics.

Gaga draws from drag culture, and I think you could also understand Monae as a drag queen (but both of these are gay male artforms). Gaga makes explicit reference in Telephone to the rumours that she is is a man (that people are making assumptions about her gendered body; but this is transmisogynist). Gaga is out as bisexual; she's a cis woman (as far as we know), but her stage persona is being understood as similar to a trans woman, or similar to a gay man. We aren't able to find words for where we place her gender and sexuality, because we aren't recognising that this mess of gender cues...could be a bisexual gender thing. Monae is non-binary, and has written het songs and sapphic songs and a stomping bi anthem. But, for the longest period of time, wasn't putting a label on any of this, aside from that one song about how "I want to be a queer/queen". Queen, of course, being another male-pattern-gay community term. Being a "no labels bisexual" isn't necessarily internalised biphobia or a superiority complex; it can reflect a genuine feeling of vagueness and uncertainty about where to plant your flag. A vagueness which is perhaps inextricable from an equally vague sense of how to fit into a binary gender. Meanwhile, Lennox is heavily involved in AIDS activism. She's clearly identified gay and bisexual men as "her tribe".

Lennox and Prince - who, as far as we know, are straight - but they seem pretty gay - and isn't that the bi experience in a nutshell, isn't that part of their appeal for specifically bisexual audiences? All five performers are characterised by...being simultaneously very out and very closeted. Again, I think that's relatable: a profound desire to be visible, but also a lack of certainty/confidence/ability to define what kind of queer you are. Bisexuality is inherently mute: you are assumed to be what you appear to be. Should we be surprised, then, if bisexual genders seem to take the pattern of "I don't know what I am or where I fit - and neither will you"

So I don't know whether I have the evidence to argue this, but I do think there's an...afab bisexual gender which is blending cues which say "I am a gay woman" and "I am a gay man", or rather, "I am a queer person, and queerness is indivisible from who I am, and so I see myself in queer people who date women and in queer people who date men". And that we should not be at all surprised or disdainful or judgemental or gatekeeping to see bisexual and genderqueer people L existing in this "I'm simultaneously L, G, B and T" place. That's the reality of having a gender/sexuality that never really fits anywhere, which can never really be visible or articulated as it's own thing. One knows one is queer, one reaches for whatever representation and visibility one can get, and it's a magpie gender.

(I don't have any evidence of the opposite dynamic, of bi men being very into lesbian culture or identification or modes of behavior. Perhaps this is a counter argument. But you often can't map the experiences of queer men and queer women neatly together (gay ones, transgender ones...), so maybe this is another example of that. But I would not be surprised at all to find out that femme bi men were into butches, for example.)

CONCLUSION: it is intuitively correct to me that bisexual people would experience genderweird as part of their bisexuality, just as many gay people do. I have some theories about what these genders might look like, but I want to emphasise that I don't think they are objectively correct (there are non-bisexual people in the gender spaces in describe; and I would not dream of beginning to try and gatekeep them as bisexual-exclusive). At the same time, I think it would be politically valuable and personally helpful to bisexual people to develop a sense that bisexual genders exist; that they can be a source of pride rather than embarrassment; that our genders aren't just a mimicry of gaygenders or straight ones but can have characteristically bi elements and be part of a bi tradition; to have confidence and joy in the ways our genders don't fit neatly into straight or gay frameworks, and that we might have additional needs in relationships to affirm our gender place; that being bisexual might bring on actual dysphoria, that being bisexual might bring on things which makes neither cis nor trans frameworks a fit for you...and all that jazz. Bi people may very well develop genderweird that is similar or indistinguishable from gay genderweird; but also produce unique genderweirds of our own.

TL;RDR: being bisexual can produce genderweird, just as being gay does. We should assert this more confidently. It might produce uniquely bisexual genders. We should explore and document these possibilities. We shouldn't do this with a goal to be an asshole to others, because gatekeeping things helps nobody.

#The bi tag #bi pride #actually bisexual #the lgbt community politics tag #the genderweird politics tag

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