Monosexism is...

Monosexism is...

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, today, I want to talk about monosexism, biphobia, and bi erasure. Not only by straight people, but also by the LGBTQ+ community itself.

I've seen many people being against the concept of monosexism, but let's be honest, they are mostly gay people, and they don't face biphobia.

(Because yes, biphobia is not a subset of homophobia. It's its own thing.)

Anyways, here's a letter covering this topic that is monosexism. Enjoy.

Monosexism is...

The pervasive belief, held by many straight and gay people, that people can only be attracted to one gender, and not more.

The pervasive belief held by many straight and gay people that bisexuality, polysexuality, and pansexuality do not exist.

The pervasive stereotype held by many straight and gay people that bisexuals and other people who are attracted to more than one gender are "greedy", "confused", "cheaters", "liars", "undecisive", "slutty", and so on.

Gay and straight people alike being outright saying "I don't want to date a bisexual person because they will cheat on me with someone of a different gender immediately !!!"

The pervasive belief held by many straight and gay people that they're "smarter" than us because "we have the decency to pick a side" (actual quote from a gay person)

The pressure held both by many straight and gay people that we "have to pick a side already !"

The pervasive belief that only heterosexuality and homosexuality were the two valid orientations, and even during the "modern studies on sexuality" (by that read the 1980s), classifying bisexuality as "secondary homosexuality". (As if we were just a subset of gay people and not our own unique orientation, smh.)

The pervasive belief held by many straight and gay people that being in a same-gender relationship makes us gay and being in a different-gender relationship makes us straight.

Gay people barring us from pride if we're "het-partenered" and telling us right away that a different-gender relationship invalids our queerness right away and makes us "dirty heteros who want to invade the ~actually queer~ community".

Bisexual and other people who are attracted to more than one gender staying closeted more frequently than gay people, being more likely to be the victim of abuse, mental illnesses and other problems, but no one talking about this.

Bi-erasure, calling bi celebrities "allies", and erasing their bisexuality by calling them either straight of gay, until they are demonised when speaking up or being out (see the case of Amber Heard when she came forward about Johnny Depp's abuse). Biphobia that keeps us in the closet. Biphobia that makes our self-discovery only harder because we've been engrained so hard that you could only be straight or gay.

Monosexism is the system holding biphobia.

And it needs to stop.

Anyways, I just wanted to vent. Of course, being gay is NOT a better situation that being bi, because in the straights' eyes, we're all "deviant" for some reason. There's no priviledge in being in the LGBTQ+ community, and even if we face different hardships, what we have in common is not being straight, and being marginalised for this fact.

But saying that gay people haven't tried to suppress bi and multi-gender attracted people from the conversation by saying we're just "faking it" and "stealing resources", is completely wrong.

I call this monosexism because it's a belief that has been seen among both straight and gay people alike. They've been using the same arguments to invalidate multi-gender attraction. They're trying to discredit our orientations all the same.

It's time to speak up, my fellow bi/poly/pan people. It's time for pride.

Anyways, this was just a fun rambling, I'll stop it right there. I'll see you very soon with a new post !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !!!