The Anti-Binary Power of Bisexuality

Bisexuality is a sensitive topic for many. Along with its outright rejection, a growing criticism within the past two decades or so is that it’s “binary,” reinforcing gender divisions.

As a nonbinary bisexual, this idea strikes as ignorant and contradictory to many bisexual experiences. One’s label has little to do with their personal views on gender. Plus, bisexuality has been — and continues to be — defined as “attraction to all genders,” “attraction beyond gender,” and “attraction regardless of gender” in addition to “attraction to men and women.” The last definition, which isn’t as “binary” as people seem to believe, is what I’ll be focusing on.

Bisexuality and nonbinary identity have much more in common than people think (hell, bisexuality was sometimes theorized as essentially only possible if one identified as both male and female), especially when people insist bisexuality can’t exist. Claiming that attraction to men and women is impossible reveals a particular understanding of not just sexuality, but gender itself. People deny bisexuality because it challenges their views on both.

Sexuality Filtered Through Gender Dualism

We often view straightness and gayness as opposites in a dichotomy, which implies that men and women are opposites. If a woman attracted to men is the inverse of a woman attracted to women, then the targets of attraction must also be antitheses. Consider that many imagine bisexuality as “part straight, part gay.” Those who refuse to see it at all conclude that one cannot possibly have these contrary attractions. Why?

In “Reclaiming Sexual Difference: What Queer Theory Can’t Tell Us about Sexuality,” Susan Feldman points out that the impression of any inherent dualism with bisexual identity is misguided. Bisexuality has three different contexts, the third the most popular today: 1) a combination of male and female sex characteristics in an organism, 2) a combination of feminine and masculine characteristics in humans, and 3) attraction to men and women. Feldman writes:

The shift from the second to the third definition of bisexuality, for instance, represents the displacement of the internal limit of the subject and the symbolic category of gender onto the new category of sexual identity at the end of the 19th century, a period when many of the traditional ideologies of gender were losing their ability to secure subjects’ investment and identification and thus to guarantee their consistency and identity. The now-visible fissures in the subject and category of gender were masked by the creation of the new symbolic category of sexual identity, which externalized the division within the former through the creation of two new subject positions: the heterosexual, whose “proper” object choice masks the limit of his or her gender identity, and the homosexual, who on the basis of his or her “improper” object choice is made to bear the burden of embodying and representing the inconsistency and limits of heterosexuals’ gender identity. Essentially, the category of sexual identity functioned to supplement and thus mask the limits of gender through reference to object choice.

Notice how from the beginning of the construction of sexuality labels, people positioned gayness and straightness as mutually exclusive. The nature of this supposed inverse renders bisexuality “impossible” as one seemingly cannot have both an “appropriate” and “inappropriate” attraction. Despite our heterosexist system constantly dismissing bisexuals as confused, bisexuality sure seems to bemuse the system.

Regardless of one’s opinion on gender, most people continue to associate gender with bodies as society has taught us to do. Even if we try viewing others as gender-neutral to correct our subconscious assumptions, we all have preconceived ideas of masculine and feminine bodies. Differences in secondary sexual characteristics (and in more intimate settings, genitals) determine this for the most part. They’re what we take into account when seeing people, and our brains categorize them accordingly.

Arguing that men and women are complete opposites thus ignores that sex differences aren’t exclusive to either, regardless of whether they’re cisgender or not. A woman can have facial hair and a deep voice; a man can have breasts, long hair, and a petite figure. There isn’t a clear-cut division between penises and vaginas either, as that too is a spectrum of sorts.

We can compare physical masculinity and femininity to height or body weight. There isn’t a specific height where we can call someone objectively short. Likewise, where exactly does “skinny” end and “chubby” begin? Where is the line between “chubby” and “fat?” A number on a scale? How do we determine and see that number when we can’t weigh someone with our eyes? It’s much easier to distinguish between these categories’ extremes, but when the differences are less visible, it gets tough.

The dichotomous way others see sexuality shines when they believe one’s bisexuality is void in a relationship. There are two types of relationships in people’s minds: “gay (same-gender) relationships” and “straight (opposite-gender) relationships.” One’s romantic endeavors, therefore, define their sexuality. Hardly anyone would describe a monogamous relationship as bisexual. Some believe bisexuals must simultaneously date men and women at the same time to be “true” bisexuals. Then there are the pervasive myths that we’ll always leave a partner of one gender for another, or that we can only be satisfied with both a man and woman at once. That’s how people see bisexual sex, too — always threesomes.

So how, exactly, are men and women so clearly contrasting in nature that being open to both is impossible? And how, if we can enjoy both, is it unthinkable for us to be satisfied with one? Nobody says it’s impossible to like short and tall men at the same time while remaining faithful to one short men. Men and women aren’t distinct species — notably, sexual dimorphism in humans is dramatically low compared to other animals. Realistically, there’s nothing a man could look like or do in a relationship (or just in general) that a woman could not. While some bisexuals date both at once, many are fine with one.

“I think most people who aren’t bi think our attraction to men and attraction to women are separate from each other,” an acquaintance of mine once brought up in a conversation.

They see men and women as inherently different, so we can’t be attracted to them in the same way. Bisexuality is seen as this split attraction because people view it in binary terms, but I’ve always felt that my attraction to any gender comes from the same place. It’s not two pieces, one half for men and the other for women. It’s a whole thing. I’m attracted to good-looking people in general, not “men” and “women.”

Descriptions and experiences like these aren’t hard to come by among bisexuals. With bisexuality comes a realization that the gender divisions currently in place aren’t as essential as people think.

Many heterosexuals view the love between a man and a woman as sacred (which fuels the rhetoric that same-gender love is sinful), while many gays and lesbians grant that status to same-gender love as a counter. However, having the capability for either type of attraction, especially if one lacks a gender preference, invalidates the idea that we can accurately put either form of love on a pedestal.

With this in mind, it’s telling how some gay people see bisexual same-gender attraction as lesser than that experienced by gay people. When we say our same-gender attraction doesn’t inherently feel “purer” than our different-gender attraction, that we love our partners with equal intensity regardless of gender, they insist it’s because we must experience love in the “inferior” way straight people do. This is especially true for bisexual women, who lesbians sometimes accuse of having the “male gaze” for women.

Because bisexuality hints at men and women not being entirely divorced from one another, it isn’t allowed to exist freely. Ultimately, we must combat the way society’s portrait of gender difference shapes our ideas of sexuality if we are to combat biphobic stigma.

Gender-Nonconformity and Sexuality

Quite a few people affirm that gender and sexual orientation are completely unrelated. This is a rather simplistic declaration. While they certainly aren’t the same, we can understand sexuality labels as the combination of one’s gender and the gender they’re attracted to. For instance, if a woman solely likes men, she’s heterosexual; if she’s exclusively drawn towards women, she’s a lesbian. Gender and sexuality inform each other more than some realize, especially concerning roles and expression.

Part of male masculinity in our culture is heterosexuality, and the same goes for feminine womanhood. Society expects women to involve themselves with men and vice versa. Some gay men — especially in sexual scenarios, I find — see bisexual men as more masculine because of our attraction to women. Several other gay men point out their childhood femininity as an early indicator of their sexuality, and many people surmise that a masculine-presenting woman is more likely to be a lesbian.

Gender-nonconformity has always been a staple in the LGBTQ community. To depart from heterosexuality is to deviate from gender expectations. Society casts gay men as effeminate and lesbians as mannish, reassuring itself that it’s feminine to like men and masculine to like women, therefore the “correct” gender and sexuality remain linked. Something particularly notable here is the old sexual inversion theory, which suggested that people are gay due to “an inborn reversal of gender traits.” In this view, they felt that they were of the “opposite” gender. (This is probably where the whole “transgender people are just super gay” idea comes from.)

Unlike straightness and gayness, however, bisexuality resists this gender link. In her article, “Playing with Butler and Foucault: Bisexuality and Queer Theory,” April S. Callis explains:

Bisexuality, on the other hand, cannot be so easily matched, because it does not allow gender to be wholly tied with sex object choice. If a person is choosing both sexes as erotic partners, her or his gender cannot be matched with sexuality. A woman who sleeps with men and women cannot be read as either feminine or masculine without causing gender trouble. Either her gender is constantly changing (with her partner), or her gender does not match her sexuality. Further, by desiring men and women she has really removed herself from either gender category, as “men and women” is not an option in either masculinity or femininity.

Even those who mostly adhere to gender roles can’t fulfill them entirely. A bisexual man following the traditional male expectation of protecting and providing for his partner differs from a heterosexual man doing so because the bisexual’s role may not exclusively apply to women.

We can imagine bisexuality as androgyny. Abstractly, it eludes the supposed partition between masculinity and femininity and challenges the simplistic notion that “liking men is girly; liking women is manly.” Following that logic, bisexuality is both masculine and feminine — and society isn’t a fan of the idea that a single person can be both (just like it can’t fathom that an individual can like men and women). In fact, sexual inversion theory conceptualized bisexuals as intersex (or “psycho-sexual hermaphrodites”), having both “male” and “female” characteristics that led them to desire both men and women.

Despite this, society often views bisexual men as gay (thus effeminate) and bisexual women as hyperfeminine (to many straight men, a bisexual woman’s attraction to men is for their enjoyment, but so is her attraction to women), while gays and lesbians hold onto the idea that bisexuals intrinsically obey heteronormativity. It isn’t too coincidental that everyone desperately pushes us to one end of the masculine/feminine spectrum.

“Are You Gay or Straight?”

Bisexuality destabilizes the categorization of sexuality itself. I mentioned earlier the dichotomy of gayness and straightness. Ask a straight man if he finds a particular man attractive, and he might respond with, “I’m not gay.” If a man asks a lesbian on a date, she may tell him she isn’t straight. Of course, such replies are true statements. But they do hint at something else: the idea that a man being attracted to another man automatically makes him gay, and a woman’s attraction to a man makes her straight. Bisexuality isn’t considered an option, and for an arguably deliberate reason. The public validity of gender and sexuality depends on the ability to perform it.

Sexuality and gender are fundamentally invisible, so we’re often expected to display these aspects of ourselves for passersby to recognize them. Thus, we code certain things as male and female, gay and straight. By doing feminine things, a woman reinforces her womanhood, and she can display her heterosexuality (and, by extension, her womanhood) with her boyfriend beside her. Others around her see these things and confirm (assume) who she is.

To be a heterosexual man, one only needs to exhibit his attraction to women. For men in a society that erases bisexuality, an interest in men is a disinterest in women and vice versa, and people generally feel no need to investigate further. (The reverse is less often true for women as they’re always expected to be attracted to men, but that’s its own can of worms.)

For bisexuals, however, “proving” our sexuality is virtually impossible if we aren’t dating multiple genders at once. If we date the same gender, people read us as gay; if we date a different gender, people see us as straight. If our society were to fully welcome bisexuality as legitimate, it would need to jettison the idea that who one involves themselves with at any given moment proves their orientation. Bisexuality endangers the safety granted to gay and straight populations. As pointed out by “The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure” by Kenji Yoshino:

[…] straights (for example) can only prove that they are straight by adducing evidence of cross-sex desire. (They cannot adduce evidence of the absence of same-sex desire, as it is impossible to prove a negative.) But this means that straights can never definitively prove that they are straight in a world in which bisexuals exist, as the individual who adduces cross-sex desire could be either straight or bisexual, and there is no definitive way to arbitrate between those two possibilities. Bisexuality is thus threatening to all monosexuals because it makes it impossible to prove a monosexual identity.

Gay people habitually rely on the sexual binary to validate their “essential” differences from straight people, and straights need the sexual binary to uphold heterosexism. There must only exist two easily separated categories. Society characterizes heterosexuality as moral, natural, and helpful via reproduction, while homosexuality is unfortunate, dirty, and pathological. While we slowly come to accept the latter in some pockets of the world, the hierarchy remains. Society’s tolerance is conditional, and under this hierarchy, gays remain an oppressed class, subject to the legal will of heterosexist society.

One could no longer prove their gayness or straightness in a world where we acknowledge bisexuality. We’d just have to take their word (which should be the case regardless, but I digress). But if wanting to sleep with a specific gender can’t prove straightness or gayness, if the two are no longer absolutes, then the former could no longer comfortably take its place above the latter. No one could be trusted.

There is no one way to define bisexuality, and this jeopardizes the current polarization of sexuality. Every bisexual has a unique relationship to their sexuality, establishing their sexuality in ways that they can also occasionally separate from what bisexual identity means to them.

For instance, a bisexual man might define the word “bisexual” as “attraction to both men and women,” say that his bisexuality means that he dates both, but maintain that attraction is enough to call himself bisexual. Some bisexuals, although willing to choose any gender as a partner, may not define bisexuality by willingness but rather mere ability. A bisexual who never physically acts on their attraction to one gender, thus, would still be bisexual. What bisexuality means varies depending on which bisexuals you ask.

This phenomenon is less pronounced with hetero- and homosexuality, the definitions of which being a bit easier to pin down. Someone saying they like girls, for instance, is typically enough information to most people. Interestingly, however, senses of straightness and gayness can also blur if we take into account behavioral bisexuality (sexual history with more than one gender).

It took me a while to call myself bisexual instead of gay even after several sexual fantasies and encounters with women. I still “felt” gay. Some men, although occasionally engaging in sexual acts with other men, go on to call themselves straight. Labels like “heteroflexibility,” defined as attraction mostly to the “opposite” gender with an occasional attraction towards the same gender, similarly reveal that bisexual behavior is not entirely limited to those who explicitly self-identify as bisexuals.

Some gay folks recognize sporadically being drawn to different genders but remain faithful to the label “gay.” That’s their right, of course, if they feel their instances of different-gender attraction are ultimately negligible. However, some would also see that as a variation of bisexuality. If we acknowledge these folks as gay, which we can, “gay” could be taken to mean exclusive or just predominant attraction to the same gender. But if we insist on hard-and-fast definitions of orientation, where do we draw the line? (To compare this to gender once again, any amount of not identifying exclusively with one’s gender can constitute as nonbinary.)

Despite the stereotype that bisexual attraction is split equally amongst genders (strangely, there’s also a stereotype that we all have gender preferences… which is it?), the frequency of attraction towards a specific gender doesn’t make someone any more or less bisexual. A gay man could be attracted to just one man a year and still be as gay as a hopeless romantic who’s more active sexually than I am physically. At what point, if ever, does one decide to cross the label line? Well, that depends on the individual — some go back-and-forth between identifying as gay/straight and bisexual. In the end, the distinctions between the labels aren’t as sharp as it seems.

“Not a Choice”?

I’d like to open this with a quote from Joe Adams’ “Love and Bisexuality,” found in a 1967 publication of Vanguard Magazine:

Bisexuality is much more strongly tabooed than exclusive homosexuality; it is associated historically with “pagan” gods of pre-Christian religions and their followers in ancient Greece, Persia, Egypt, Rome, etc., as well as the witches and other heretics during the 13th-17th centuries […] The exclusive homosexual, especially one who attempts to conceal his nature and looks properly guilty, unhappy, or scared, is playing a role which, though “disapproved” and “outlawed,” is nevertheless tolerated by our society. He performs a valuable, though ultimately destructive service, by providing someone who can be looked down upon and pitied. […] The learned authorities […] are much more comfortable with exclusive homosexuality than with bisexuality, because the former can easily be classified as “pathological” (because the failure to be attracted to the opposite sex is clearly a deficiency or limitation of function) whereas the latter cannot.

The obscuring of the fabricated line between orientations threatens the principles that hegemonic gay activism depends on to prove itself to our heterosexist society. A major defense used to explain and justify gayness is that it’s unchangeable. It’s true that nobody actively decides who they’ll find themselves attracted to. Otherwise, there would be no “realizing” one’s sexuality; we’d have always known because it’d be a conscious decision. What how we acknowledge the attraction we feel, however, is up to the individual. Allowing bisexuality in society, let alone LGBTQ politics, eliminates any precise method of proving gayness or straightness.

In LGBTQ spaces, we’re often dismissed or treated coldly for our alleged “heterosexual” side, so we must blend in and say we’re gay to be accepted. In the heterosexual world, we must conceal our similar-gender attraction to avoid homophobia and violence. People frequently paint this protective behavior as indecisiveness or treachery. In truth, the world simply doesn’t see our actual choice — to welcome both similar and different genders as potential objects of our affection — as legitimate. We’re seldom allowed full authenticity.

Basing gay rights efforts on the lack of decision one has in their sexuality seems problematic enough. While we do need to make people understand that we don’t choose our sexualities (not taking into account sexuality labels), that shouldn’t be the main point of our activism. The “born this way” narrative poses a multitude of issues. Harmful groups such as pedophiles routinely co-opt it, for one.

Heterosexuals regularly use that very mindset against us, especially in religious contexts. It echoes the sentiment of “love the sinner, hate the sin,” which asserts that while someone “can’t help” being gay, they can choose not to “act” on their desires. It allows heterosexuals to pity us as if people are “forced” to “live the gay lifestyle.” If our core argument is that sexuality isn’t a choice, then any other decision we make in regards to it — like entering same-gender relationships — can still be looked down upon and restricted. That gets us nowhere.

The narrative has negative racial impacts as well. In the fight for rights, the LGBTQ community frequently defines itself through comparisons with race, since one doesn’t choose to be nonwhite. But essentializing sexuality via the implied essentialization of race ignores that race is not a biological reality. We all have the same human genes, simply varying dominant physical traits. The idea that race has some innate, biological basis fueled scientific racism, and some racists continue to justify their bigotry by pointing to the “biological,” immutable inferiority of nonwhites. In “Blatantly Bisexual; or, Unthinking Queer Theory,” Michael du Plessis points out that the “model of ethnicity” applied to the LGBTQ community allows for the continuation of the community’s racism:

it draws its analogy between race and sexual identity only by separating the two, so that sexual identity appears somehow to be a white ethnicity. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people of color are not considered in this model except as additions to an already established white “gay community,” which maintains the covert racism of that “community.” By claiming civil rights on the basis of a kind of ethnicity, white lesbian and gay groups end up exacerbating a situation in the United States where ethnic and racial groups are constructed so as to be pitted against one another for a share of the rights and resources which the dominant white, middle-class order withholds or grants arbitrarily.

Treating sexuality as a fixed characteristic contradicts the reality of sexual fluidity in many people. I’m not only talking about bisexuals — anyone’s feelings can change. A straight woman could discover her attraction to women later on in life while maintaining her attraction to men. She could also lose her desire for men altogether. This change doesn’t mean she was a lesbian her entire life; she just is one now.

Among bisexuals with gender preferences, those preferences can trade themselves in for new ones or become so strong that the individuals may begin identifying as straight or gay. Not everyone is “born this way.” Arguably, few are. Some people don’t discover their non-heterosexuality until they’re thirty, forty, fifty. What of them? What good is pushing a story that most in the LGBTQ community can’t relate to?

Even if attraction was as universally constant as the physical features people attribute to race, claiming orientations are fundamentally set in stone assists some dangerous ideologies. The supposed (see: nonexistent) biology behind race did not help people of color gain sympathy from oppressors; it only entrenched beliefs that they were inherently degenerate. Who says the same wouldn’t happen with sexuality? People continually search for a “gay gene” to explain gayness, some with the desire to isolate this gene and “eradicate” it from humanity. Regardless of whether such a gene exists, how would finding it progress our struggle to be seen as worthy of human decency? People who deem us sinners and perverts aren’t necessarily concerned with biology.

Adhering to the “we can’t choose” story implies that if non-heterosexuality were a choice, it would be justifiable to condemn it. Should our humanity ever be considered so conditional? Finally — although those adamant on erasing bisexuality may see this one as void — one undermines bisexuals by claiming gayness isn’t immoral simply because it’s not a decision. The “we can’t choose” claim is why many gays don’t see the need to include us in LG(B)T activism. After all, we could “choose” the straight life, only dating those of the “opposite” gender, but many of us don’t. Further, people see either choice bisexuals make as the wrong one.

If our opposite-gender partners abuse us, that’s our fault; we should’ve dated the same gender. If we face homophobia from having similar-gender partners, that’s our fault, too; we could’ve just dated the “opposite” gender. By that same token, all gays would have to do to avoid homophobia is never involve themselves with the same gender. How empty of a life would that be? How fair would it be to demand that of anyone, to cut off an entire realm of their life?

Ultimately, the primary grounds for LGBTQ acceptance shouldn’t be that “we can’t help it,” we should argue that being LGBTQ is okay no matter what. Bisexuals have much to offer in advocating for the liberation of LGBTQ people, but unfortunately, we “don’t exist.” Others seemingly prefer focusing on appealing to heterosexist institutions than genuinely challenging what they stand for.

Several bisexual activists, in turn, are unsure whether bisexual identity politics is the best liberation strategy. Paula C. Rust, in “Two Many and Not Enough,” describes this political dilemma:

On one hand, in the context of a culture in which sexuality is essentialized and sexual politics are ethnicized, there is cultural pressure to define a bisexual population whose interests would be championed by a bisexual liberation movement. To the extent that this happens, bisexuals can take their place as another player in sexual identity politics. But becoming a player in ethnic-style sexual identity politics means defining the boundary that separates those who belong to the population from those who don’t, that is, defining bisexuality. This, in turn, would merely reconstruct the sexual landscape and perpetuate sexual oppression in a slightly altered form; the bisexual category, like the lesbian, gay and heterosexual categories, would become part of the oppressive structure awaiting the next generation of sex rebels. Many bisexual activists wish to avoid following this path, eschewing identity politics in favor of a more queer approach that involves breaking down sexual categories instead of using them as bases for identities.

In other words, rather than figuratively “legalizing” bisexuality, some argue we should “decriminalize” it instead. While I find labels useful, the hypothetical establishment of bisexuality as an organized third category equal to (and equally distant from) hetero- and homosexuality may mirror the misguided construction of “nonbinary” as a third distinct gender. While there are guidelines to both, no singular rule set of either label fully describes the lives of those who adopt it. Both vary extremely. While we must make bisexuality visible, perhaps sectioning it off as some do with nonbinary identity is counterintuitive. (Keyword being perhaps. I don’t necessarily agree with that statement, but it’s one to consider.)

Putting the “Bi” in “Nonbinary”

Nonbinary identity, instead of only indicating a lack of gender or a presence perfectly in-between male and female, simply denotes not exclusively being one binary gender. Likewise, bisexuality does not end at the simplistic “50% gay, 50% straight” narrative; it describes not solely experiencing similar-gender or different-gender attraction. Really, it’s easier to describe bisexuality and nonbinary identity by what they’re not.

Nonbinary identity — transness in general, really — weakens the division between the binary genders. A nonbinary person can present themselves and experience the world very similarly to either binary gender while still not identifying fully with them. Being nonbinary doesn’t require androgyny. One could look virtually indistinguishable from a typical man or woman, or incorporate aspects of both into their appearance. One could fluctuate between maleness and femaleness, take on both simultaneously, refuse to participate in any gendered idea, or identify as something else entirely. When we admit these are all possibilities for the human experience rather than sticking to the stereotype that all nonbinary people are androgynous and genderless, the gender binary faces a threat.

As there’s no one way to look or be nonbinary, we also bring cisgender sexuality into question. Many rely on cissexist notions of man and woman to discern between individuals, but there’s nothing a man or woman can look like that a nonbinary person can’t. Nonbinary identity essentially rips the packing tape off the “male” and “female” boxes. It opens them, revealing that they’re not as confined and durable as society urges the world to see them. In reality, it’s just cardboard. When commanded to pick male or female and take their option wholly and exclusively, we refuse to choose.

Bisexuality has a similar effect. When told to choose gayness and straightness, we don’t. When ordered to pick either only men or only women, many of us decline. Many of us reject the alleged differences between the two entirely, so there could be no “choice” to make at all. Our decisions are purely individual. Such variety in bisexual experiences with one label intimidates the sexual hierarchy’s need for sexuality to be easily defined.

Bisexuals can choose to engage only in similar-gender or different-gender relations, alternate between the two, participate in both at once, or not engage at all. The fact that we’re attracted to people regardless of gender does not change. Strangers may read us as either gay or straight, but the mere fact that we exist shows that there is no outward deed of sexuality a gay or straight person can perform that we can’t.

Bisexuality is a breakdown of gendered barriers, and many bisexuals find that their gender intimately connects to their sexuality. I know plenty of bisexuals who, for example, realized they were transgender or nonbinary through their sexuality or realized their bisexuality via questioning their gender. Some bisexuals feel more feminine when seeking a female partner or more masculine when seeking a male partner. Our gender expressions can be as fluid as our attractions. I identify as nonbinary precisely and solely because I’m bisexual; I cannot separate the two.

Believing bisexuality not only enforces but causes the polarization of gender and sexuality is astonishingly far from reality. What does impose such pecking orders is the insistence on distinct either-or categories. Bisexuality automatically doesn’t fit into either rank. Instead, it contests them, endangering the idea that aspects of ourselves must be unchanging. The world reassures people that bisexuality isn’t real to reaffirm the constancy of monosexuality and that stability should be a goal for identity. Notably, however, gayness still hasn’t entirely achieved the rank of “stable.” Faced with this issue, we can respond in two ways.

We can either strive towards the ideal identity permanence — depending on the heterosexism determining it — or reject such expectations altogether. If we began seeing the differences between orientations as trivial, there’d be no more scale we’d need to balance on. There would thus be little grounds to discriminate against gays and bisexuals.

In Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics (2007) Jennifer Baumgartner wonders whether “bisexuality is a term we use to deal with our own fear of sexual fluidity and the dynamic nature of attraction.” While I resist the hypocritical implication that exclusive attraction to one gender isn’t real (after all, I was a very gay man for years), perhaps it doesn’t take a particular condition to realize potential.

Betsy Lucal in “Building Boxes and Policing Boundaries: (De)Constructing Intersexuality, Transgender and Bisexuality,” reasons that dissolving the social borders between “male” and “female” and “straight” and “gay” would decrease the justification for hierarchies in these areas.

If we did not assume congruence and correspondence among sex, gender and sexuality, then gender itself would cease to make sense. If people could mix and match behaviors, traits, appearances, and so on, then there would be no way to use them (i.e. to use gender) to make sex attributions and to use those attributions to decide how to treat people (unequally).

Similarly, if there were no assumed correspondence between sex and gender, neither could there be an assumed correspondence between gender and sexuality. If ‘deviant’ gender were not a signal of ‘deviant’ sexuality, and ‘normal’ gender did not mean ‘normal’ sexuality, then bisexuality would emerge as a viable, comprehensible possibility. In fact, there would be no reason to distinguish between monosexuality and bisexuality; sexuality boxes and boundaries could wither away (and with them the corresponding inequalities). If there were no assumptions available to associate sex with gender, then there would be no basis for making assumption about people’s sexual attractions and desires as being sex/gender-based.

Conclusion

Acknowledging bisexuality allows the disassembly of unnecessary either-or classifications, especially ones dictated by gender. While its prefix can be deceptive at first glance, the nature of bisexuality is anything but dualistic. The people claiming that we’re fractured are the very ones conceptualizing it as two “halves” that apparently don’t even form a whole identity.

People deem bisexuals fence-sitters, but it’s less a fence and more of a brick wall between not only gays and straights but men and women — a wall that bisexuality turns into a bridge. Society cannot let us build it, so it must convince us all that there can never be one. The wall towers over both sides of the land, impenetrable and protective, and we’re all either attracted to men or women—never both. The choice is simple. Natural, even.

Trying to erase bisexuality actually enforces two binaries. Considering the resistance from many to explore this possibility, are there some binaries that should remain? I beg to differ. If you hold an interest in dismantling categories that restrict people, consider that bisexuality isn’t your enemy. We’ve been doing it all along. In a time where cutting apart the ostensibly clear-cut is a gradually increasing phenomenon, bisexuality can be a prime example. Bringing its truth and our experiences to light can spark many conversations around confronting our presumptions of the world and deconstructing fabricated dualisms. If you don’t appreciate that, then I’m pleased to announce that we’re more dangerous than you thought.