Thomas C. Waters observes:
It isn’t being gay that is the problem, but rather it is the abuse, humiliation and isolation that come from living in a homophobic environment. David tried the “pray the gay away” and it doesn’t work. It drove him to a nervous breakdown, and almost suicide. Trying to not be gay is what leads people to suicide.
Those that present themselves as successful as ex-gays, fall into 2 groups, from my perspective. Those who claim to be cured, but who are still acting gay on the down low. Most eventually get caught. The other group are those who deal with their self-hatred and lack of self acceptance by turning all of their energies against others. By being so caught up in trying to change others, they can be in denial of their own lack of real happiness.
Case in point: Actor David Yost
data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/TmlcuY8bOUk?fs=1″>You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
And of course the 3rd and probably largest group, bisexual people . . the “B” in LGBT.
However what do you suppose happens to a nice queer person who has the innate, natural, inborn, capacity to fall in love with a person regardless of their gender and who, despite (sometimes very fierce) societal disapprobation has been living a life as a Gay/Lesbian person and then one fine day finds themselves attracted to a person of a different gender?
Now the ONLY things they have ever heard from the mainstream Gay/Lesbian Community about bisexuals is that they don’t exist.
That people are either homosexual or heterosexual and that anyone who claims otherwise are either closeted loosers or floozies. That people who claim to be bisexual are greedy, unfaithful, sex-crazed types.
Now our confused Queer person who is suddenly attracted to someone of another gender know that they are not the type of person who is promiscuous, that they have NO interest or desire for some sort of 3-some or wild swinging scene. So what can they possibly imagine when they, an otherwise happy queer person, suddenly have this new sort of attraction to someone who is NOT the same gender as themselves?
What would that person think? Would they think, “Oh! I was wrong. I must actually be Bisexual NOT Gay or Lesbian?” and go search out bisexual support groups on the Internet?
Or might they instead think, “Oh my goodness, I’m not having a same-sex attraction, maybe the preacher and my family and my community, etc., etc. was right. It was just a phase. It was just an aberration, I’ve been”cured” of homosexuality.” And then hie themselves off to the nearest “ex-Gay” snake-oil salesperson and let themselves be paraded all around the town as the next “miracle cure”?
Since a lot of people who fall prey to the ex-gay movement are actually (all unknowing) bisexual, don’t you think it might be a FINE idea and save a lot of people a lot of misery if the leading mainstream Gay/Lesbian Groups including Our Community’s Religious Leaders made a concerted effort to forcefully put a stop to the Biphobia and Bisexual Erasure that is allowed to continue with a wink and a nod in the greater queer community and instead reached out to and embraced the “B” in LGBT?
Just a thought.
Bialogue, I encourage you to explore the TWO web site.
You will find that, as a matter of policy as well as practice, TWO does reach out to the LGBT community, not just gays and lesbians. We do emphasize that some ex-gays are bisexual persons who deny their inborn sexual fluidity for ideological reasons. We also point out that some ex-gays like Sy Rogers are blatantly transgender, whether they are willing to acknowledge this or not.
See:
http://www.truthwinsout.org/tag/sexual-fluidity
http://www.truthwinsout.org/tag/transgender
Dear Mr. Airhart,
Thank you for your prompt if somewhat confusing response. While it is true that as the two “red-headed step children” of the LG(bt)Community the Bisexual and Transgender/Genderqueer Communities are quite supportive of each other and do tend to stick very close together, please be aware that bisexual and transgender are actually not the same thing.
Being bisexual simply means that a person has the capacity to naturally and normally form romantic/sexual relationships regardless of gender.
Additionally we have been avid readers and supporters of your fine blog since it was formed but over the years have become more and more distressed to notice that the issues of:
http://www.truthwinsout.org/tag/bisexual/
simply were not addressed. Ever.
Of course now having seen that when we queried TWO about the bisexual community and you have instead referred us to items having to do with gender expression in children and issues regarding the transgender community may explain why this is.
—————-
“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge in myself the capacity to be attracted to and sexual with people of more than one sex, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree. It is clear to me that I was bisexual long before I ever “acted on it,” just as a person who has never had sex can be lesbian or straight. After all, identity is not only about behavior. It is also about what we feel inside. A woman can be bisexual even if she never ends up acting on it, or even if – like me – she is in a monogamous relationship that she expects will last the rest of her life.” ~Robyn Ochs
BiNet USA (http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/binet_usa.html) which is the equivalent of say HRC or NGLTF for the bisexual community in the USA traditionally defines “bisexuality” as:
“one’s own awareness of one’s own attraction to others regardless of gender”
The phrases “The Person NOT the Parts” OR “The Person NOT the Plumbing” are ones you may very frequently hear from bisexual people, meaning that they were attracted to the “inner” person, not their visible gender or (in the case of trans-folk or genderqueer people) their individual gender expression.
The word “bisexual” was taken from a German term originally used in botany to describe sexual reproduction in plants some time in the 1800′s at about the same time homosexuality was first being described in modern scientific literature. The “Bi” meaning “two” in bisexual refers to “same gender” and “different gender” attraction (but not men/women as some folk-entomology might have it).
It is considered one of the three major sexual orientations found in most animals (including humans) which are:
* Heterosexual
* Bisexual
* Homosexual
with a smaller population that is now being recognized as ‘Asexual’.
These are most notably described first by Dr.Kinsey and then expanded on by Dr. Klein:
* Kinsey scale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale
* Klein Sexual Orientation Grid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_Sexual_Orientation_Grid
And here is a simplistic (but fun) online version to try out:
http://www.kleingridonline.com/
For bisexual people, you should think of gender/gender-expression like ice-cream flavours. Some people only like vanilla, some people only like chocolate but bisexual people actually like vanilla, chocolate and maybe even strawberry. But different people might like each flavours differently. Some people might mostly like chocolate and only sometimes like vanilla, some people might usually only like strawberry but one day they had some really great vanilla and decided it was pretty good too.
Same goes with attraction to different people. Almost no real people are 50%/50% attracted to men and women. This is simply because humans are quite variable and simply do not hit neat statistical milestones.
Instead people may talk about perhaps being a “70%/30%” or “20%/80%” in their normal baseline attraction to this or that gender. Or they might refer to themselves as a “Kinsey 2.5″ or a “Kinsey 4″ to explain where they most naturally fit in using that measurement.
Also having the CAPACITY to love people of more than one gender has NOTHING to do with falling in love with and remaining faithful to that one particular person.
Again an analogy. Say that in your life you may date blonds, brunettes and redheads. But one day you look up and see that PARTICULAR special brunette and “zing!” that is it for you.
Now since in your life you also dated blonds and redheads does that mean you should never get married or can never be satisfied or can never be faithful because (after all) you have demonstrated the capacity to date people with different hair-colours? Why of course not. What an obvious ridiculous concept. But yet, this is EXACTLY the type of myth that is widely believed about bisexual people.
But then people tend to say, if if you marry with a person of the same gender then you are no longer bisexual you are now gay/lesbian. Or if you instead marry a person of a different gender then that must mean you are no longer bisexual and instead you must be straight, right? Wrong.
Say you are of German-American extraction and you marry a person of Japanese-American background. Does this mean that as soon as you both say “I Do” that somehow magically both of you become German-American or Japanese-American? Again, of course not.
Well it doesn’t happen to bisexual people either. Because like the genetic code you inherited from your German or Japanese ancestors your sexual orientation (being bisexual) is an intrinsic part of who you are. And who you are does not magically morph into something else depending on who your spouse is.
Hope this helps explain what the “B” in LGBT actually is.
Bialogue: I have been an out gay man for 36 years and I have to take issue with your statement referring to to bisexual people as “probably the largest group”. I can’t speak for women, but anecdotally I have met no men who said they were bisexual who stayed that way for long… it was a transitional identity in their process of coming out as gay men. Doesn’t mean there aren’t bisexual men out there, but I’m not running into them. In response to your statement that “a lot of people who fall prey to the ex-gay movement are bisexual”, how do you know that? I have met scores of men and a few women who have been involved in and finally abandoned the ex-gay movement, and none of those I met have claimed to be bisexuals. I am not saying that no one involved in Exodus is bisexual, but I must be traveling in the wrong circles to never have met any of these folks.
Back in my dating days, I met way too many men who were definitely bi, not merely transitioning to gay. they lived with their girlfriends or wives, and sought men on the side and the down low. My best friend has been having a ten year long affair with a married man.
It’s easy to find men who are genuinely intersted in sex with either of the sexes. What’s hard to find is men who are openly bisexual
Back in the ’70′s I met a number of (older) men who were married with children who were clearly gay by preference. Cultural forces of the times kept them married and they made the best of it (they thought). Just because it is 2010 doesn’t mean cultural pressures aren’t just as powerful in keeping people in their social place today: geographical, religious & ethnic isolation is still very real for millions in this country and around the world. Many gay men can perform sexually with the women if the social payoff is high enough. Just because they are married with children doesn’t make them bisexual.
[...] and Can Lead to Suicide Update 9/8/2010: there is a thread of replies concerning this post over at truthwinsout.org that you may want to follow. It has taken a totally different perspective because of one of the [...]
Bialogue’s second response was caught in TWO’s spam filter — I have just released it above.
FYI, Google counts 285 pages at Truth Wins Out where we have referenced bisexual or bisexuality.
There may be some overlap between those articles, and the articles that were tagged for discussion of “sexual fluidity.”
Bialogue:
Michael wasn’t conflating bisexuals and transgender people when he posted the links. He was pointing out that TWO isn’t strictly L and G, and since there’s often an accusation that trans issues aren’t covered, the inclusion of a link to the Transgender tag was probably a preemptive nipping of that accusation in the bud.
Now, if you have a problem with being mentioned alongside transgender people…
I apologise? for my bad grammar, but I’m not a skilled Anglophone. I have a theory regarding the sexual identiuty of those who label themselves “ex-homosexuals”. There are four groups of people who label themslves ex-gay: self hating homosexuals who buy into this scam and gays who know that it is a scam, but lie in order to recieve financial benefits. Then there are? “confused, bi-curious, questioning” heterosexuals, and then there the most proeminent group, the confused bisexuals. “Delusion or ka ching”, this is the ex-gay motto.