And bi erasure isn’t just found on television: it also lives deep within the shiny trenches of social media.Ģ6 Women on When They Knew They Were Bisexualįor example: The popular digital publication THEM, an authority on LGBTQ+ culture that publishes content about queer pop culture and politics, got called out by readers in their Instagram comments for a post featuring Wanda Sykes, Niecy Nash, and Kristin Stewart that read, “ Lesbians Were the Real Winners at Last Nights’s Oscars,” even though Kristin Stewart has stated multiple times that she is bi. Media is still riddled with internalized biphobia. But even the LGBTQ+ community, as wonderful as it can be, contributes to bi erasure. Like most closeted bi girls who are super into musical theatre, I sashayed my way into a group of queer friends, thinking I’d finally found ~*my people*~. Unfortunately, the wrinkles of my bisexuality didn’t necessarily smooth themselves out as I got older. Remember: There was little to no proof of our existence. (If there was one thing my teenage self wanted more than to kiss a girl, it was to be liked.) Through conversations, I realized that other bi folks experienced similar dilemmas. It was acceptable for me to publicly crush on boys, and so I did.
But the attraction I felt toward guys made it way easier for me to write off my feelings toward girls. Had the boy from the live-action Peter Pan proposed to me at 13 years old, I would have lost my damn mind. Everyone, regardless of gender, had a sexual awakening after watching Britney’s “If U Seek Amy” music video… right?!Īfter all, it wasn’t that I didn’t like boys-I was obsessed with them. All straight girls spent hours on Tumblr looking at paparazzi pictures of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. My obsession with Mary Kate Olsen was because I wanted to be like her-obvi not because I wanted to kiss her. I was the queen of finding fake justifications for my same-sex attraction, rationalizing that my attraction to girls was simply an intense desire for female friendship. The phrase “girl crush” is a great example of this.
Mocking or invalidating bisexuality leads bi folks to question their attraction toward genders beyond the opposite sex, or label desire as something else entirely. While I’m sure Carrie’s comment got a few misguided laughs, it’s a prime example of bi erasure, or the tendency to disregard, ignore, or falsify the existence of bisexuality. In one episode of Sex and the City, Carrie (a self-proclaimed sex expert) dismissed a potential partner because of his bisexuality, quipping to her friends that the man was probably confused, as bisexualty was merely “a layover on the way to Gaytown.” Miranda nodded her head in solidarity, and my inner queer child lodged herself deep into the closet. The only time I’d ever heard of a person liking more than one gender was on television as the butt of a joke. In fact, almost every queer person I knew presented as purely homosexual.