I was mortified for a second before I read the description
Great video!
I might get eaten alive but it’s been bugging me.
What is everyone’s issue with bi men and why do straight and queer people unite in thinking bi men are worth isolating?
Not trying to troll and apologies if it comes off that way, just would like to understand better from people themselves why they take issue with us.
I’ve had to hide that I’m bi from every single person in my life. When I told a very close lady friend (we’re just and always have been platonic and she’s pansexual), she got very weird and she no longer speaks to me (brushes me off when I send her memes n things).
The whole point of the linked video is to talk about a lot of possible reasons why.
My goal is not to further engage with things that make me feel bad about myself. Probably shouldn’t have posted in the first place. Was just hoping for a quick and simple explanation from someone who shares the sentiment because I didn’t expect this sort of stuff on Beehaw :/ sorry
Tl:dw; aids/hiv and assholes with agendas writing magazines.
I’ll share some of my perspective. It may also include a little bit of jealousy from the queer side; a bi man can hide his bisexuality while a gay man cannot. It may also have a little bit of its roots in insecurity. I’ve been able to find men much easier than women, so the usual limits on a hetero man with regards to finding someone to cheat on their boo with don’t apply to a bisexual man. An insecure woman could see that and want to avoid bisexual men altogether due to personal insecurity in her ability to catch and keep a man.
I don’t agree with these perspectives but people are human, and those are very human emotions to be feeling.
My alternative explanation is that bi men stay in the closet “too long” cause they are discouraged from being open and they also kinda can stay closeted.
That makes you fly under the radar and hear and possibly even internalize the worst things straight people say about LGBT people. It also makes you spend more time with straight people instead of your fellow bi dudes, who you could best advocate for yourself with.
That’s how it was for me anyway. Mind you, I’m not blaming us for our oppression, just saying that we’re in a bit of a tricky dilemma.
Bi transman here - the answer to your question is because queer people have a lot of misandry. There’s been a great movement to push people to recognize their misogyny, but misandry is still largely acceptable and even popularized to some extent. Because people equate “masculine” with “privileged”, people equate men with the shitty assholes in their life who have put them and other queer people down, even when the men they’re talking to have always been allies and often haven’t had a lot of the privileges people think they’ve had. There’s lots of axes of oppression, but even so queer men especially often lose a lot of the male privilege people assume they get.
I’ve had transwomen tell me that men should be rounded up and killed, and when I said that was sexist, told that included me. I’ve had non-binary people tell me that they identify as transmasc but not as a transman because men are toxic - even knowing that I am a transman. That person was a long-term ‘friend’ of several years. I’ve had multiple people say they’d feel safer in shared spaces if there weren’t men present, even while I was sitting there, as another queer person trying to find a safe space.
It’s a really big problem in the community that has gone largely unaddressed. I think things are getting better, but it’s extremely hard not to feel isolated from the only community that is supposed to be accepting of us.
FWIW though the video is supposedly talking about that problem and how to make it better. It’s a god-awful title for a community that’s supposed to be very caring and careful about people’s trauma, though, and proves the point that the community is much more accepting of misandry than of misogyny. If someone posted a video titled “Why we hate bi women” with the thumbnail of “Don’t date bi women”, it would probably have already been removed for being triggering, even if the point is to lampshade the problem.
There’s lot of us out here, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I’m really hoping we’ll find more spaces that are really, actually accepting of us.
I don’t care how many times people explain to me that “kill all men” doesn’t actually mean kill all men. It still hurts. Ever since I transitioned, I’ve noticed the casual misandry thrown about everywhere like it’s not a big deal, but it’s a big deal to me. “All men are trash” includes me.
I’ve always had an issue with the idea that generalizations are okay. If “all men are trash” actually means “the patriarchy is trash”, just say that. I understand a lot of it as simply venting, but it’s almost never constructive or helpful, and it certainly isn’t fun to hear as a trans dude. Hell, part of the reason it took so long for me to accept myself as a man is because of this kind of rhetoric.
I hope it gets better, because it does feel very alienating whenever I encounter it. I want to be a part of queer spaces, but it’s hard when you feel hated.
Beautiful! Yes. Fear me straight women 😂.
I always use condoms, take PrEP, and regularly test, but I WILL GIVE YOU AIDS!!!
Tbh, I am okay with 2/3 women not wanting to be with me. Makes filtering shitty people easy.
HIV is skyrocketing in straight populations too though, all STDs are.
Just because a person is straight doesn’t mean they can’t engage in extremely risky behavior, such as sexual tourism without condoms and then not get tested because they “don’t wanna know, if I don’t get tested == can’t get STDs”
Preaching to the choir here, but being bi/gay doesn’t mean you automatically engage in anonymous unprotected sex with fucktons of people. We can also be monogomous and still get tested because its the right thing to do. :p
I probably shouldn’t have watched this video today as I was already feeling a bit down. Whoops.
My worst experience re this problem… was on a date with a woman, it was going really well, we were in a pub after the meal and ended up kissing. She pulls back, takes a deep breath, confides in me that she has experimented with women and asks if that’s a problem? I breathe a sigh of relief, say it’s no problem and that I’m pan. She immediately pulls back further with a look of pure revulsion on her face, and says “Sorry but that’s just a huge turn-off. I know it’s hypocritical but I can’t help how I feel”
She was a therapist too. I’m putting myself out there again as of the last month or so, but I didn’t date for a long time after that. I kinda feel like I don’t want to even bother trying to date someone who isn’t also LGBT but it seems the prejudice is also high in our own community!
Peak “WTF” moment. I’m really sorry you went through that.
Hopefully stuff like this video means that things are getting better - I hope that translates into better experiences for you in the future.
Thanks, I appreciate your comment bigtime. TBH I feel like the stuff people like me go through, while it sucks, is nothing compared to the vicious persecution trans people receive now. It seems like the right has switched their floodlights onto them as the boogeyman to be attacked atm.
I will say though, I have nieces who are working through secondary / college and of course there is still discrimination, but it seems to be way less of an issue for younger generations, which is a comfort :)
I appreciate your sentiment and do think that it’s important to defend trans rights and not let the right split us up. But I also want to say that just because horrible shit is happening in one place doesn’t mean we can’t address other issues in the community while we’re at it. We don’t need to play suffering olympics, and if we do then we lose out on valuable intersectional experiences.
I’m sorry that that shit happened to you. People can really suck sometimes :/
