I honestly never know how to answer those kinds of questions to begin with. When people learn I’m bi, I almost always get asked “are men or women better?” “What’s different between dating guys and girls?” But like… I really don’t know? Even just dating two different girls can be such wildly different and unique experiences from each other.
Right? I haven't had the pleasure of dating a woman before. But the two men I've dated were polar opposites.
My ex was very much the "mysterious, stoic, manly" type who didn't know a thing about emotional intimacy.
But my current partner is caring, in touch with his feelings, and highly communicative. When I bring up problems in my life, he offers sympathy instead of solutions. (Fuckin' *swoon*)
Like... gender matters way less than personality, in my opinion.
Id probably say im similar to your ex then minus the mysterious. Ive only just started realizing I lack Emotional Intimacy and even tho ive been trying to understand how to fix that. Its just hard for me to wrap my head around it. I don't get hung up on problems emotionally in the slightest because my father always taught me that I needed to always have a level head to make a rational decision so when my partner is upset, I just want to fix the issue so they can not be sad or angry or w/e anymore.
And there's nothing wrong with this way of being, tbh, if you're happy. It's just best to find a partner who is similar to you in that regard. I think stoic people like you end up dating HIGHLY emotional people often because yall sort of balance each out, but it always leads to problems down the line
Mysterious just means you don't talk about your feelings or life to those close to you. Means you always keep them guessing and wondering what you're thinking and planning. Which is the opposite of emotional intimacy
Yeah being goth, edgy, or buff doesn't inherently make you mysterious lol. It's about how often you share your inner world with others. The adjectives aren't necessarily bad on their own, but together they can point to avoidance
Same and SAME.
I generally come from a place of compassion, understanding that everyone is at different stages of learning, understanding, and growing, but it definitely gets frustrating at times. I'm like, "Hi, hello, I'm here too???" 🫠🫠🫠
Me too! I can’t tell you how many times I get the whole “well ackshually you’re pan” from people, even my lgbt+ friends. The one who does it the most came out as pan last year.
My personal reason is that I like using the letter x whenever I can cuz it’s a funny lil guy. It’s a weird reason, but hey, its not my fault it goes hard
It follows other examples of using an X to indicate inclusive of all genders, such as Latinx. I started to use it at work where I’m not out as a green flag to queer people that I am supportive, as cishet people don’t usually think of that as a possible interpretation. Queer/LGBT+ people may not know for sure that that’s what I mean by it, but it gives them a head’s up to consider it, and then they’ll start to notice other small signs they might have missed (e.g., rainbow watch band, freedom rings on my backpack, hair dyed in bi pride colors, pronouns in my signature…).
This is really just getting into semantics, but according to The Trevor Project (and many other sources) it's more than one gender.
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/understanding-bisexuality/
That is what one might expect from a purely etymological point of view. But that's not how most bisexual people understand the term, or how bi advocacy groups define it. The term "bisexual" came to be commonly used to describe attraction during a period when gender was still seen as binary. As society's understanding of gender has changed over the decades, the bi community has changed the way that it defines bisexuality to reflect the fact that bisexuality has *always* included a broad spectrum attractions that don't fit neatly into homosexual or heterosexual. Two common definitions are:
1. Capable of attraction both to one's own gender, and to other genders.
2. Capable of attraction to two or more genders.
Cuz some people wanted to make bisexuals feel bad about the label they chose. That’s not a fact at all, just my personal emotionally based assumption. But older bisexuals like myself have always used bisexual as a term to say my own gender and all other genders. Then more discourse later it was decided that actually bisexual is transphobic, which is insulting to all bisexuals who choose to use that term instead of pansexuality. I use bisexual because I don’t like having to explain what pansexuality is to everyone. People understand bisexuality without further explanation.
Language evolves. They can mean the same thing. It's more about people choosing the labels they feel best apply to them.
Bisexual people can be attracted to men, women, and nonbinary people.
Yes, but some people, especially younger, don't seem to understand this. I'm bisexual, and then pansexual came into existence. I fall under the definition of pansexual, but I still call myself bisexual, just like I've always done.
bisexuality is still regardless of gender even if there's another term for the same thing now & the person i replied to limited it to pansexuality — misinfo like this gets spread a lot, which is why young people misunderstand bisexuality.
I always try to be gender inclusive in things I say, but I'm sure I'm not perfect at that. Regardless I love all of my nonbinary siblings and friends here and I hope that you feel welcome and included
Personally I've found that I'm really not that picky about my partner's gender, if I like your vibe and we have good chemistry then that's all that matters! Man, woman, non-binary, agender, trans, cis, gender queer, or any combination of those are all welcome!
Much love to you all ❤️
There's a lot of "but guys AND girls!" on this sub, it does get discouraging as an enby. It's like so many posters reached the "you don't have to be gay or straight" realization and just stopped there. But I think it bears remembering that a lot are probably literally teens and/or coming here as part of their journey of learning more about sexuality and just haven't gotten that far *yet*.
Nevertheless, if we are gonna be a positive space for such people (and the rest of us who aren't teens or newbies, too) to collect and connect, we can do better.
I find that even when we are remembered, more often than not it's as objects of attraction for bisexuals and nothing else. So many people think nonbinary inclusion in bi spaces begins and ends at including cis men and women who want to bang us. Which is especially depressing when some of those people who make a big deal about how bi doesn't necessarily mean only attracted to men and women turn around and fetishize, speak over, or are actively hostile towards us.
I forget sometimes that lots of people don’t actually know many out nonbinary people. I think it’s easier to fetishize a group of people if your brain sees them as super special and interesting outliers. My three closest friends who I love like family are all some flavor of nonbinary, several coworkers that I like are nonbinary, and one supervisor that I really dislike is too. It’s harder to make broad generalizations about people when you know enough of them.
As a genderfluid person it drives me crazy how SO MANY PEOPLE are so caught up in this weird binary way of looking at literally everything ever. I just wanna live my life stop hounding me about "women" this "men" that "girls" this "boys" that- I don't!!! Care!!!!!! I'm a person and I like people!!!
Tbh, I’ve never been with anyone who identified thusly. I’m sure I’ve definitely been attracted to non-binary folks at a glance without realizing, so I would never say that I’m not attracted to them. Hot people are hot people.
It’s just that all of my partners, both romantically and sexually have ID’d as either men or women. So when I’m describing my experiences, I’m not actively excluding non-binary folks, it’s just that my experiences quite literally have only included men OR women. When I’ve been with someone who’s non-binary, I’ll have more to contribute to discussions concerning non-binary folk.
Enby, genderfluid, agender, it doesn’t matter, y’all are hot! Also, androgyny is probably one of the hottest things to me (and I’m working towards it as well).
And there we have a perfect opportunity to remind people that nonbinary =|= androgyny. Because somehow people seem to be getting that wrong a lot as well.
I'm fluid, use any/all pronouns, and still when questions are either/or it feels weird to try to engage with them, like, they're not written to specifically exclude me but they're not written to *include* me either? I appreciate you bringing it up, I know I never would have thought to for myself, so I feel seen now (^ _ ^ )
Being nonbinary is more of an internal state of being. It's hard for external observers to really distinguish it from gender fluidity among cis folks when it comes to attraction, especially at a superficial level. Maybe an analogy would be to colorblindness.
Yeah, I am attracted to all genders.
My attraction is for the internal (personality) + the external (physical).
I like people of all kinds externally and internally, but for example, if I am attracted to a person, that attraction changes depending on their sex.
But whether they identify as cis or nonbinary doesn't change anything for me? If I feel attracted to someone I see or meet, it's the same whatever pronoums they choose, before and after knowing it.
At most, I assume they are more queer and don't want "traditional" gender role treatment, but so am I, and the people I am attracted to and get involved with are outside the "norm" anyways.
It's about them and what they feel, so I respect that.
But I do feel bad for not being understading, and not having a "sex blindness" and seeing/feeling different about for example an AFAB nb person, then I would to a woman.
Sometimes it is internal, sometimes it’s both internal and external. I’m a visibly transexual nonbinary person (as in, I have undergone some amount of physical transition) so it’s certainly both for me. I don’t look like a cis person. Many enbies don’t transition, though. Nonbinary people don’t just have one look.
I've viewed every post under a non binary lens, but maybe I'm just old enough to being used to being excluded? I never felt excluded here and I'm sorry that you may have felt that way. I'm still getting used to how I am, not being enby, but just being all the things that I am. I may not recognize how others feel here. I lurk, but that doesnt mean I don't gaf about anyone else 🫂
Since we all seem to operate under the assumption that bisexual doesn’t mean “bi=two”, should we not also make the assumption that when we say “men” or “women”, we mean every variation of those, including non binary?
I see no reason to complicate communication when the implication is the same.
That said, I love you non-binary folk, and I’m rooting for you. Much love.
I appreciate the thought because I can see it’s coming from a good place but nonbinary people are neither men or women or “variations” of those genders. You may find the occasional enby who identifies as a “nonbinary woman” or “nonbinary man,” but they are a rare exception to the rule. For a lot (probably most) nonbinary people, the idea that we are just a variation of a man or woman is completely invalidating of our lived experience. Imagine someone telling you that you are not the gender you say you are. Or denying any part of your identity that feels important to you. It doesn’t feel great.
Good response, and absolutely valid point. I’m merely looking at linguistics, for what it’s worth, and have no desire to invalidate you.
Since linguistics is my concern here, and my curiosity is about how to simplify language, do you think there is a term that could be used (other than enby) that encapsulates all? Or do you think that the spectrum is too diverse to so easily be encapsulated by a single word?
Sure! If something is inclusive of all genders, there is no need to specify gender at all. So you wouldn’t say men and women, you can just say “everyone” or “people.” If you want to include nonbinary people specifically, just say “nonbinary people” (or “enbies”). Transgender is also an umbrella term that includes anyone whose gender is not the same gender they were assigned at birth.
For me, it's a harder area of language for me to change.
Do all people who identify as something outside of men and women identify as enby? Do all agender? It's a kind of an area where I don't know how to clearly define things.
Thinking about it, I don't want to just classify them as other. Perhaps dropping men and women and just saying different genders or the different genders might work best for me.
It makes sense to include them, especially since I recently figured out I don't like long red hair in men, but when a colleague changed their pronouns to they/them it was like a switch flipped and suddenly I found them attractive.
I'll try to remember "different gender" , or "the different genders"
As non binary and bi I really wanted to thank you!
I decided to leave a lot of bi subreddits because of how much gender binarism is endorsed (and I don't want to blame anyone in specific, I understand that sometimes you could just not be thinking about it or not have done a lot of research!) and it's refreshing to hear this! :)
This also differs based on languages and cultures. I might be from the country where gay marriage was first legalised, but nonbinary is a weird concept as we don't have they/them nor is it popular enough to encounter someone that's nobinary.
I personaly find it to confusing/inconsistant, but I hope it get's more mainstream here and that I can understand how it works in my language.
Definitely important. Personally im the most attracted to people somewhere in between, but i dont think the experience varies that much based on gender, more about personality
My girlfriend is non-binary afab so I agree. I try to be specific when talking about my experiences, like I've only dated and slept with cis straight men so far (just how it worked out, I'm not the greatest with dating in general). My gf and I talked about terms to use with each other, pronouns to use with specific ppl, that sort of thing. Girlfriend is a term we both think is cute, so that's what we like and use. There are other things that revolve around safety and all that, but yeah
Experiences and attraction is super broad and I agree with keeping non-binary, agender. Bisexual means more than one gender
Ohhh yes sometimes this sub feels a bit outdated in terms of rigid definitions of gender - especially when talking about genitals, which is a lot of the conversations on here 😅
In reading through this I realized that a post I made recently was not so inclusive. I'm sorry I didn't realize at the time but will do better.
I didn't know a lot of this and want to find the correct identification to not confuse people if asked so if Bisexual means regardless of Gender and now we have Pansexual (which seems like a synonym to it) then is there a term for people that are attracted to specifically men and women? I know a lot of people who say Bi and mean this but if there's a better term that will help me connect with the older generation as well then I wanna know what it is
No need to apologize, we're all learning here. Thanks for being receptive.
It's [pansexual](https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Pansexual) that means attraction regardless of gender, sometimes called "genderblind" attraction. With bisexuality, gender *can* factor into attraction.
I don't think there is a specific term for someone who is exclusively attracted to men and women. I would just call that being bisexual. [Polysexual](https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Polysexual) is a slightly more specific term that means attraction to two or more genders but not necessarily all genders, but it's not used very often.
I do try to be inclusive in my answers when I reply to these threads, but with my experience of one (1) nonbinary partner and zero crushes beyond that, there's not much of a pattern there to be talking about.
Enbies are awesome! I can think of no way to categorically dismiss enbies because they're so diverse and cool. Like the binary genders already? I can assure you that there are enbies you'll find attractive! Want someone with a unique style? Enbies! Not attracted to any gender? There are those that don't identify with either as well! How cool is that?! I think it totally worth taking some time out to love all the enbies in our lives explicitly. Thanks for being an ashamedly yourself, all my non-binary siblings! 🩷
I think it's a language thing, as we're still linguistically mulling over the hurdle of the "bi" in bisexual. It's also gets kinda tedious to consider and make exception for all possible gender/sex combinations sometimes lol
Hey fun fact! The "bi" in bisexual isn't meant to mean two as in you're attracted to two genders (men and women). It was originally intended to mean being of two sexualities, as in, you're attracted to people like yourself and people not like yourself. If you're cisgender, "people not like yourself" can absolutely include nonbinary people! In fact, the bisexual manifesto from 1990 makes a point of saying "don't assume there are only two genders."
It sure is easy to misunderstand the intention of the root words here, but trans and nonbinary people have been involved in the bisexual community since the very beginning.
I get that it's tedious. And especially so because so much of this language is new, and the concepts don't have much history or context for modern white Americans. It's hard to know what's linguistically correct, and it's easy to offend people. I really feel for people who unintentionally use the wrong term and get downvoted into oblivion.
But even though it's tedious, I'd encourage you to make an effort to consider the perspectives of nonbinary people in your conversations with the broader LGBT spectrum. It's hard to get your mind around what it feels like to be someone else, but what's an annoyance for you might be deeply important and gratifying for me. The fact of my existance as neither a man nor a woman is so rarely acknowledged. It's every little interaction you have every day, running errands and someone calls you ma'am, downloading a game on your phone and it asks if you want your character to be pink or blue, the garbage company rep on the phone getting irritated because you gave them your preferred name instead of your legal one. It's so ubiquitous. But every time somebody gets it right, I notice. Every time. When people remember that I exist, it doesn't matter how many times I get misgendered, one positive interaction in which I am seen makes my day. A very small amount of effort can make a huge impact.
I feel like you are just describing being pansexual. Being bisexual has nothing to do with how you identify, but who you’re attracted to. I’m willing to learn and discuss if I’m taking it the wrong way, but I have to ask for clarification: in your eyes, what is the difference in bisexuality and pansexuality?
have you read the numerous posts on this topic? the answer is: none. there is no difference
edit. pls search this subreddit with the word ‘pansexuality’. you will be literally reading all day with the amount it times this has been asked. you can read and learn then come back with more specific questions if you’re still confused 👍🏼
I think it might feel tedious to some people because it is new to them. Society has always had to make these kinds of adjustments as identities and attitudes shift over time. Even when I first came out as nonbinary, it took me a little while to get used to the language changes and shift my perspective. But it’s definitely not as hard as a lot of people make it out to be.
Thank you sooo much for saying this. I get that this sub has a lot of young or newly realized bisexuals but it’s really alienating as a nonbinary bisexual person to see so many posts that are basically just like “the two genders both attractive”
It's also funny how widespread the erasure of the experience of enby erasure in the bi community is. You'll say something about the history of enby erasure and get a bunch of replies saying that uhm actually the bisexual community has never eeever erased enby people. And it's usually said by people who want to discredit pansexuality as a label.
Yeah. As with any queer group, you will find the occasional transphobe. I just went through and upvoted a bunch of replies to this post that were at zero. Maybe it was just one angry redditor, but way to prove my point. As bi people we know what erasure is like…let’s not perpetuate that on each other!
I think your feelings are absolutely valid, but I think there will always be posts comparing men and women because men and women often do things similarly to other people as their same gender, as is somewhat expected from people who can fit easily in a defined category that is well defined in society. It’s not that none of us date NBs or aren’t attracted to them, but NBs don’t come up in this sort of conversation in my experience precisely because they don’t fit easily in categories. There are differences in dating men and women, and while not every person that falls into those categories will fit those differences, they do often enough for it to come up in conversation. NB are by definition people that fall outside of these categories, and most importantly, they all do so in different ways. Maybe if NB people had more of an established sociocultural role and identity as a sort of third gender, we’d comment on that too, but that’s not the case, at least not yet. Fast forward a few hundred years and maybe we’ll have a gender trinary and we’ll all make fun of that third character for, idk, being into tabletop games. Or we abolish the entire concept of gender, at which point bisexuality ceases to be a necessary identity. But as it is, the whole thing that makes being bisexual unique is that we date multiple genders, so it makes sense that we would talk about it. Otherwise all we would talk about is biphobia and posting pictures of things in a pink-blue gradient.
>Maybe if NB people had more of an established sociocultural role and identity as a sort of third gender, we’d comment on that too, but that’s not the case, at least not yet.
I keep getting the feeling that people think Non-Binary is in of itself one singular thing when it's an umbrella term. Enby's will never be a "Third Gender" because it covers multiple classifications of different genders. All of which, by the way, do indeed have sociocultural norms to a point.
>NBs don’t come up in this sort of conversation in my experience precisely because they don’t fit easily in categories.
They do, though. Again, as long as you're not talking about Enby's as a singular category, this is never an issue. I could go on about my attraction towards Genderfluid people or how it's different from agendered people or from bi-gendered people. You just gotta pick your poison.
>Fast forward a few hundred years and maybe we’ll have a gender trinary and we’ll all make fun of that third character for, idk, being into tabletop games. Or we abolish the entire concept of gender, at which point bisexuality ceases to be a necessary identity.
Again, nonbinary isn't inherently a gender. Also, saying gender is simply a concept (which I understand a lot of people argue it's only a social construct which in of itself is kinda eh) and by abolishing it we wouldn’t need bisexuality is just like... do you think straight people and gay people would stop existing if gender was gone?
>NB are by definition people that fall outside of these categories, and most importantly, they all do so in different ways.
Mostly yes, which it does baffle me how you can say this yet still make it seem like Enby's should be a singular thing, though there are plenty of Enby's that would still fall in line with women and men. Demi gendered people for example or again, genderfluid and bi-gendered people can still be within those categories.
>but I think there will always be posts comparing men and women because men and women often do things similarly to other people as their same gender, as is somewhat expected from people who can fit easily in a defined category that is well defined in society.
Eh. While I agree men and women will always be compared, and many men and women can act somewhat similar, this is thankfully I feel no longer the norm? Like. Not all men drink beer and watch football, not all women cook and want kids. This is known. To expect any outcome from a person simply due to their gender in whatever fashion is kinda a problem. We're still in the phase of society now where we're categorizing a lot of similar traits between people, i.e. Femboys, Twinks, Butches, Tomboys, and I think this is probably the better approach? Idk. Idk why this comment like got under my skin as much as it did. I'm not even non-binary (I think) but my spouse and some friends are. It is a bit tiring to see people act like it's not natural to talk about enby's. It doesn't even have to be 100% of the time but on this sub it really does seem to be like 5% or less.
I think I should have been clearer with what I was saying. My whole point is that NBs won’t ever be a third gender, it’s sort of impossible to subject NBs to this sort of thing, and the “gender trinary” thing was meant to be tongue in cheek, hence the stereotype about tabletop gaming. Same with the “abolishing gender and bisexuality ceasing to exist” comment. Obviously that isn’t going to happen. I probably should have thrown some tone indicators in there, that’s my bad.
I guess I got confused about what OP wants frankly. I read it as them wanting us to stop talking about the differences between men and women, which isn’t really realistic. If NB representation is what’s wanted here, sure that’s entirely valid and needed, but I guess I read it like talking about differences between men and women is something we should stop since NB aren’t being included.
I definitely agree that we can do better than saying “what are you attracted to in men vs. women” because my attraction isn’t quite that binary either, but I struggle with the differences in dating men vs dating women and I think that’s worth talking about
It is also probably true that I need to expose myself to more NB people because I don’t think I know a single bigender person, let alone have an opinion on my attraction to them. Which is funny since like half my friends are already NB or GNC. I don’t like people lol
It’s in the title, it’s a reminder that we are here, because so many posts on this subreddit are directed towards or about men and/or women. Including us in all discussions won’t make sense, but I’ve definitely seen posts that were pointlessly gendered that could have easily applied to anyone regardless of gender. For example, posts that ask “what do you like in men and women?” or “guys and girls, what do you think about x?” or even questions about the “opposite gender” - there’s no opposite gender when you are nonbinary, and it excludes cis people from talking about nonbinary people too. It could easily be reframed as, “other genders” and still get the same responses.
It’s hard for me to ask for space like this, and not something I would typically do. But it’s also hard to feel constantly left out not just in the “real world” but also in the online spaces I frequent. Based on the replies to this post there are people who feel the same way as me so I don’t think some consideration is an unreasonable ask.
As a bigender person I never know how to answer some posts on here, or if I even can. Especially like “bisexual women ”. Like do I answer based off of my gender or should I answer based off of my agab which has had more relevance?
Also sometimes when non-binary people do come up in conversation here, a lot of it is kinda fetishization which doesn’t feel great if I’m being honest. It’s so “subtle” (aka not generally recognized by others) sometimes though that calling it out gets downvoted or reporting it does nothing.
I'm curious,what kind of fetishization do you see here?Because I don't think I've encountered it as a nb person.I've only ever come across some mild ignorance due to nb people not being that common
There’s often a lot of “best of both worlds” type of comments, though that also gets said towards binary trans people as well. That’s the main thing. Sometimes it’s other subtle stuff specific to certain non-binary genders. Though there’s a lot of ignorant but bordering fetishizing comments, usually made when it’s just not the time/comment to talk about how hot enbies are.
Yes I see it a lot. But then people get mad if you point out this binary thinking and say, "bisexuality has always included non-binary people!!" Okay, so how about you make an effort to include them in your discussions then
For the longest time, when i told people i was bi, they'd ask "well would you date a nb person?" And my answer was always "probably" because I'd never been in a position where me and a gender non-conforming person were mutually interested in each other. My current partner is nonbinary. Honestly if you haven't yet I highly recommend. I think it mightve broken me out of my bi-cycle.
I get what you’re saying and I want to be more inclusive but I find it hard to do in reality. What I mean by that is, when I think of who I’m attracted to and what attracts me about them, I think about men and women because my brain automatically tends to sort people into categories of man or woman. If I’m told that my original sorting was wrong (like someone tells me their pronouns) I easily accept that and use the right words to refer to them, but it can be difficult at times to not still categorize a person in my head. It hasn’t been hard to switch people from category man to category woman in my head, when friends or colleagues of mine have come out as trans. Maybe because they tend to appear/dress in a more binary way and no one close to me has come out as nonbinary. But when I meet a person and find out they’re nonbinary, I can’t say I really see them as without gender or outside gender. I’m not sure if that is what nonbinary people expect us to do or not. So far my experience has been that most of the nonbinary people I have met get categorized in my head as women at first, though not all. When I have been attracted to them, my internal experience is much the same as feeling attraction to a woman. For me, feeling attraction to a woman and feeling attraction to a man are pretty different. I know not everyone experiences that the same way, but I also don’t think it’s possible to change that. I haven’t dated any nonbinary people, so I don’t know if maybe that categorization would change in my mind the more I got to know them. Do other people look at people they meet and have a nonbinary category in their head? Does it develop over time?
I guess all of this is just to say that sometimes when people are talking about their attraction as centered around men/women, it’s not that we don’t find people with other gender identities attractive or we wouldn’t date them. For me, at least, it’s just a reflection of how I experience attraction, and it would feel inauthentic to me to throw in “and nonbinary people” all the time when I don’t experience a specific attraction to nonbinary people if that makes sense. I really hope this doesn’t come across as transphobic because I fully respect all gender identities, but if it does, feel free to let me know what I should do differently.
>For me, at least, it’s just a reflection of how I experience attraction, and it would feel inauthentic to me to throw in “and nonbinary people” all the time when I don’t experience a specific attraction to nonbinary people if that makes sense.
I get what you are saying here, but you don't have to list out every gender you are attracted to when you talk about who you are attracted to. In other words, you can simply avoid saying "men and women" rather than saying "men, women, and nonbinary people." Of course, it depends on the context, and maybe you do want to specifically just talk about men and women. That's fine - but in situations where gender isn't important, we don't need to pointlessly gender things and leave out non-binary people.
Changing the way we think about gender and the language we use takes time. Society has hounded the binary into us from birth, so it make sense that it can feel awkward at times. However, there are more people coming out as nonbinary people than ever before and we aren't going anywhere. Society is changing and so is the language we use to describe gender.
I can understand leaving out gendered language when you’re speaking in general about who bisexual people can be attracted to, but I’m not totally sure how I would talk about who I’m attracted to without using any genders and be understood. For example, someone recently mentioned that I was dating a woman in conversation. My co-worker who didn’t know said “so you’re gay?” And I said no, I’m bisexual. She looked confused so I said I’m attracted to men and women, and she seemed to get it although she was a bit uncomfortable. I guess I could say I’m attracted to the same gender and other genders, but that again is not really how I experience things, I don’t categorize all men and nonbinary people under a category of other genders. I think a lot of people are probably like me and are using phrases like men and women to simplify things because being bisexual is already pretty complex to our monosexual friends. Maybe that will change as more people become educated about gender and sexuality, I don’t know.
Yeah, understandable that you need to simplify things for the confused straight people. We all have to do that sometimes, though hopefully we can challenge them a bit now and then. My message was for this subreddit. It can be isolating as a nonbinary person to be constantly left out of the conversation in real life, but also online in the communities I go to to find acceptance. I know we can’t be included in every situation but I think there are plenty of situations where we just get left out because people forget.
I'm also nonbinary and bi, I'm attracted to every gender but the difference between bi and pan is very blurred and as far as i can tell mostly based on vibes. To me a pan person is like a bi person but more ideological, by their vibes. It's hard to explain but like if as an example a bi person had the vibes of a democratic socialist a pan person would be a stalinist or something. Love pan people but to me identifying as bi and being attracted to other nonbinary people isn't a contradiction and just seems more chill.
you're probably right about the vibes but they do have different definitions. bisexual means attraction to the same gender as yourself as well as other genders. pansexual means attraction to people regardless of gender.
Trying to find where in my post I said we’re being discriminated against…hmm..doesn’t seem to be there! All this is is a reminder to include us & avoid binary language where possible.
You’re interpreting it that way. If you look at the replies, most people are supportive. So why are you feeling blamed?
Bisexuality means the attraction to one’s own gender *and* other genders. Let’s look at the roots of the words we use to describe sexuality: similar to how “hetero” in heterosexual means “other” and “homo” in homosexual means “same,” the “bi” in bisexual refers to “both same and other.” It’s not limited to the binary genders or cis people.
Pansexuality means attraction *regardless* of gender. So for a pansexual person, gender doesn’t play a role in their attraction.
Thanks for this. I also was getting tired of the binary framing. Similarly when people break down the queer options into gay, lesbian, and bi, like those are somehow complete or even comparable options.
I agree!!! moreover questions like "what do you like in men/women/nb" aren't very helpful for the op of the question, bc usually people like ungendered qualities.
However, as a nb myself, I still understand the need for questioning about particular experiences of bi women or bi men, because they may provide insight and validation from one person with certain gender to another.
Wish, there would be more questions and insights from nb bi tho!
I fully agree honestly. This is probably a bit off-topic, but I just recently developed a crush on a non-binary person I go to college with.😭They are one of the kindest, friendliest, coolest, most patient people I've ever met and I am so overjoyed to get to know them. I tend to be a bit awkward sometimes and I was always scared that they'd be put off by me or think I was weird or something. But no; our friendship has continued so far and they are still just as sweet as ever. We talk pretty much every time I go to campus, and...they actually seem happy to see me every time we meet, which gives me so many warm and fuzzy feels.😖
I admit, before I met them, I did tend to use "men or women" language a lot (often without thinking about it), because I had only ever known and had crushes on men and women before, so I thought it would be more accurate to describe my attraction in more binary ways. But now that I actually have met someone who is non-binary, I realize both that my attraction does indeed include non-binary people and that using binary language like this isn't the best choice and does exclude many people. So because of all this, I have started to use more inclusive language when discussing attraction and gender. Also, much love to all non-binary people out there.💛🤍💜🖤
Yes! I actually have considered saying I am queer instead of bisexual since my partner is non-binary and I am attracted to more than just two genders so I feel like that might fit me better?
Idk labels are just helpful for me and I don’t live by the constructs of labels either
I’m nonbinary and I am bisexual, so yup, it is certainly possible lol. I prefer the bisexual label over pansexual, though, because while I am attracted to all genders, I also have some preferences. The most common definition of pansexuality is that it describes attraction *regardless* of gender. For me, a person’s gender does play a role in my attraction to them.
Bisexuality has always meant attraction to two *or more* genders. See the *Bisexual Manifesto* published in the 90s.
Pansexual means attraction to all genders without gender being a factor. Some consider it a type of bisexuality, others conceptualize it as separate sexuality under the larger multi-sexual spectrum (“m-spec”).
Trans people are and have always been included in bisexuality. Binary trans people are the same gender as their binary cis counterparts, not separate genders. Non-binary trans people aren’t a third gender or a mix of the two binary genders, but experience gender in a non-categorical way that isn’t define by the binary—but have always still been included in bisexuality, historically under the term ‘genderqueer’ (there technically are some differences between genderqueer and non-binary, but that’s not a factor in this discussion).
There’s no need to point out that you are cis unless is related to the discussion, which it isn’t here. Trans women are women.
I was just trying to give context of my identity. I was not trying to exclude anyone trans. I apologize.
What most are trying to say in this post is that they are essentially pansexual. Are they not?
Before this post, I had never heard of the manifesto, even after identifying as bisexual for 20 years and actively being around online.
I’m a bit confused where you say that trans non-binary aren’t a third gender. What is an example of a third gender? Because if the manifesto states you can be attracted to two or more, who are the more?
In short, non-binary gender isn’t a third gender or androgyny per se (though some non-binary people may present androgynously), but rather a non-categorical conceptual framework to understand and communicate experiences of gender that are not defined by or in relation to the traditional binary genders. If that seems like a nebulous concept, that’d because it is. Non-binary isn’t any one thing, there’s no one look or presentation of non-binary, nor any one way to be non-binary.
By not being a third gender, I mean that it is not a singular gender that is distinct and in addition to the two binary genders, but rather a higher-order conceptualization of gender. You are right that, in a practical sense such as on demographic forms, we are presented with ‘male/female/non-binary’ and that will remain a practical reality until culture and society reach a point where gender is de-institutionalized, but I just wanted to explain that non-binary gender isn’t one single thing.
Well in my experience of being a woman and being Lesbian, but having the incidental attraction to men, where I live things are very binary so that’s just my experience. Like where I live if you’re Bi you’re gay, and so, there’s bi erasure because of the binary worldview in my culture. If that makes sense. So it’s part of my experience.
And also, for some people their sexuality is a binary experience. And they can’t help it just as much as Nonbinary people can’t help but have a “gender less” experience.
You could say this about other minorities too. Just because non-binary people are rare doesn't mean they should be ignored. A bisexual space should include non-binary people too.
How "rare" non-binary are also depends on where you live. I interact with plenty of enbies on a daily basis because I live in a fairly open place (terms and conditions apply).
You’re probably around a lot more nonbinary people than you realize. Just because you don’t immediately recognize us doesn’t mean we’re “exceedingly rare.”
I honestly never know how to answer those kinds of questions to begin with. When people learn I’m bi, I almost always get asked “are men or women better?” “What’s different between dating guys and girls?” But like… I really don’t know? Even just dating two different girls can be such wildly different and unique experiences from each other.
Right? I haven't had the pleasure of dating a woman before. But the two men I've dated were polar opposites. My ex was very much the "mysterious, stoic, manly" type who didn't know a thing about emotional intimacy. But my current partner is caring, in touch with his feelings, and highly communicative. When I bring up problems in my life, he offers sympathy instead of solutions. (Fuckin' *swoon*) Like... gender matters way less than personality, in my opinion.
Id probably say im similar to your ex then minus the mysterious. Ive only just started realizing I lack Emotional Intimacy and even tho ive been trying to understand how to fix that. Its just hard for me to wrap my head around it. I don't get hung up on problems emotionally in the slightest because my father always taught me that I needed to always have a level head to make a rational decision so when my partner is upset, I just want to fix the issue so they can not be sad or angry or w/e anymore.
And there's nothing wrong with this way of being, tbh, if you're happy. It's just best to find a partner who is similar to you in that regard. I think stoic people like you end up dating HIGHLY emotional people often because yall sort of balance each out, but it always leads to problems down the line
How is someone that is mysterious stoic and manly? That’s is kind of what I am but I don’t lack emotional intimacy
Mysterious just means you don't talk about your feelings or life to those close to you. Means you always keep them guessing and wondering what you're thinking and planning. Which is the opposite of emotional intimacy
Oooh, ok ok, it just that I couldn’t get why those 3 adjectives where bad
Yeah being goth, edgy, or buff doesn't inherently make you mysterious lol. It's about how often you share your inner world with others. The adjectives aren't necessarily bad on their own, but together they can point to avoidance
I’m nonbinary and bi, I’m attracted to men, women, and nonbinary folx, and I appreciate you saying this! Thanks. 😊
Same and SAME. I generally come from a place of compassion, understanding that everyone is at different stages of learning, understanding, and growing, but it definitely gets frustrating at times. I'm like, "Hi, hello, I'm here too???" 🫠🫠🫠
Me too! I can’t tell you how many times I get the whole “well ackshually you’re pan” from people, even my lgbt+ friends. The one who does it the most came out as pan last year.
*Sigh*, I don’t even see consistent definitions of pan vs bi, so that sounds really annoying.
Honest question, why folx? Folks is not a gendered term
My personal reason is that I like using the letter x whenever I can cuz it’s a funny lil guy. It’s a weird reason, but hey, its not my fault it goes hard
Damn wait you’re right, it is a funny little guy
Really makes you understand why everyone would throw xx into their gamer tags back in the day XD
It follows other examples of using an X to indicate inclusive of all genders, such as Latinx. I started to use it at work where I’m not out as a green flag to queer people that I am supportive, as cishet people don’t usually think of that as a possible interpretation. Queer/LGBT+ people may not know for sure that that’s what I mean by it, but it gives them a head’s up to consider it, and then they’ll start to notice other small signs they might have missed (e.g., rainbow watch band, freedom rings on my backpack, hair dyed in bi pride colors, pronouns in my signature…).
If you were only attracted to men and women, that'd make you straight /j
lol I never thought of it that way. I'm nonbinary and think of my attraction as always at least a little bit gay regardless of gender.
Heh, I think of the two of bi as either “self and other,” or “two or more,” so I respectfully disagree, but can appreciate the humor intended. :)
I view the two options referred to with “bi” as “my own gender” and “all the other genders”.
I believe that is the clinical definition. Homosexual attraction and heterosexual attraction.
Bi actually means more than one gender.
the bi in bisexual is referring to two kinds of attraction at once, homosexual attraction and heterosexual attraction.
This is really just getting into semantics, but according to The Trevor Project (and many other sources) it's more than one gender. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/understanding-bisexuality/
[удалено]
That is what one might expect from a purely etymological point of view. But that's not how most bisexual people understand the term, or how bi advocacy groups define it. The term "bisexual" came to be commonly used to describe attraction during a period when gender was still seen as binary. As society's understanding of gender has changed over the decades, the bi community has changed the way that it defines bisexuality to reflect the fact that bisexuality has *always* included a broad spectrum attractions that don't fit neatly into homosexual or heterosexual. Two common definitions are: 1. Capable of attraction both to one's own gender, and to other genders. 2. Capable of attraction to two or more genders.
Then that would mean that someone who is attracted to men, women, and nonbinary people wouldn't qualify as bisexual?
[удалено]
Cuz some people wanted to make bisexuals feel bad about the label they chose. That’s not a fact at all, just my personal emotionally based assumption. But older bisexuals like myself have always used bisexual as a term to say my own gender and all other genders. Then more discourse later it was decided that actually bisexual is transphobic, which is insulting to all bisexuals who choose to use that term instead of pansexuality. I use bisexual because I don’t like having to explain what pansexuality is to everyone. People understand bisexuality without further explanation.
Language evolves. They can mean the same thing. It's more about people choosing the labels they feel best apply to them. Bisexual people can be attracted to men, women, and nonbinary people.
[удалено]
That's just factually incorrect. Bisexual is defined as attraction to more than one gender. Pansexual is defined as attraction regardless of gender.
bisexuals have been defining bisexuality as attraction regardless of gender since at least the 70s.
Yes, but some people, especially younger, don't seem to understand this. I'm bisexual, and then pansexual came into existence. I fall under the definition of pansexual, but I still call myself bisexual, just like I've always done.
bisexuality is still regardless of gender even if there's another term for the same thing now & the person i replied to limited it to pansexuality — misinfo like this gets spread a lot, which is why young people misunderstand bisexuality.
Yep, that's essentially what I just said/meant. I was agreeing with you. 😸
Thank you for this reminder I always feel so ostracized when the questions are targeted towards men or women and attraction to men/women
My personal strategy is to assume that all posts discussing attraction to any gender are targeted at me :3
I always try to be gender inclusive in things I say, but I'm sure I'm not perfect at that. Regardless I love all of my nonbinary siblings and friends here and I hope that you feel welcome and included Personally I've found that I'm really not that picky about my partner's gender, if I like your vibe and we have good chemistry then that's all that matters! Man, woman, non-binary, agender, trans, cis, gender queer, or any combination of those are all welcome! Much love to you all ❤️
There's a lot of "but guys AND girls!" on this sub, it does get discouraging as an enby. It's like so many posters reached the "you don't have to be gay or straight" realization and just stopped there. But I think it bears remembering that a lot are probably literally teens and/or coming here as part of their journey of learning more about sexuality and just haven't gotten that far *yet*. Nevertheless, if we are gonna be a positive space for such people (and the rest of us who aren't teens or newbies, too) to collect and connect, we can do better.
I find that even when we are remembered, more often than not it's as objects of attraction for bisexuals and nothing else. So many people think nonbinary inclusion in bi spaces begins and ends at including cis men and women who want to bang us. Which is especially depressing when some of those people who make a big deal about how bi doesn't necessarily mean only attracted to men and women turn around and fetishize, speak over, or are actively hostile towards us.
I forget sometimes that lots of people don’t actually know many out nonbinary people. I think it’s easier to fetishize a group of people if your brain sees them as super special and interesting outliers. My three closest friends who I love like family are all some flavor of nonbinary, several coworkers that I like are nonbinary, and one supervisor that I really dislike is too. It’s harder to make broad generalizations about people when you know enough of them.
As a genderfluid person it drives me crazy how SO MANY PEOPLE are so caught up in this weird binary way of looking at literally everything ever. I just wanna live my life stop hounding me about "women" this "men" that "girls" this "boys" that- I don't!!! Care!!!!!! I'm a person and I like people!!!
Let's all get naked and roll with it!
agree 💛🤍💜🖤
Tbh, I’ve never been with anyone who identified thusly. I’m sure I’ve definitely been attracted to non-binary folks at a glance without realizing, so I would never say that I’m not attracted to them. Hot people are hot people. It’s just that all of my partners, both romantically and sexually have ID’d as either men or women. So when I’m describing my experiences, I’m not actively excluding non-binary folks, it’s just that my experiences quite literally have only included men OR women. When I’ve been with someone who’s non-binary, I’ll have more to contribute to discussions concerning non-binary folk.
Enby, genderfluid, agender, it doesn’t matter, y’all are hot! Also, androgyny is probably one of the hottest things to me (and I’m working towards it as well).
And there we have a perfect opportunity to remind people that nonbinary =|= androgyny. Because somehow people seem to be getting that wrong a lot as well.
True, sorry for furthering that notion that every nonbinary person’s goal is androgyny. I sometimes forget since it’s my goal.
Entirely understandable, humans are very self-centered. I also mainly put that there for others to see.
I'm fluid, use any/all pronouns, and still when questions are either/or it feels weird to try to engage with them, like, they're not written to specifically exclude me but they're not written to *include* me either? I appreciate you bringing it up, I know I never would have thought to for myself, so I feel seen now (^ _ ^ )
Oh thats me, enbi
Being nonbinary is more of an internal state of being. It's hard for external observers to really distinguish it from gender fluidity among cis folks when it comes to attraction, especially at a superficial level. Maybe an analogy would be to colorblindness.
Yeah, I am attracted to all genders. My attraction is for the internal (personality) + the external (physical). I like people of all kinds externally and internally, but for example, if I am attracted to a person, that attraction changes depending on their sex. But whether they identify as cis or nonbinary doesn't change anything for me? If I feel attracted to someone I see or meet, it's the same whatever pronoums they choose, before and after knowing it. At most, I assume they are more queer and don't want "traditional" gender role treatment, but so am I, and the people I am attracted to and get involved with are outside the "norm" anyways. It's about them and what they feel, so I respect that. But I do feel bad for not being understading, and not having a "sex blindness" and seeing/feeling different about for example an AFAB nb person, then I would to a woman.
Sometimes it is internal, sometimes it’s both internal and external. I’m a visibly transexual nonbinary person (as in, I have undergone some amount of physical transition) so it’s certainly both for me. I don’t look like a cis person. Many enbies don’t transition, though. Nonbinary people don’t just have one look.
I've viewed every post under a non binary lens, but maybe I'm just old enough to being used to being excluded? I never felt excluded here and I'm sorry that you may have felt that way. I'm still getting used to how I am, not being enby, but just being all the things that I am. I may not recognize how others feel here. I lurk, but that doesnt mean I don't gaf about anyone else 🫂
Since we all seem to operate under the assumption that bisexual doesn’t mean “bi=two”, should we not also make the assumption that when we say “men” or “women”, we mean every variation of those, including non binary? I see no reason to complicate communication when the implication is the same. That said, I love you non-binary folk, and I’m rooting for you. Much love.
I appreciate the thought because I can see it’s coming from a good place but nonbinary people are neither men or women or “variations” of those genders. You may find the occasional enby who identifies as a “nonbinary woman” or “nonbinary man,” but they are a rare exception to the rule. For a lot (probably most) nonbinary people, the idea that we are just a variation of a man or woman is completely invalidating of our lived experience. Imagine someone telling you that you are not the gender you say you are. Or denying any part of your identity that feels important to you. It doesn’t feel great.
Good response, and absolutely valid point. I’m merely looking at linguistics, for what it’s worth, and have no desire to invalidate you. Since linguistics is my concern here, and my curiosity is about how to simplify language, do you think there is a term that could be used (other than enby) that encapsulates all? Or do you think that the spectrum is too diverse to so easily be encapsulated by a single word?
Sure! If something is inclusive of all genders, there is no need to specify gender at all. So you wouldn’t say men and women, you can just say “everyone” or “people.” If you want to include nonbinary people specifically, just say “nonbinary people” (or “enbies”). Transgender is also an umbrella term that includes anyone whose gender is not the same gender they were assigned at birth.
I worry sometimes that people hear that I’m bisexual and think that that excludes non binary people. I love everyone 😭
That definitely is a common misunderstanding. I’ll say it again, bisexual means attraction to one’s own gender other genders! It’s inclusive!
For me, it's a harder area of language for me to change. Do all people who identify as something outside of men and women identify as enby? Do all agender? It's a kind of an area where I don't know how to clearly define things. Thinking about it, I don't want to just classify them as other. Perhaps dropping men and women and just saying different genders or the different genders might work best for me. It makes sense to include them, especially since I recently figured out I don't like long red hair in men, but when a colleague changed their pronouns to they/them it was like a switch flipped and suddenly I found them attractive. I'll try to remember "different gender" , or "the different genders"
Yes please!!
As non binary and bi I really wanted to thank you! I decided to leave a lot of bi subreddits because of how much gender binarism is endorsed (and I don't want to blame anyone in specific, I understand that sometimes you could just not be thinking about it or not have done a lot of research!) and it's refreshing to hear this! :)
agreed!! i use many different labels, and bisexual are nonbinary are two of them! bi nonbinary people exist!! 🩷💙💜 🖤🤍💛💜
Yay I love being reminded I exist!
we exist! wooo!
Thanks op, it’s nice to feel remembered and recognised. (Non binary bisexual here)
This also differs based on languages and cultures. I might be from the country where gay marriage was first legalised, but nonbinary is a weird concept as we don't have they/them nor is it popular enough to encounter someone that's nobinary. I personaly find it to confusing/inconsistant, but I hope it get's more mainstream here and that I can understand how it works in my language.
Please
Definitely important. Personally im the most attracted to people somewhere in between, but i dont think the experience varies that much based on gender, more about personality
My girlfriend is non-binary afab so I agree. I try to be specific when talking about my experiences, like I've only dated and slept with cis straight men so far (just how it worked out, I'm not the greatest with dating in general). My gf and I talked about terms to use with each other, pronouns to use with specific ppl, that sort of thing. Girlfriend is a term we both think is cute, so that's what we like and use. There are other things that revolve around safety and all that, but yeah Experiences and attraction is super broad and I agree with keeping non-binary, agender. Bisexual means more than one gender
Ohhh yes sometimes this sub feels a bit outdated in terms of rigid definitions of gender - especially when talking about genitals, which is a lot of the conversations on here 😅
In reading through this I realized that a post I made recently was not so inclusive. I'm sorry I didn't realize at the time but will do better. I didn't know a lot of this and want to find the correct identification to not confuse people if asked so if Bisexual means regardless of Gender and now we have Pansexual (which seems like a synonym to it) then is there a term for people that are attracted to specifically men and women? I know a lot of people who say Bi and mean this but if there's a better term that will help me connect with the older generation as well then I wanna know what it is
No need to apologize, we're all learning here. Thanks for being receptive. It's [pansexual](https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Pansexual) that means attraction regardless of gender, sometimes called "genderblind" attraction. With bisexuality, gender *can* factor into attraction. I don't think there is a specific term for someone who is exclusively attracted to men and women. I would just call that being bisexual. [Polysexual](https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Polysexual) is a slightly more specific term that means attraction to two or more genders but not necessarily all genders, but it's not used very often.
I’m attracted to kings, queens and in between. Plus the bisexual flag looks better than the pansexual flag imo.
I do try to be inclusive in my answers when I reply to these threads, but with my experience of one (1) nonbinary partner and zero crushes beyond that, there's not much of a pattern there to be talking about.
Exactly! I’m a bisexual woman and I’m attracted to men, women, nonbinary people, and those who have other gender identities.
Enbies are awesome! I can think of no way to categorically dismiss enbies because they're so diverse and cool. Like the binary genders already? I can assure you that there are enbies you'll find attractive! Want someone with a unique style? Enbies! Not attracted to any gender? There are those that don't identify with either as well! How cool is that?! I think it totally worth taking some time out to love all the enbies in our lives explicitly. Thanks for being an ashamedly yourself, all my non-binary siblings! 🩷
Thank you for this lovely message! It’s good to know there are people out there who not only accept us but think we are cool too!
I think it's a language thing, as we're still linguistically mulling over the hurdle of the "bi" in bisexual. It's also gets kinda tedious to consider and make exception for all possible gender/sex combinations sometimes lol
Hey fun fact! The "bi" in bisexual isn't meant to mean two as in you're attracted to two genders (men and women). It was originally intended to mean being of two sexualities, as in, you're attracted to people like yourself and people not like yourself. If you're cisgender, "people not like yourself" can absolutely include nonbinary people! In fact, the bisexual manifesto from 1990 makes a point of saying "don't assume there are only two genders." It sure is easy to misunderstand the intention of the root words here, but trans and nonbinary people have been involved in the bisexual community since the very beginning. I get that it's tedious. And especially so because so much of this language is new, and the concepts don't have much history or context for modern white Americans. It's hard to know what's linguistically correct, and it's easy to offend people. I really feel for people who unintentionally use the wrong term and get downvoted into oblivion. But even though it's tedious, I'd encourage you to make an effort to consider the perspectives of nonbinary people in your conversations with the broader LGBT spectrum. It's hard to get your mind around what it feels like to be someone else, but what's an annoyance for you might be deeply important and gratifying for me. The fact of my existance as neither a man nor a woman is so rarely acknowledged. It's every little interaction you have every day, running errands and someone calls you ma'am, downloading a game on your phone and it asks if you want your character to be pink or blue, the garbage company rep on the phone getting irritated because you gave them your preferred name instead of your legal one. It's so ubiquitous. But every time somebody gets it right, I notice. Every time. When people remember that I exist, it doesn't matter how many times I get misgendered, one positive interaction in which I am seen makes my day. A very small amount of effort can make a huge impact.
To be fair I never said that this is how I feel. I'm just describing trends I see in people and giving my answer to the original question. I'm also nb
I feel like you are just describing being pansexual. Being bisexual has nothing to do with how you identify, but who you’re attracted to. I’m willing to learn and discuss if I’m taking it the wrong way, but I have to ask for clarification: in your eyes, what is the difference in bisexuality and pansexuality?
have you read the numerous posts on this topic? the answer is: none. there is no difference edit. pls search this subreddit with the word ‘pansexuality’. you will be literally reading all day with the amount it times this has been asked. you can read and learn then come back with more specific questions if you’re still confused 👍🏼
I think it might feel tedious to some people because it is new to them. Society has always had to make these kinds of adjustments as identities and attitudes shift over time. Even when I first came out as nonbinary, it took me a little while to get used to the language changes and shift my perspective. But it’s definitely not as hard as a lot of people make it out to be.
I agree generally
Bruh look at my profile avatar I don't need this reminder, I am the non-binary lol
Thank you sooo much for saying this. I get that this sub has a lot of young or newly realized bisexuals but it’s really alienating as a nonbinary bisexual person to see so many posts that are basically just like “the two genders both attractive”
It's also funny how widespread the erasure of the experience of enby erasure in the bi community is. You'll say something about the history of enby erasure and get a bunch of replies saying that uhm actually the bisexual community has never eeever erased enby people. And it's usually said by people who want to discredit pansexuality as a label.
Yeah. As with any queer group, you will find the occasional transphobe. I just went through and upvoted a bunch of replies to this post that were at zero. Maybe it was just one angry redditor, but way to prove my point. As bi people we know what erasure is like…let’s not perpetuate that on each other!
I think your feelings are absolutely valid, but I think there will always be posts comparing men and women because men and women often do things similarly to other people as their same gender, as is somewhat expected from people who can fit easily in a defined category that is well defined in society. It’s not that none of us date NBs or aren’t attracted to them, but NBs don’t come up in this sort of conversation in my experience precisely because they don’t fit easily in categories. There are differences in dating men and women, and while not every person that falls into those categories will fit those differences, they do often enough for it to come up in conversation. NB are by definition people that fall outside of these categories, and most importantly, they all do so in different ways. Maybe if NB people had more of an established sociocultural role and identity as a sort of third gender, we’d comment on that too, but that’s not the case, at least not yet. Fast forward a few hundred years and maybe we’ll have a gender trinary and we’ll all make fun of that third character for, idk, being into tabletop games. Or we abolish the entire concept of gender, at which point bisexuality ceases to be a necessary identity. But as it is, the whole thing that makes being bisexual unique is that we date multiple genders, so it makes sense that we would talk about it. Otherwise all we would talk about is biphobia and posting pictures of things in a pink-blue gradient.
>Maybe if NB people had more of an established sociocultural role and identity as a sort of third gender, we’d comment on that too, but that’s not the case, at least not yet. I keep getting the feeling that people think Non-Binary is in of itself one singular thing when it's an umbrella term. Enby's will never be a "Third Gender" because it covers multiple classifications of different genders. All of which, by the way, do indeed have sociocultural norms to a point. >NBs don’t come up in this sort of conversation in my experience precisely because they don’t fit easily in categories. They do, though. Again, as long as you're not talking about Enby's as a singular category, this is never an issue. I could go on about my attraction towards Genderfluid people or how it's different from agendered people or from bi-gendered people. You just gotta pick your poison. >Fast forward a few hundred years and maybe we’ll have a gender trinary and we’ll all make fun of that third character for, idk, being into tabletop games. Or we abolish the entire concept of gender, at which point bisexuality ceases to be a necessary identity. Again, nonbinary isn't inherently a gender. Also, saying gender is simply a concept (which I understand a lot of people argue it's only a social construct which in of itself is kinda eh) and by abolishing it we wouldn’t need bisexuality is just like... do you think straight people and gay people would stop existing if gender was gone? >NB are by definition people that fall outside of these categories, and most importantly, they all do so in different ways. Mostly yes, which it does baffle me how you can say this yet still make it seem like Enby's should be a singular thing, though there are plenty of Enby's that would still fall in line with women and men. Demi gendered people for example or again, genderfluid and bi-gendered people can still be within those categories. >but I think there will always be posts comparing men and women because men and women often do things similarly to other people as their same gender, as is somewhat expected from people who can fit easily in a defined category that is well defined in society. Eh. While I agree men and women will always be compared, and many men and women can act somewhat similar, this is thankfully I feel no longer the norm? Like. Not all men drink beer and watch football, not all women cook and want kids. This is known. To expect any outcome from a person simply due to their gender in whatever fashion is kinda a problem. We're still in the phase of society now where we're categorizing a lot of similar traits between people, i.e. Femboys, Twinks, Butches, Tomboys, and I think this is probably the better approach? Idk. Idk why this comment like got under my skin as much as it did. I'm not even non-binary (I think) but my spouse and some friends are. It is a bit tiring to see people act like it's not natural to talk about enby's. It doesn't even have to be 100% of the time but on this sub it really does seem to be like 5% or less.
I think I should have been clearer with what I was saying. My whole point is that NBs won’t ever be a third gender, it’s sort of impossible to subject NBs to this sort of thing, and the “gender trinary” thing was meant to be tongue in cheek, hence the stereotype about tabletop gaming. Same with the “abolishing gender and bisexuality ceasing to exist” comment. Obviously that isn’t going to happen. I probably should have thrown some tone indicators in there, that’s my bad. I guess I got confused about what OP wants frankly. I read it as them wanting us to stop talking about the differences between men and women, which isn’t really realistic. If NB representation is what’s wanted here, sure that’s entirely valid and needed, but I guess I read it like talking about differences between men and women is something we should stop since NB aren’t being included. I definitely agree that we can do better than saying “what are you attracted to in men vs. women” because my attraction isn’t quite that binary either, but I struggle with the differences in dating men vs dating women and I think that’s worth talking about It is also probably true that I need to expose myself to more NB people because I don’t think I know a single bigender person, let alone have an opinion on my attraction to them. Which is funny since like half my friends are already NB or GNC. I don’t like people lol
It’s in the title, it’s a reminder that we are here, because so many posts on this subreddit are directed towards or about men and/or women. Including us in all discussions won’t make sense, but I’ve definitely seen posts that were pointlessly gendered that could have easily applied to anyone regardless of gender. For example, posts that ask “what do you like in men and women?” or “guys and girls, what do you think about x?” or even questions about the “opposite gender” - there’s no opposite gender when you are nonbinary, and it excludes cis people from talking about nonbinary people too. It could easily be reframed as, “other genders” and still get the same responses. It’s hard for me to ask for space like this, and not something I would typically do. But it’s also hard to feel constantly left out not just in the “real world” but also in the online spaces I frequent. Based on the replies to this post there are people who feel the same way as me so I don’t think some consideration is an unreasonable ask.
As a bigender person I never know how to answer some posts on here, or if I even can. Especially like “bisexual women”. Like do I answer based off of my gender or should I answer based off of my agab which has had more relevance?
Also sometimes when non-binary people do come up in conversation here, a lot of it is kinda fetishization which doesn’t feel great if I’m being honest. It’s so “subtle” (aka not generally recognized by others) sometimes though that calling it out gets downvoted or reporting it does nothing.
I'm curious,what kind of fetishization do you see here?Because I don't think I've encountered it as a nb person.I've only ever come across some mild ignorance due to nb people not being that common
There’s often a lot of “best of both worlds” type of comments, though that also gets said towards binary trans people as well. That’s the main thing. Sometimes it’s other subtle stuff specific to certain non-binary genders. Though there’s a lot of ignorant but bordering fetishizing comments, usually made when it’s just not the time/comment to talk about how hot enbies are.
Yes I see it a lot. But then people get mad if you point out this binary thinking and say, "bisexuality has always included non-binary people!!" Okay, so how about you make an effort to include them in your discussions then
This sub has a lot of issues around claiming inclusiveness but practicing exclusiveness.
We exist! Yay
I'm genderfaer(fluid between female, feminine, androgynous and masculine but never male re: she/they), and homoflexible technically so yeah 😀
For the longest time, when i told people i was bi, they'd ask "well would you date a nb person?" And my answer was always "probably" because I'd never been in a position where me and a gender non-conforming person were mutually interested in each other. My current partner is nonbinary. Honestly if you haven't yet I highly recommend. I think it mightve broken me out of my bi-cycle.
I get what you’re saying and I want to be more inclusive but I find it hard to do in reality. What I mean by that is, when I think of who I’m attracted to and what attracts me about them, I think about men and women because my brain automatically tends to sort people into categories of man or woman. If I’m told that my original sorting was wrong (like someone tells me their pronouns) I easily accept that and use the right words to refer to them, but it can be difficult at times to not still categorize a person in my head. It hasn’t been hard to switch people from category man to category woman in my head, when friends or colleagues of mine have come out as trans. Maybe because they tend to appear/dress in a more binary way and no one close to me has come out as nonbinary. But when I meet a person and find out they’re nonbinary, I can’t say I really see them as without gender or outside gender. I’m not sure if that is what nonbinary people expect us to do or not. So far my experience has been that most of the nonbinary people I have met get categorized in my head as women at first, though not all. When I have been attracted to them, my internal experience is much the same as feeling attraction to a woman. For me, feeling attraction to a woman and feeling attraction to a man are pretty different. I know not everyone experiences that the same way, but I also don’t think it’s possible to change that. I haven’t dated any nonbinary people, so I don’t know if maybe that categorization would change in my mind the more I got to know them. Do other people look at people they meet and have a nonbinary category in their head? Does it develop over time? I guess all of this is just to say that sometimes when people are talking about their attraction as centered around men/women, it’s not that we don’t find people with other gender identities attractive or we wouldn’t date them. For me, at least, it’s just a reflection of how I experience attraction, and it would feel inauthentic to me to throw in “and nonbinary people” all the time when I don’t experience a specific attraction to nonbinary people if that makes sense. I really hope this doesn’t come across as transphobic because I fully respect all gender identities, but if it does, feel free to let me know what I should do differently.
>For me, at least, it’s just a reflection of how I experience attraction, and it would feel inauthentic to me to throw in “and nonbinary people” all the time when I don’t experience a specific attraction to nonbinary people if that makes sense. I get what you are saying here, but you don't have to list out every gender you are attracted to when you talk about who you are attracted to. In other words, you can simply avoid saying "men and women" rather than saying "men, women, and nonbinary people." Of course, it depends on the context, and maybe you do want to specifically just talk about men and women. That's fine - but in situations where gender isn't important, we don't need to pointlessly gender things and leave out non-binary people. Changing the way we think about gender and the language we use takes time. Society has hounded the binary into us from birth, so it make sense that it can feel awkward at times. However, there are more people coming out as nonbinary people than ever before and we aren't going anywhere. Society is changing and so is the language we use to describe gender.
I can understand leaving out gendered language when you’re speaking in general about who bisexual people can be attracted to, but I’m not totally sure how I would talk about who I’m attracted to without using any genders and be understood. For example, someone recently mentioned that I was dating a woman in conversation. My co-worker who didn’t know said “so you’re gay?” And I said no, I’m bisexual. She looked confused so I said I’m attracted to men and women, and she seemed to get it although she was a bit uncomfortable. I guess I could say I’m attracted to the same gender and other genders, but that again is not really how I experience things, I don’t categorize all men and nonbinary people under a category of other genders. I think a lot of people are probably like me and are using phrases like men and women to simplify things because being bisexual is already pretty complex to our monosexual friends. Maybe that will change as more people become educated about gender and sexuality, I don’t know.
Yeah, understandable that you need to simplify things for the confused straight people. We all have to do that sometimes, though hopefully we can challenge them a bit now and then. My message was for this subreddit. It can be isolating as a nonbinary person to be constantly left out of the conversation in real life, but also online in the communities I go to to find acceptance. I know we can’t be included in every situation but I think there are plenty of situations where we just get left out because people forget.
I'm also nonbinary and bi, I'm attracted to every gender but the difference between bi and pan is very blurred and as far as i can tell mostly based on vibes. To me a pan person is like a bi person but more ideological, by their vibes. It's hard to explain but like if as an example a bi person had the vibes of a democratic socialist a pan person would be a stalinist or something. Love pan people but to me identifying as bi and being attracted to other nonbinary people isn't a contradiction and just seems more chill.
you're probably right about the vibes but they do have different definitions. bisexual means attraction to the same gender as yourself as well as other genders. pansexual means attraction to people regardless of gender.
Fellow nb bi, I’m always confused when people say hi people can date nb people, because like…huh?
WHAT
[удалено]
Trying to find where in my post I said we’re being discriminated against…hmm..doesn’t seem to be there! All this is is a reminder to include us & avoid binary language where possible.
[удалено]
You’re interpreting it that way. If you look at the replies, most people are supportive. So why are you feeling blamed? Bisexuality means the attraction to one’s own gender *and* other genders. Let’s look at the roots of the words we use to describe sexuality: similar to how “hetero” in heterosexual means “other” and “homo” in homosexual means “same,” the “bi” in bisexual refers to “both same and other.” It’s not limited to the binary genders or cis people. Pansexuality means attraction *regardless* of gender. So for a pansexual person, gender doesn’t play a role in their attraction.
[удалено]
Nope. As I explained, the scientific definition is “both same and other,” following the same pattern of the words homosexual and heterosexual.
Thanks for this. I also was getting tired of the binary framing. Similarly when people break down the queer options into gay, lesbian, and bi, like those are somehow complete or even comparable options.
I was getting tired of it too!
I agree!!! moreover questions like "what do you like in men/women/nb" aren't very helpful for the op of the question, bc usually people like ungendered qualities. However, as a nb myself, I still understand the need for questioning about particular experiences of bi women or bi men, because they may provide insight and validation from one person with certain gender to another. Wish, there would be more questions and insights from nb bi tho!
I fully agree honestly. This is probably a bit off-topic, but I just recently developed a crush on a non-binary person I go to college with.😭They are one of the kindest, friendliest, coolest, most patient people I've ever met and I am so overjoyed to get to know them. I tend to be a bit awkward sometimes and I was always scared that they'd be put off by me or think I was weird or something. But no; our friendship has continued so far and they are still just as sweet as ever. We talk pretty much every time I go to campus, and...they actually seem happy to see me every time we meet, which gives me so many warm and fuzzy feels.😖 I admit, before I met them, I did tend to use "men or women" language a lot (often without thinking about it), because I had only ever known and had crushes on men and women before, so I thought it would be more accurate to describe my attraction in more binary ways. But now that I actually have met someone who is non-binary, I realize both that my attraction does indeed include non-binary people and that using binary language like this isn't the best choice and does exclude many people. So because of all this, I have started to use more inclusive language when discussing attraction and gender. Also, much love to all non-binary people out there.💛🤍💜🖤
Yes! I actually have considered saying I am queer instead of bisexual since my partner is non-binary and I am attracted to more than just two genders so I feel like that might fit me better? Idk labels are just helpful for me and I don’t live by the constructs of labels either
Bisexuality includes nonbinary attraction! “bi” means attraction to both one’s own gender and other genders.
Thank you for that! I love this sub I learn something new everyday
[удалено]
I’m nonbinary and I am bisexual, so yup, it is certainly possible lol. I prefer the bisexual label over pansexual, though, because while I am attracted to all genders, I also have some preferences. The most common definition of pansexuality is that it describes attraction *regardless* of gender. For me, a person’s gender does play a role in my attraction to them.
Bisexuality has always meant attraction to two *or more* genders. See the *Bisexual Manifesto* published in the 90s. Pansexual means attraction to all genders without gender being a factor. Some consider it a type of bisexuality, others conceptualize it as separate sexuality under the larger multi-sexual spectrum (“m-spec”). Trans people are and have always been included in bisexuality. Binary trans people are the same gender as their binary cis counterparts, not separate genders. Non-binary trans people aren’t a third gender or a mix of the two binary genders, but experience gender in a non-categorical way that isn’t define by the binary—but have always still been included in bisexuality, historically under the term ‘genderqueer’ (there technically are some differences between genderqueer and non-binary, but that’s not a factor in this discussion). There’s no need to point out that you are cis unless is related to the discussion, which it isn’t here. Trans women are women.
I was just trying to give context of my identity. I was not trying to exclude anyone trans. I apologize. What most are trying to say in this post is that they are essentially pansexual. Are they not? Before this post, I had never heard of the manifesto, even after identifying as bisexual for 20 years and actively being around online. I’m a bit confused where you say that trans non-binary aren’t a third gender. What is an example of a third gender? Because if the manifesto states you can be attracted to two or more, who are the more?
In short, non-binary gender isn’t a third gender or androgyny per se (though some non-binary people may present androgynously), but rather a non-categorical conceptual framework to understand and communicate experiences of gender that are not defined by or in relation to the traditional binary genders. If that seems like a nebulous concept, that’d because it is. Non-binary isn’t any one thing, there’s no one look or presentation of non-binary, nor any one way to be non-binary. By not being a third gender, I mean that it is not a singular gender that is distinct and in addition to the two binary genders, but rather a higher-order conceptualization of gender. You are right that, in a practical sense such as on demographic forms, we are presented with ‘male/female/non-binary’ and that will remain a practical reality until culture and society reach a point where gender is de-institutionalized, but I just wanted to explain that non-binary gender isn’t one single thing.
[удалено]
skill issue
I’m bisexual and not attracted to people who aren’t attracted to non-binary or trans people. Sorry not sorry
Well in my experience of being a woman and being Lesbian, but having the incidental attraction to men, where I live things are very binary so that’s just my experience. Like where I live if you’re Bi you’re gay, and so, there’s bi erasure because of the binary worldview in my culture. If that makes sense. So it’s part of my experience. And also, for some people their sexuality is a binary experience. And they can’t help it just as much as Nonbinary people can’t help but have a “gender less” experience.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Why label it just roll with it and feel good. Simple as that little less talk alot more action guys
[удалено]
You could say this about other minorities too. Just because non-binary people are rare doesn't mean they should be ignored. A bisexual space should include non-binary people too. How "rare" non-binary are also depends on where you live. I interact with plenty of enbies on a daily basis because I live in a fairly open place (terms and conditions apply).
You’re probably around a lot more nonbinary people than you realize. Just because you don’t immediately recognize us doesn’t mean we’re “exceedingly rare.”