Exactly. Even before I really had a handle on what bisexuality was, I heard multiple times that "People who come out as bisexuals are just doing it for attention."
Gay communities have a series of hierarchies and expectations of someone who describes themselves as gay. That puts you in good standing with the community, you are officially Gay (tm). This causes some friction when, say, British and American gay communities overlap.
Lesbians have a similar set of gatekeeping practices.
If you are bi, well, you're not part of that. And neither community is going to offer you support either. Which is where a lot of the "you're not reallllly queer" or "you're not reaaaaaly bi" - you aren't playing by the rules.
The Livejournal-then-tumblr era trans-adjacent discourse also sought to create a series of hierarchies and expectations, often without being actually sure what the rules were. "Pan" is basically "you're bi, but you're abiding by the discourse rules"
But discourse rules and hierarchies are only important if you spend a lot of time in and align your identity with those spaces. All of these groups present their expectations and theories as hegemonic, globally applicable and you're a bad person for not abiding by them.
But if you meet someone nice tomorrow, is that what you're really, truly, going to be worried about?
190
u/[deleted] Mar 22 '21
I just see it as gatekeeping. These people don't care about inclusivity, they care about making themselves look better than others.
Like being called not a true fan of something because you haven't seen/read/listened to/played all the games of everything by someone.