Bi/pan Lesbian Discourse - Tumblr Posts

Since I’ve seen this in my feed again, I thought I'd finally throw my two cents in. Bi/pan lesbians aka bisexual lesbians/ pansexual lesbians cannot and do not exist, and in this statement I mean two things. 

1). I am in no way saying that panromantic or biromantic homosexuals do not exists. They do and are valid. The term lesbian however, should not be used to describe that identity whatsoever. 

2). Bi/pan and lesbian are two identities that are similar in certain aspects (wlw/ nblw), but they can not be used together as those who are bi or pan(especially pan) likely have attraction to men which cannot occur in lesbians for obvious reasons as lesbian only feel attraction for, you’ve guessed it, women and feme scale nonbinary people. Lesbians cannot be connected to sexualities that inherently require attraction to men.  

Now, I will talk about other aspects that simply disprove the ‘bi/pan lesbians’ ideology and show how it is harmful to have around. The first point to understand is that lesbian, unlike bi or gay, is not an umbrella term and cannot be used in such a way. Lesbian has only ever meant Lesbian and by trying to add in this idea of ‘new’ bi and pan lesbians as being a real thing invalidates that.  

Furthermore, the idea of bi/pan lesbians brings up harmful rhetoric against both the communities mentioned. Lesbians already deal with the issue of men believing that they simply “haven’t meet the right guy yet” or the they “could be changed given a relationship with a real man”. The bi/pan lesbian “identity” gives way for this falsity to take root, making it so that these men now believe they can be ones to turn a lesbian bi or pan when this has never ever been the case. For the bi and pan community, this brings up old wounds of bi/pan people needing to “pick a side” and decide whether to be straight or gay with bi/pan lesbians being the ‘gay’ side for sapphic bi and pan people which is false and untrue. 

At the end of the day, bi/pan lesbians are not only biphobic/panphobic but also lesbophobic for the reasons mentioned above as well as the fact that it erases the obvious differences between all the sexualities mentioned. If you are stuck on whether or not you like men but know you like women and are either a women or nonbinary individual, the term sapphic is a better fit for you as it’s an umbrella term for all wlw and nblw.