IN LIGHT OF RECENT BIPHOBIC ARTICLES PUBLISHED BY QUEER MEDIA OUTLETS, LOIS SHEARING ADDRESSES SOME OF THE MYTHS PERPETUATED BOTH OUTSIDE OF AND WITHIN THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY.

It feels like there’s been an uptake in biphobic articles in queer media recently. They’ve always been there, every now and then, but the last few months has really felt like there’s been a spike in pieces coming from queer media that perpetuate insidious myths about the bi+ community. So let’s debunk a few:

Myth 1: There are fake, predatory bi+ women out there preying on lesbians

According to Queer Voices, a very real and dangerous phenomenon worth dedicating your time to, is pretending to be bi for all the well-known privileges that come with it. You know, benefits like higher risk of intimate partner violence, higher rates of mental health disparities likely due to lack of community and double discrimination and of course, all of the threesomes.

I certainly don’t think that girls who want to spend the night drinking fruity drinks and flinch when random women whisper “indelicate suggestions” in their ear are fake, and are preying on the attention and validation of unwitting lesbians.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t believe in the fake bi girls trope. I don’t believe there are women out there pretending to be bi just so they can trick lesbians into giving them attention. I do believe in bi girls who are coercively closeted (that is, erased, passed as straight against their will), girls who want to act on their same-gender desire but feel ashamed or afraid, and girls who don’t feel like they can call themselves bi for whatever reason. I certainly don’t think that girls who want to spend the night drinking fruity drinks and flinch when random women whisper “indelicate suggestions” in their ear are fake, and are preying on the attention and validation of unwitting lesbians.

So Queer Voices mag, but you don’t get to decide who is bi and who isn’t. If someone says they’re bi, they are.