Boundaries, Thresholds and Love: why it’s time to take back ‘Bi’. Repost.

July 29, 2016July 28, 2016 Aoife O'RiordanBi, bi erasure, biphobia, bisexual, Bisexual community, lgbtq, pan, pansexual, QueerLeave a comment

I promised you reposts while I’m on holiday, so reposts are what you will receive! This post- Boundaries, Thresholds and Love: why it’s time to take back ‘Bi’– is extremely close to my heart. I’ve poured a lot of time and love into the bi+ community here where I live. I care deeply about how we create and constitute that community. This post is written especially for people within our nonmonosexual community, but it’s relevant for everyone.

I love ‘pan’ and ‘queer’. They’re fantastic words, and one of them is one of my absolute favourite words to describe myself. To put it in far more words: I am not arguing against the fact that there are a diversity of labels that people in the bi+ umbrella choose to use. We all have differing experiences, orientations, and ways of understanding these, and that is a damn good thing. But their use to the exclusion of bi comes from biphobia.

Let me phrase that again, with entirely different emphasis: Their use, to the exclusion of bi, comes from biphobia.

There are certain biphobic threads that I have noticed within pansexual/queer communities and discourse. Things you hear all the time. Things like:

“I’m not bi- I don’t see gender”

“I’m attracted to the person, not the body”

“Bisexuals are attracted to men and women, but I’m capable of loving all kinds of people”

It’s kind of painful to read/hear, to be honest. But, y’know something? I know what it feels like to say things like that. I used to say those things. All of them. They are, of course, all bullshit.

We all see gender- we’re bathed in gender, whether we like it or not, in every interaction we have with another person from the moment we’re born. It’s one thing to say that we don’t want to live in a world divided along coerced gendered lines. It’s another thing to blithely go about your life pretending that you already do. To do that only ignores the myriad of gendered ways in which all of us act towards ourselves and others. Saying that you don’t see gender just ’cause you can be attracted to people regardless of it isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card from doing the painful work of dismantling your own internalised misogynies and heteronormativities.

As for the second? People who are attracted to multiple genders are no more or less likely than monosexuals to have physical traits they find attractive. And the idea that physical attraction is somehow less valid than, or exclusive of, attraction to someone as a person is the height of sex-shaming. There is nothing shallow or meaningless about being physically attracted to people. And being physically attracted to someone doesn’t mean for a second that you can’t fancy the hell out of their brains as well.

As for the third one? We’ll get to that, but suffice it to say that bi+ communities haven’t been using the definition of bisexuality as meaning attraction to men and woman for a long time.

I said earlier that I’m not here to rag on people who use pan or queer. That’s not what this has been for- hell, I use one of them myself, and used the other for a long time as well. I’m talking about this because all of these statements come from a painful-as-hell place of internalised biphobia, and none of them will, in the long run, do a damn thing to make anyone’s situation better.

I love ‘pan’ and ‘queer’. They’re fantastic words, and one of them is one of my absolute favourite words to describe myself. To put it in far more words: I am not arguing against the fact that there are a diversity of labels that people in the bi+ umbrella choose to use. We all have differing experiences, orientations, and ways of understanding these, and that is a damn good thing. But their use to the exclusion of bi comes from biphobia.

Let me phrase that again, with entirely different emphasis: Their use, to the exclusion of bi, comes from biphobia.

There are certain biphobic threads that I have noticed within pansexual/queer communities and discourse. Things you hear all the time. Things like:

“I’m not bi- I don’t see gender”

“I’m attracted to the person, not the body”

“Bisexuals are attracted to men and women, but I’m capable of loving all kinds of people”

It’s kind of painful to read/hear, to be honest. But, y’know something? I know what it feels like to say things like that. I used to say those things. All of them. They are, of course, all bullshit.

We all see gender- we’re bathed in gender, whether we like it or not, in every interaction we have with another person from the moment we’re born. It’s one thing to say that we don’t want to live in a world divided along coerced gendered lines. It’s another thing to blithely go about your life pretending that you already do. To do that only ignores the myriad of gendered ways in which all of us act towards ourselves and others. Saying that you don’t see gender just ’cause you can be attracted to people regardless of it isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card from doing the painful work of dismantling your own internalised misogynies and heteronormativities.

As for the second? People who are attracted to multiple genders are no more or less likely than monosexuals to have physical traits they find attractive. And the idea that physical attraction is somehow less valid than, or exclusive of, attraction to someone as a person is the height of sex-shaming. There is nothing shallow or meaningless about being physically attracted to people. And being physically attracted to someone doesn’t mean for a second that you can’t fancy the hell out of their brains as well.

As for the third one? We’ll get to that, but suffice it to say that bi+ communities haven’t been using the definition of bisexuality as meaning attraction to men and woman for a long time.

I said earlier that I’m not here to rag on people who use pan or queer. That’s not what this has been for- hell, I use one of them myself, and used the other for a long time as well. I’m talking about this because all of these statements come from a painful-as-hell place of internalised biphobia, and none of them will, in the long run, do a damn thing to make anyone’s situation better.

Read the rest – I promise, it’s worth your while- and let me know what you think, right?

Photo by sermoa

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Jillian Holtzmann: queer as a salty parabola, she’s not here for straight people.

July 21, 2016July 22, 2016 Aoife O'Riordangay, Ghostbusters, holtzmann, jillian holtzmann, Queer61 Comments

Spoiler level: minor. (Also, I know I said I was off on a blog break. But c’mere, I’m only human. Flesh and blood and a burning need to talk about Holtzmann. The break starts tomorrow, right?)

Jillian Holtzmann. Jillian. Fucking. Holtzmann. The queerest thing I’ve seen on screen since I recruited my friends to help me move my furniture. And yet, I keep hearing that there’s some kind of ambiguity to her. That she’s not out. That there’s something coy about her presentation.

Really? Really? Let’s sit ourselves down and have a look at this, shall we?

Holtzmann goggles — But first. I want to be a goggles.

Continue reading “Jillian Holtzmann: queer as a salty parabola, she’s not here for straight people.” →

Queer people, QPOC: Where did you go after Orlando?

June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 Aoife O'Riordanlatinx, lgbt, LGBT community, love, orlando shooting, pulse shooting, Queer3 Comments

Queer people- where did you go after Orlando?

Here’s where I went on Monday evening:

I tried to sing along. My voice cracked.

And then I went here:

I went to Pantibar. It was packed. I found a seat. Got a goddamn drink. We raised our glasses: to calling out homophobia wherever we see it. Then we raised them again: to being us. To being as unapologetically queer as we can.

This is important.

Two days before, a man had walked into one of the Orlando Latinx LGBTQIA community’s most necessary spaces. He’d walked into a space where people who have been told that they’re nothing from so many angles go to celebrate one another. And he gave his life to destroy that space.

Queer people, trans people, QUILTBAGgers, POC: where did you go when you heard? How many of you went back to y/our spaces? How many of you went somewhere where you could be seen? Continue reading “Queer people, QPOC: Where did you go after Orlando?” →

Homophobia: letting go of the Capital H.

March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 Aoife O'Riordanhomophobia, internalised homophobia, lgbt, Queer7 Comments

CN: homophobia, physical violence and threats of violence.

Do you know what does my head in?

This idea of homophobia: it’s something special. In this view- which I’m going to call Capital H, for reasons which will make perfect sense in a moment- people who do homophobic things are called homophobes, and they are the worst.

Think of a homophobe, and what do you see in your mind’s eye? Something like this, maybe:

westboro baptist church photo — Photo by Photographing Travis

That guy: the worst.

What else might you picture? Maybe parents who kick their queer kids out of home, say. People who shout homophobic things at people who look gay on the street. Bakers who refuse to make cakes for same-sex weddings. Perhaps.

Let’s be clear: those people are grade-A, Capital-H Homophobes. But what about the rest of us? I’ll bet you don’t hate LGBTQIA people. You probably have queer friends or love Orange Is The New Black. If you got the chance, I’ll bet you even voted for marriage equality in your state or your country. You might even have been to a few Pride marches. You’re not A Homophobe. That’s the issue with the Capital-H idea of homophobia. It makes homophobia a terrible thing that only Homophobes do. Homophobes are monsters. You’re not a monster, are you? Continue reading “Homophobia: letting go of the Capital H.” →

Should bi people leave the LGBT community?

February 4, 2016April 10, 2016 Aoife O'RiordanBi, bisexual, lgbt, LGBT community, pansexual, Queer13 Comments

This video is one of the most thought-provoking, as well as difficult to watch, things I’ve seen in a while. It’s 7 minutes long, so you might want a cuppa before watching. Is the LGBT community biphobic to the extent that bi people should leave?

This is something where his premise is correct, and his conclusion.. incredibly saddening. Is this really all we can do? Is the LG(bt) community really so beyond help? Continue reading “Should bi people leave the LGBT community?” →

Guest post: What now? Why do we throw our less respectable queers under the bus?

May 29, 2015 Aoife O'RiordanBi, guest post post marref, homonormativity, lgbtq, QueerLeave a comment

As a follow-up to last week’s Guest Posts for Equality series (read them!), I asked people to share their thoughts on two topics: what does the referendum’s result mean to them, and what comes next.

The author of this post has asked to remain anonymous, as they are currently only out to a small number of their close friends.

Now that the referendum campaigning is done, and the yesses have it, I’d like to talk about something I felt I couldn’t much during the past few weeks. The run up to the vote has been wearying, painful and damaging to the queer community. The venomous homophobia spewing forth from the many heads of the Iona hydra has taken its toll on everyone. How deeply that pain is felt depends heavily on the network of support a person has around them, and I for one am grateful that my immediate family and circle of friends are, at least most of the time, not outwardly homophobic.

However.

While hateful lies published by right-wing scummers are easy to criticise, to mock, and, for some, to brush off, it will be harder for those of us on the Yes side to self-reflect and see the many ways in which our campaigns have been harmful to the very people they claim to represent. A good example of this is the incredibly misguided “Straight Up For Equality” campaign. The slogan serves no purpose, other than to state that you can vote in favour of same sex marriage, even if you’re Not A Gay. For straight people, literally the only people not directly affected by the outcome of this referendum, this campaign gives them an excuse to assert their own heteronormativity, to maintain an “us and them” straight versus gay dichotomy, while allowing themselves to feel like progressive liberal heroes. Straight people, listen up; this is not about you.

Another thing that the Straight Up For Equality slogan implies is that there are only two types of relationships, straight or gay, and that your sexuality depends on which relationships you happen to be in. What of queers who aren’t gay? Do two bi women in a relationship suddenly become lesbians? Are a straight woman and her pan husband in a straight marriage? What of individuals of nonbinary gender? I can imagine the answer from our self-professed straight allies would be something along the lines of, “…huh?”

This notion of straight and gay binary has been rampant throughout the referendum campaign. Using terms such as “gay marriage” when you mean “same sex marriage” erases the identity of the majority of people on the queer spectrum. I was surprised to see some of my bi friends championing former president Mary McAleese for the speech she gave to BeLonG To, in which she stated, “the only children affected by this referendum are Ireland’s gay children.” Using “gay” as a catch all phrase to mean the LGBTQIA community hurts those of us who are queer in anything other than the most mainstream, socially acceptable way.

A powerful symbol of the appeal to acceptability is the mural in Dublin of two men embracing, with the slightest suggestion of a kiss, which was followed almost as an afterthought by a mural in Galway of two women, decidedly not kissing. An important thing to note here is that all four individuals in these murals are white, able-bodied, and to be presumed cis. Where are the murals of our queers of colour, our queer Travellers, our queer trans folk, our queers with visible disabilities? No, poster gays (and lesbians if you insist) only please!

Why do we throw our less respectable queers under the bus? Are we afraid that mainstream society would vote against same sex marriage if it knew the reality of queer diversity? Is that is a society into which you would happily be assimilated?

I can only hope that the inevitable post referendum drop-off of “acceptable” queers (i.e.; gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry) will give rise to a more radicalised approach to queer politics in Ireland.

Fingers crossed.

They Were Right: This referendum is not (just) about marriage.

April 25, 2015 Aoife O'RiordanIreland, makegrathelaw, marref, marriage equality, marriage equality ireland, Queer, same-sex marriage, yesequality2 Comments

I don’t know if I’ll ever get married.

That’s not, by the way, anything to do with my being queer. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married, because I don’t know if I want to get married, and because I haven’t found myself in the kind of relationship that marriage would make sense with. I don’t know if twenty years from now I’ll be married, single, living with my three favourite partners, or traveling the world in a refurbished double-decker bus with a giant ginger cat.

I can tell you, though, that the last of those is the one I spend the most time daydreaming about.

Of course, maybe me and my giant ginger cat won’t be on our own in our double-decker bus (with a balcony taking up half of the top level where I keep my plants. Of course). Maybe we will.

I don’t really care about getting married, myself. If I find someone I want to be with for the rest of my life, then we’ll do that regardless of whether the state calls it a marriage, and it’ll mean every bit as much to the two of us. I do care deeply about the legal rights that come with marriage, and about being able to protect my loved ones and have the families that we create legally recognised. Marriage might do that. It might not. I don’t know what shape my family will be, in ten or twenty years. I’m ambivalent about marriage as an institution. I don’t like the idea that the state can privilege one kind of family and relationship over all others, giving some families (specifically, those based on lifelong monogamous dyadic relationships, if we’re getting technical about things) rights that others don’t have. It is abhorrent to me that the state has the power to name this a family and that legal strangers, and that we have no way to change this. If we have to have legal definitions of family, I want one that is inclusive of all kinds of families. Of all of the bonds of kinship that we create. If we have to legally encode these things, I want a structure that is flexible. One that doesn’t prescribe one kind of ideal relationship, but instead accurately describes the relationships and families that we do have.

I’m one of those queers your mum probably didn’t know enough to warn you about. The ones who have no interest in emulating heteronormativity and think that, frankly, society as a whole would do well to learn from what we’ve been up to over the decades.

Like I said? I’m ambivalent about marriage.

Yet if this May’s referendum is defeated? I’m not sure how I’ll stand it.

Continue reading “They Were Right: This referendum is not (just) about marriage.” →

Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate

March 3, 2015 Aoife O'Riordancampaigning, lgbtq, makegrathelaw, marref, marriage equality, persuasion, Queer, same-sex marriage4 Comments

I love a good argument as much as the next person. There’s something glorious about a perfectly placed point and the delicious combination of wit and incontrovertible evidence that feels so damn satisfying. Watch your opponents crumble before your logic. High five with your friends. Or, if it’s a friend you’re arguing with, high five anyway and make them buy you a beer for the privilege. Good times.

That said, I can’t remember the last time I argued someone- particularly a someone who I didn’t have a preexisting connection with- into agreeing with me. Most of the time being argued with just gets your back up, makes you feel attacked and digs you even more firmly into the position you already held- particularly if the position is one that you had an emotional attachment to. And, in fairness, if you didn’t feel attached to your position it’s not likely that you’d have bothered arguing it in the first place, is it?

This isn’t an intellectual exercise. This is something that is becoming incredibly important in Ireland right now. It’s a little over two months until the marriage equality referendum here in Ireland, and the No campaign have already started resorting to every dirty trick they can muster in order to scare people into voting with them. Supporters of equality already have facts, arguments and research on our side. Those aren’t going to be enough. Continue reading “Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate” →

Leo Varadkar: why his coming out really is a small kind of queer victory.

January 19, 2015 Aoife O'RiordanComing out, Leo Varadkar, Queer, Teeny tiny victories2 Comments

One of the things about being the type of queermo who’s been out for a gajillion years (since we were literally partying like it was 1999, people. Because it was, in fact, nineteen ninety-nine. More or less) is that hanging about in your little queer bubbles you get the idea that we’re somehow different.

Of course, there’s nothing about being born something other than a cis heterosexual that makes you special or different. In the beginning, we’re just like everyone else- tiny, adorable, and prone to pooping our pants on a regular basis. It’s not until much later that all that cisheteronormativity starts to kick in and you’re forced to sink or swim and learn to navigate.

It’s not that LGBTQ people are special or different. It’s just that those of us who are able and willing to be outspoken tend to have some things in common. We’re more likely to come from environments that nurtured us instead of excluding us. We’re more likely to be fairly, y’know, ballsy people who Give No Fucks. Or we’re the people who didn’t have a choice about being out or not, cause we tick one stereotype too many to pass under anyone’s radar.

For years, those were the faces you’d see. Continue reading “Leo Varadkar: why his coming out really is a small kind of queer victory.” →

Bi+ Ireland Upcoming Events

October 16, 2014 Aoife O'Riordanbelfast, Bi Ireland, bisexual, Cork, Dublin, galway, lgbtq, pansexual, QueerLeave a comment

Hello, my lovely bisexual, pansexual and queer readers! If you’re in or around Ireland in the next week or two, Bi+ Ireland have been busy organising meetups in (literally) all four corners of the country. If you’re anywhere under the nonmonosexual/romantic umbrella and in this part of the world, we’d love to have you along. If you’re not, though? I’d appreciate it a ton if you could share the events and let people know about them.

And before I go, remember: Bi+ Ireland isn’t just our public page and events! We have a thriving ~~worst-kept~~secret FB discussion group as well- just send us a PM for an invite.

Here’s the details: Continue reading “Bi+ Ireland Upcoming Events” →