The 'Bisexuality is a Phase' Narrative

Probably the number one biphobic thing I see on a daily basis, whether I'm minding my own business and happen to hear a debate on sexuality or if I'm on the internet, is that bisexuality is just a phase that people 'grow out of' like it's a pair of children's jeans.  Unfortunately, that kind of sentiment is often reflected in the forms of media we consume.  Usually when I think about these forms of media, I tend to think TV shows just because A Lot Can Happen and you can have an entire episode dedicated to biphobic bullshit, but that isn't to say novels, movies, video games, etc, don't have their fair share of the bi 'phase' trope.

There are two ways to go about this, one more inflammatory than the other.

• Option 1 - character notices someone of the same gender, experiments, identifies as bi, ultimately says that they were straight all along and get in a relationship with someone of the 'opposite' gender.
• Option 2 - character notices someone of the same gender, experiments, identifies as bi, ultimately says that they were gay all along and from then on out are only in relationships with people of the same gender.

I personally call Option 1 "The Experimenting Trope" and Option 2 "The Stepping-Stone Trope".  These don't exactly have to play out as I put up there, but those are usually the main components.  Surprise surprise, TET is viewed as much more offensive than TSST.  Which, okay, you do get gay/lesbian representation, but you're still trampling over other marginalized sexualities to get to that place.

You see it on TV.  For anyone who watched the early seasons of Glee, you got to see Kurt call bisexual people 'gay people with a foot in the closet'.  There was a movie called Kissing Jessica Stein, which I've seen a lot of people say that Jessica was 'actually straight the whole time' when in reality nothing is said about her orientation.  

Most importantly though, you see it in real life.  Members of any gender suddenly wonder "are they going to go back to [other gender]?  Do they really like me or is this a phase?"  In a phenomenon that is Most Certainly Not Sexism, bisexual men tend to get criticized for being 'actually gay, why don't you say you're gay, just get out of the closet', while bisexual women tend to get criticized for being 'actually straight, you're just doing this for attention and to show off to your boyfriend' (what boyfriend?)  A lot of the distrust in the monosexual community regarding bisexuality comes from the harmful stereotype that bisexuality is just a phase people go through.

And if you thought you were bi at one time, but have now realized you were gay/straight, that's great! I'm really happy for you.  This is not a criticism towards you, but rather towards the fictional narratives that are spun and the negative connotations that they bring to bisexuality.  However, if you use your own experience or a friend's experience as a justification to discriminate towards bisexuals, know this:  not everyone is like you.  You may have used bisexuality as a stepping-stone or an experimentation, and that's fine, but genuine bisexuals exist who aren't using bisexuality as anything other than how to describe themselves.  You are no longer in the community, ergo you don't get to speak over bisexual voices on bisexual issues.

Ways stop the negativity that the 'bisexual phase' narrative brings is to add more mogai people into stories.  Have many bi people, have gay people, have bi people who used to identify as gay, have gay people who used to bi, have so many different narratives that one doesn't take over as the 'genuine experience'.

"Everyone's a Little Bi!"

It's probably the phrase I dread most from well-meaning-but-ultimately-very-ignorant straight allies, tied with the notion that all or most homophobic people are 'secretly gay'.

"Everyone's a little bi!"  Used as an innocuous statement to reflect on the fluidity of sexuality, but ultimately harmful to pretty much everyone except for straight people.

See, not everyone is bisexual or biromantic.  There is most certainly fluidity in sexuality, and yes, some people who may identify as some form of monosexual might experience some attraction to some people of genders outside of their usual preference, but what straight people don't seem to realize is that labels and identity are so important for people in the MOGAI community.

The 'everyone is a little bi' or EIALB is usually used against gay people, particularly lesbians.  Because of social norms In No Way Relating To Sexism(TM), society tends to try to convince queer women that they are actually straight all along and like men because that is what they are supposed to do.  That's why bisexual girls are often ridiculed for 'just experimenting' and are often dismissed as straight girls just kissing other girls for their boyfriend or whatever.  Similarly, a lot of lesbophobic people tend to try to convince real life lesbians that they're actually bisexual, and dig up a lot of evidence to support their claim: they dated men before and didn't obviously hate it, they mentioned a guy was attractive, once they looked at a man, etc.  Of course, if they can succeed in convincing a lesbian she's bi, then she can be put in the same hellhole bisexual women get, and then to society, she has officially Become Straight.  EIALB is constantly used to invalidate gay sexuality, and you never see anyone using that to try to convince a straight person that they're actually bi or gay.

Secondly, EIALB hurts actual bisexual people.  By straight allies acting like everyone is a little bi, actual bisexual people's experiences are trivialized.  Biphobia becomes dismiss-able because, hey, everyone experiences that, too.  Or we're just making a big fuss about our sexuality.  And most insidiously, it sends the subtle message "just choose a side because everyone else did", which then forces us (usually) back into the closet or (less usually) identifying as gay when we don't feel it fits.

And then let's not even talk about asexual people who get their identities invalidated, or pansexual people who already deal with tons of people trying to police their identity and call them bi instead of pan.

"Everyone's a little bi!" hurts the majority of the MOGAI community.  Straight allies, if they really mean well, should never use this phrase to try to make people feel better.  Instead, acknowledge the fluidity of sexuality, that sometimes sexuality can change over the years, and that the most important thing to sexuality is that particular person's sexual identity.  Whether you think they might be wrong or not doesn't matter; respect what people have to say about themselves, as they tend to know themselves better than an outsider.