Despite the ever growing number of people involved in it, the modern LGBT movement, especially on websites such as Tumblr or Twitter, is a complete mess. In turn, discourse on issues in the LGBT community – namely the never ending debates between gay people and bisexual people – have given rise to common terminology in these circles of discourse: “monosexual” and “straight passing.” These terms have become so prevalent in online conversation, it is swept to the side that these terms are casually homophobic and harmful.
First off, there is the term monosexual, defined as “person who is only attracted to one gender,” often paired with the idea of “monosexism” – implying that all people who are only attracted to one gender (lumping together gay people with straight people) hold privilege over bi/pan people. While there is ton of biphobia and aggression towards bi/pan people from within and outside of the LGBT community, putting gay men and lesbians (not even considering other factors, such as the possibility they are trans) on the same level of privilege as heterosexual people is laughable – only cishet people can directly oppress bi/pan people. They are the only ones who hold that power. The amount of biphobia within the LGBT community is awful, but that would not be direct oppression: it would be horizontal aggression. Monosexism removes the ability of there to be a direct dialogue and understanding between gay and bi people by implying one group is more “inherently oppressed” than the other.
The idea of “straight passing privilege” also accomplishes the same thing as “monosexism,” except this time, it’s directed at, rather than from, bisexual people, as well as more masculine appearing gay men and feminine lesbians. “Straight passing privilege” is defined by the people who use it as something to gauge that people in the aforementioned categories, along with bi people who have been/are in relationships with people of the opposite gender. This is a messy concept because it gives that same implication that bi people and “gender conforming” gay men/lesbians have some sort of privilege by being assumed as cishet – again not factoring in trans gay/bi people – in a heteronormative and cisnormative society. Simply put, how a closeted LGBT is perceived differentiates from place to place and person to person: there are some bisexuals who will never “pass” as cishet and some gay men and lesbians – gender conforming or otherwise – that can easily “pass” in social situations.
As stated before, these concepts are different from monosexism in definition but ends up doing the same thing to the LGBT community at large: it pits two groups of people who are equally oppressed against each other and unintentionally hurt each other due to lack of coherent identity. What we should be doing with LGBT discourse is creating a dialogue where the entire community can come together and listen to each other, rather than have the never ending horizontal aggression come from groups. Eliminating these terms won’t end the constant tension between these groups within a massive and diverse community, but it will put us on the right track to finally healing and coming together to combat the world that is against us.
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