I’m a bisexual woman, and both I and my bi friends include trans and non-binary people in our attraction range. What are the difference between the terms?
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There isn’t any, truthfully. The word bisexual used to have different connotations; some people used it to describe what we would call bigender or gender fluid or even vague non-binary. As a sexuality though it’s always included trans and NB people; things just kinda got mixed up over time and with generational shifts. A lot of our history has gotten lost to untimely deaths, or has been forcefully erased, so it’s been easy for things to change definitions.
I use both interchangeably but to be honest I’m more inclined to use pan just because I like the flag colors better LOL
There’s very little.
Bisexuality, in current usage of the term, is “I am attracted to both people of my gender identity, and people not of my gender identity.”
Pansexuality, in current usage of the term is “I am attracted to people no matter what their gender identity may be.”
In practice, the terms are pretty much identical. But some people have very strong opinions about the term “bisexual” and whether its an outdated term because it implies a gender binary.
Bi (meaning 2) sexual refers to one being attracted to either a male or female.
Pansexual refers to one who is attracted to, or can be attracted to anyone, regardless of what their gender is or what they identify as (i.e, male, female, any of the lgbt designations…etc).
There isn’t really much of a difference. I identify as pan, it just feels more correct to me than identifying as bi but the differences between the two are pretty minute. I personally feel like saying I’m bi and attracted to all genders doesn’t fit me because I don’t feel like I am attracted to genders at all, it’s just not a factor in the equation or something I even remotely care about. Ultimately I think it’s just whatever you want to label yourself as and whatever feels most right to you
Not an expert, but I think pansexuality is a generalization of bisexuality. As the concept of bisexuality existed before the new gender identities were born (like transgenders or non-binary people), there is a chance that some bisexuals won’t accept those new genders for some reason (would be like some kind of only-cis bisexuality), so a new concept, pansexuality, is created in order to explicitly include all genders and sexualities.
As far as I’m aware you described pan sexuality. Essentially pan and poly sexual are just more wide reaching than bi which is defined as being more narrow.
Pansexual – all gender expressions
Poly sexual – most but not all gender expressions
Bisexual – multiple but less than poly
CIS/lesbian/gay only a single expression
These terms are fluid so this might not be everyone’s definitions of these terms but that’s my understanding of the majority opinion. I think poly could also technically refer to trans exclusionary but NB accepting but it’s all a bit wiggly
I’m bi because I’m heteroflexible. I fancy and have had relations with women but I prefer relations with men. Someone who is pan doesn’t feel like there’s a difference. To me there is, fun with women is just that, it’s not likely to go anywhere.
Ppl saying that bi = transphobic and pan = trans accepting is nonsense. Ppl saying that bi or pan ppl in straight monogamous relations are just straight is nonsense.
The problem about a lot of LGBTQ+ terms is that their heavily debated and people use them in different ways. So the exact meaning can differ from person to person. Some people say that bisexual is liking male and female, some say that bisexual is liking 2 genders (nb and females or males and nbs for example) and some people say bisexuality is liking how many genders youd like and the only thing differiencing bi and pan is that you cant have a preference as a pansexual person but you can when youre bi. What they teach in school is at least that bisexual means liking opposite and same gender and that pansexual means liking everyone and not seeing gender.
Basically, bisexual can mean a few different things (own gender + one other gender; two or more genders; only the binary genders; all genders, etc.) People will argue all day about which one of those bisexual “really” means or which it originally meant, but the real answer is that bisexual people aren’t a monolith, they all choose their term for varying reasons and as a result the term becomes slightly vague.
But pansexual, being a pretty new label, still most commonly only means one thing: attraction to all genders. So if you’re attracted to all genders, which one you use typically just comes down to whether you want that level of specificity or not. Or which flag you like. Or whether you really want to confuse grandma into thinking you’re attracted to cookware today.
In some circles people on both sides will get into a fucking tizzy about whether the other label is transphobic or something, but that’s mostly a bunch of garbage and we have a lot in common!
i call myself bisexual because i am not attracted to transgender people. someone who is pan sexual would not exclude transgender or non-binary people.
i only like cis men and women. i’m bisexual.
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