Sexual Fluidity and the Lesbian Community
Here is the video of my conversation yesterday with Nancy Redd at HuffPost Live yesterday in which we talked about sexual fluidity and the myth of the Lesbian Until Graduation. I was joined by Brooke Sopelsa, Marcie Bianco, Myisha Cherry and
Lisa Diamond.
I wish I’d had time to include a few more statements, so I’ll just add them here.
People who want to police and act as gatekeepers to any identity (sexual or otherwise) are useless and ineffective. As Marcie brought up in the discussion, an argument used against homosexual marriage is that same-gender couples marrying somehow diminishes (“waters down”, if you will) the marriages of oppositely-gendered couples. Obviously that is a bullshit concept. So why are homosexuals so quick to adopt it when it comes to sexual identity? “If THOSE people identify as my sexuality, it damages the legitimacy of MY identity!” No. No, it really does not.
My identity as a woman is not damaged even though there are some truly terrible women out there. My identity as a cartoonist is not damaged even though there are some truly terrible cartoonists out there. An individual’s identity is their own, regardless if other people you don’t like identify as the same thing as you.
Homosexual identity has ALWAYS been under attack and disrespected as valid, long before there was a stereotype of college girls “experimenting” and the introduction of the word “bicurious”. If you removed from the world every person who’s ever experimented or “gone through a phase”, THERE WOULD STILL BE PEOPLE ATTACKING AND INVALIDATING HOMOSEXUAL IDENTITY. Don’t blame those that “experiment” or are attracted to multiple genders for other people’s homophobia. Blame the homophobes.
Biphobia is not how you combat homophobia, but it does make those that are biphobic act just as bullying and reprehensible as homophobes.
Other people do not get to define your sexual identity. There is no such thing as a REAL [sexual ID] and a FAKE [sexual ID].
Your sexual identity HAS NO IMPACT on somebody else’s sexual identity. NONE AT ALL. There is no “watering down” of identity.
There is no test, no threshold, no status quo you have to meet to identify as your sexuality. You are the ONE PERSON who knows truly and can accurately name your sexual identity.
Nobody else.
