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Good Stories are Powerful Lifelines.

The Difference Between Bisexuality and Pansexuality

1/30/2019

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There are many different subcategories when it comes to sexual identity.  But when you don't clearly fit into a "definitive" box, properly understanding yourself and being understood by others is difficult.  

Bisexual and Pansexual people are especially affected by this and it can be alienating.

So, my name is Lane Lunsford, and for this blog, I’d like to take a crack at outlining the difference between bisexual and pansexuality clear, but I'd also like to focus on the similar feelings of alienation and loneliness you can share. And why the support group I run here on RESCQU.NET, Bitter/Sweet aims to support people of all sexual identities equally, while still celebrating their subtle differences.

​
Learn a little more about me and Bitter/Sweet!
Or click to see really cute sloths.  That's also a good reason :)

So, what's the difference between Bi and Pan?

First, let’s get our terms straight. It can be a little confusing since these terms are often used interchangeably and there can be overlap between the two identities. We are working with a spectrum here, so this is less about drawing hard distinctions and more about trying to point out, generally, where these identities don’t overlap.
A picture of the bisexual pride flag.Bisexual pride flag.
Bisexuality

Bisexuality is the romantic and/or sexual attraction to both female and male people. It's usually situated smack-dab in the middle of the spectrum, but many people have preferences.

Some people express their attraction as an active awareness for the traits they prefer in either a person's sex or gender, while others express it as a passive lack of preference for either.  The one thing in common, is that bi people can at least hazily define who the are attracted to by a gender or sex.

A picture of the pansexual pride flag.Pansexual pride flag.
Pansexuality
Pansexuality is the romantic and/or sexual attraction to anybody of any sexuality or gender. It is, sometimes, seen as encompassing a wider range of attraction than bisexuality, but this is arguable.

Where bisexuality refers to attraction to both men and women and makes an attempt to delineate preferences, pansexuality is almost a "lack of".  It includes genderqueer, agender, and transgender individuals almost by default. Pansexuality rarely acknowledges the gender binary and for some people that means gender doesn't factor in at all when they see that someone walk in to a room.

I should stress...

I am speaking in the most general way possible when defining these terms. If you identify with one of these sexualities, but don’t feel like parts of the definition apply, don’t worry. These labels are merely concepts used to help people better express themselves and find solidarity in common experience. 

​If the terms limit rather than empower you, to the flames they go.

Stepping away from the differences...

Despite the differences in these identities, the struggles people face are often similar. 

Common Problems
Both Bi and Pan folx are often commanded to “pick a side”; to express a uniform sexual preference. They are also erased in the media, in politics, and sadly, even in some parts of the LGBTQ+ community.
Picking a person to date or live with is paramount to picking that side regardless of what they wanted, and people can often view that behavior as "traitorous", or "growing out of it" depending on the side you're on and who that bi person has agreed to be with. 
​
The tension usually exists because bi and pan individuals can enter into relationships that let them appear completely straight or gay.  This helps them go stealth in the hetero-normative and gay communities, but that also means dealing with a constant erasure and stereotyping of their identity.
Picture of cakeBitter/Sweet cake
Bitter/Sweet  

This is where Bitter/Sweet comes in.

The name Bitter/Sweet refers to this tension between being able to pass as heterosexual while still dealing with the stress and sadness that comes with being bi or pan. I wanted to facilitate a group that could help anyone within the bisexual+ and pansexual community feel a sense of togetherness and that their identities were valid.

The bi+ community faces unique challenges that can sometimes be overlooked in the larger LGBT+ world. Bitter/Sweet aims to welcome all of those individuals that may be afraid to speak up in other support settings because they have been told their worries and concerns were not as important.

We are here to tell you that your experiences are real and shouldn’t be dismissed. This is a safe community where you will be welcomed to discuss your struggles and find friends who support you. We hope you’ll join us!

If you'd like to sign up and join us at Bitter/Sweet please click here to learn more. 

Bitter/Sweet: Bi/Pan Support Group

Author

Lane Lunsford is the Support group facilitator and a writer for RESCQU.NET.  She also likes sloths, warm stuffed animals, tattoos, and lending help to others.  

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Let's talk about mental health in the  LGBTQ+ Community

1/16/2019

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PictureTwo people excitedly fight for healthcare in America.Two people excitedly fight for healthcare in America.
In Capitalist Realism, the social critic Mark Fisher said the focus on discussing mental health in purely biochemical terms works hand-in-hand with its depoliticization.

Most people who experience mental health problems will find the  discussion of mental health in purely biochemical terms familiar, and it can be helpful in de-stigmatizing mental health; “I’m not choosing to be depressed, the chemicals in my brain make me depressed.”

But, I have an issue with this that I’d like to talk about in this blog:

Only talking about mental health in medical terms can be harmful to the LGBTQ+ community.
Social and political conversations get closed off when we speak about mental health biologically because the “problem” becomes isolated to the individual’s brain chemistry.  And in the process, we ignore the social and political realities those conditions are a part of. 

​Mental Illness in the Queer Community

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI);
  • ​Members of the LGBTQ+ community are 3 times more likely to experience mental health issues, such as depression and generalized anxiety disorder than straight people.

  • LGBTQ+  youth are 3 times more likely to commit suicide and engage in self-harm. Somewhere between 38%-65% of trans individuals experience suicidal ideation.

  • Between 20-30% of the LGBTQ+ community abuse hard drugs, compared 9% of the general population. 25% of the LGBTQ+ community abuses alcohol, - double the general public’s 5-10%.

​Members of the LGBTQ+ community also experience “minority stress.”

Minority stress is a kind of constant anxiety that minorities feel due to constant awareness of their actions. Are they drawing too much attention to themselves? Are they representing their community? Do they have reliable social support?

Are they in danger?

Constant minority stress (obviously) leads to worse mental health issues.

Progress has been made to reduce minority stress, but constant diagnosis’ of the LGBT+ community ignores the nature of LGBT+ people’s environmental stresses.  In other words, the discussion of mental health as a biological issue has built a stigma that has been used in turn, as a tactic by LGBTQ+ rights opponents to remove power from our identities.
Banner for the Fund The Database Campaign from RESCQU.net

Politics and Mental Health

So we’ve been talking pretty up-in-the-air here, but let’s get real:

 The diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues carry undeniable political impact for the minority people who are diagnosed.

While being diagnosed on its own is overall an empowering thing for an individual, there is a power-exchange between the prescribing doctor and the patient, in the diagnosis.

It is fundamentally a political act to determine whether certain behaviors are acceptable or in the bounds of illness and whether people should be allowed to live freely given that condition.

To declare someone “mad” is to remove agency from their life. Leveraging mental health diagnosis’ has been a longstanding tactic of maintaining the status quo, and the strategy has become more potent with the medicalization of mental health in the early 20th century.

Feminists and civil rights activists have been famously institutionalized for their political activity, but in the case of the LGBTQ+ community, the focus has been on declaring someone to have a mental disorder— not for acting a certain way, but for being a certain way.

For a long time, having a “gender dysphoria” diagnosis preemptively closed off the possibility of political action because it was a mental health condition.

Until 1973, being gay, lesbian, or bisexual was officially considered a mental illness. It was only in 2013 that the term gender dysphoria came to replace the term Gender Identity Disorder in the DSM, which was done to help align psychiatric practices with the aim of helping trans folk with their mental health rather than treating being trans in itself as a mental disorder.

Being queer was forcibly depoliticized which made it appear politically neutral.

2 examples
           
A current example of this forced neutralization can be seen in the conversation around transgender bathroom rights. Opponents of these rights often close trans folk out of the discussion entirely by attributing their trans status to a dangerous or contagious disorder or sexual deviancy.


We also see this issue in conversion therapy. While it’s not recognized as a legitimate psychiatric practice, the message inherent to conversion therapy is that “being gay needs to be fixed rather than understood as an identity.”

In each case, psychiatric practice is used to transform a social issue into an individual one and then as a clear “problem” to be solved with that person.

And because  LGBTQ+ youth are much more susceptible to this loss of power and identity the risk is magnified horrifically.

If this occurs, the political and social realities leading to widespread anxiety in young minorities would be closed off to the conversation. They would lose their voice and with it any hope of a political solution.

They would lose any platform for managing their own identities.

Politicizing LGBTQ+ Mental Health

When the prevalence of mental health issues for members of the LGBTQ+ community and the messy political history of psychiatry, are taken together it shows a clear need for a more forward political discussion.  

Now again, the biochemical discussion of mental health is useful for helping members of the LGBTQ+ community individually. We need a proper medical vocabulary to help diagnose what problems exist within one’s brain chemistry and prescribe treatments for the symptoms.

BUT

If the discussion ends there we are left with a system that atomizes mental health, closes off the possibility for political change doesn’t approach minority stress, and renders the LGBTQ+ community captives to pharmaceutical solutions.
Politicizing the constant anxiety and depression associated with being queer is a necessary step in queer liberation. These collective illnesses demand collective action.

Maintaining a purely scientific, biochemical discussion of mental health silences this collective action. We must treat medicalization as a political tool for reforming the social needs of marginalized communities instead of repressing them.

Dylan T. Clark

Writer and editor for Rescqu.net. Mostly sparkles.

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