What bi means to me

 

Why I want to use bi is the intent of why people reclaimed the term bisexual in the first place. While the unclaimed definition was intersexist and cissexist, the reclaimed version was more about having a term for mga people more than something etymologically sound, it has had some offensive definitions (rarely written by mga people). Often bi organizations actually acknowledges this today, and actually do have inclusive definitions. And I would argue that bi meaning two makes sense, as bi people often are attracted to similar and different genders, which is two categories.

And while the existence of the term pansexual may overshadow the idea of bi being inclusive, few bi identifying people actually awarely exclude non-binary people. The origin of bisexual was to categorise people that did not fit into the category of heterosexuality, but could not be ‘diagnosed’ as “h*mosexual”. While later in the early 2000s asexuality achieved some recognition as a concept, bisexuality was as a reclaimed term supposed to indicate a unity of the concept of being mga, back then it was the idea of covering “everyone else”. Something I imagine a lot of ace and pan people most likely did identify with, despite it etymologicaly meaning "two".

This is why I’m considering to call myself bi. Because its origin was to take pride in being mga. To awarely work around the binary. I would always describe my orientation as working independently of gender. And for many years I did also say I am bi, and the thing is that my orientation has always been consistent, so I feel like me calling myself bi again would be right and still would work. There’s this definition of bisexuality that I am a very big fan of, one that pansexuality may have too, but I feel like it spoke to me pretty well, the BRC defines it as such: “an umbrella term for people who recognize and honor their potential for sexual and emotional attraction to more than one gender”.

I have often said I am pan, but I am starting to accept that I can use the label bi. I am attracted to similar genders and different ones, and I honour and embrace that I love people of different genders.
 
A few links:
What is bisexuality? (the bisexual index)
"It's just a phase" Is just a phrase (the bisexual index)
Is bisexuality (as a label) mandatory? (the bisexual index)