As a biromantic asexual woman, I refer to myself as bi or pan interchangeably.
When I looked at the definitions and using my background knowledge, it appears that both sexualities love regardless of gender.
While bisexual people like men and women, I also heard that very few of them won’t date other genders. Some bi people will only date cis men and women, others only men and women in general, and some will date nonbinary people and not care.
So anyway, don’t both sexualities love regardless of gender and find everyone attractive?
In practical terms, the biggest difference is the flag.
Idk I’ve seen “pansexual” be the more inclusive term, there’s a distinction to be made there
I think most people use them interchangably, I call myself bi due to it being a more well-known term and the flag being prettier
Practically nothing, realistically, in every day conversation. The only difference that might exist is that a person could be attracted to men, and women but not any other gender. Like maybe they don’t like non-binary, gender fluid or genderless folk. I used to say I was Bi, but I use Pan now just because I 100% don’t care about gender; everyone is sexy.
There’s a lot I don’t really like about pansexuality, which is why I don’t use the label. In my head, a transwoman is a woman, and a transman is a man, so I don’t see any difference in my love for them than my love for a cis woman or a cis man. Non-binaries fit outside that spectrum, for sure, but they’re still people with masculine and/or feminine traits, and I don’t understand why there needs to be an extra label just to include them. Shouldn’t they be included always? I guess the biggest thing that would be excluded would be people who don’t show either masculine or feminine traits. I’ve never met or seen one, so I guess I don’t know if I can be attracted to one, or if the distinction even exists.
I understand that other bisexuals may have different tastes in their partners, but we don’t have different labels for each level of masculine/feminine attraction. The bisexual who prefers femme men and women is considered just as bisexual as the one who prefers masc men and women, or the one who likes both traits equally. I just don’t understand why there’s an implicit exclusion of trans people from that attraction, such that we need a new label to add explicit inclusion.
I refer to myself as pan for two reasons. First, I believe that gender is a spectrum and there’s more than two of them. Two, to me bisexual implies equal attraction to both the masculine and feminine, and I’m less attracted to the masculine than I am to the feminine end of the scale.
Really, pansexual is being attracted to the the person, regardless of their gender identity.
Why would bisexuality imply equal attraction? Never heard that. It’s common for bi people to only be attracted to certain genders at certain times (look up the “bi-cycle”).
I’m bi and I like guys more right now. In high school, I liked girls more. It’s never been equal in my whole life.
It doesn’t, but I have had that argument thrown at me almost verbatim by someone who identified as bisexual after I mentioned that I’m less attracted to masculine than feminine.
Well, we’re all different, I guess. I’ve never heard that argument before, it doesn’t even make sense. Nothing against you for thinking it was legit though.
This is gonna bother me all day hahaha.
Do you mean that would include trans, where in bi might not include that?
Usually, most Pansexuals don’t have gender as a factor on their attraction, many Bisexuals do. Bisexual has a more ample definition.
There are people who date multiple but not all genders for example, but there’s a lot overlap between both communities. And there’s also more plurisexualities (the + in Bi+, like polisexuality and omnisexuality) who also overlap. People sometimes use a specific one to share details about they experience their sexuality.
There’s nothing wrong with using either one or all, but we need to respect everyone’s choice about how they refer to their own sexuality.
My sister used to identify as bisexual. Now she identifies as pansexual. Why? She says she feels it more encompasses trans inclusion, as well.
Echoing other lemmings, there’s basically no difference. There js a certain niche who seem to think that pansexual is more trans inclusive, but that attitude doesn’t align with almost all bisexuals opinions on the matter, or with the history of how the bisexual community has been accepting and collaborating with the trans community since pretty much the birth of both communities.
The delightful verilybitchie, who is both bisexual and trans, has a bunch of good video on the history of bisexuality, trans stuff, and biphobia*. They are defintely worth watching!
/* it’s pretty hard to hear ‘bisexuals exclude trans people’ and not feel like that’s an example of biphobia.
