My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend: Challenging Bi-Phobia
By Holly Baines
At the end of his article "Pride Presence – The Bi Way" Bryen Dunn invites us all to “get out there and celebrate our Pride all year long!” This is a commendable goal, and one I like to think that I’m getting pretty good at doing. But even so, I must admit there’s something special in the air when Pride Toronto rolls around each year.
Pride is a time when I feel like I can really be me – the queerer, the better. When I first started celebrating Pride it felt like something to do to be more involved in a queer community. As the years have passed, though, I’ve come to see it more like a high holiday. It should be a right – like a statutory vacation day – not a privilege. Everyone – queer or not – should be wishing queers a happy Pride. It’s a special time, and we should share it with the people we love.
This year that seemed a whole lot trickier for my girlfriend and I than it has in years past. You see, I’m a lesbian and she’s bisexual … and we’re polyamorous (which has nothing to do with her being bi, by the way). We’ve been together for almost 6 years now, but this is the first year we’ve been “actively” poly – she’s got a steady boyfriend. He’s bi too. They’d been together for about 9 months by Pride 2005, and by anyone’s standards that’s long enough to be Pride dates. So there we were, three queers with our high holiday approaching, and some complex logistics to work out.
We all know one another and have even enjoyed the occasional coffee together, but I don’t think any of us really thought about spending Pride together as a trio. That’s not how we’re doing poly. We’re two distinct couples, with one partner in common. But with a little ingenuity and negotiating ahead of time we managed to work out a plan where each of the couples got to celebrate Pride together.
Oddly enough, that was the least tricky aspect of our Pride. Scheduling is easy in comparison to the social aspects of it all. It was just plain weird to be spending part of Pride without her, and knowing that she was off celebrating “our” holiday with someone else. I didn’t resent it really. I mean it’s their holiday too. It was just truly different. I had to wrap my head around her having another honey she wanted to be at Pride with. But even that wasn’t the really tricky part.
The really tricky part is about bi-phobia. I have experienced it – once removed – before this year’s Pride. Whenever my girlfriend and I go anywhere together people assume that we’re both lesbians. I don’t know how much she’s able to forget that. But I know that I usually don’t remember that this is what people are thinking until they say something. In our case it’s usually been something quite innocuous, nothing truly vile or hateful, but enough to let us know that the assumption has been made. And that’s when I usually try to say something like “we’re both dykes, but I’m the only lesbian here.” Or if I want to be absolutely sure everyone knows what I’m talking about I’ll say, “I’m a lesbian, she’s bi.”
I speak up, not because I don’t think she can; I speak up because this usually happens when we’re in a “queer” environment, and I know that (unfortunately) lesbians are still more accepted than bi-women are, which means we’ve got more power. By my political standard that means we should use the authority we get from that power responsibly and take more of the risks. And it is risky to challenge people’s assumptions. I’ve talked to her about it, asking her if she feels like I’m stepping on her toes when I do this. She’s told me she likes it. We both agree the assumptions need challenging, and we can share the responsibility for doing it.
Not to be too simplistic about it, but it’s the assumptions people have that made Pride so tricky for me this year. These are the same assumptions that people have all year round, and they’re the same assumptions I’ve run into before at Pride. This year there was something a little more urgent about my need to respond to them, and to have that response heard. Let me tell you a little story about one of my Pride traditions by way of illustration.
My first Pride ever I volunteered for the Security Committee and that’s all I did. Not much in the way of socialising at all, because I hadn’t yet really come out and I didn’t know all that many people in the community. Through a combination of different circumstances I ended up becoming good friends with the co-chairs of the Security Committee, and worked closely with them for the next few Prides. At the end of the weekend, when things were beginning to wind down, we’d all go to a beer garden together and we’d talk about how the event had been. Usually the conversation started by dissecting how well the Security Committee had done its job. But once that topic had been exhausted we’d move on to what’s good and bad about Pride more generally. Inevitably someone would spot a straight looking couple in the crowd (one boy, one girl, holding hands or making out or something) and the bitch-fest would begin.
At first I saw nothing wrong with this. I agreed with them, and I still do – Pride is about a celebration of queer sexualities, and straight folks should be respectful of that. Back then I would have said that they should more or less keep away from the events. They certainly shouldn’t be coming and taking up public space with their sexuality. Every other day of the year, in almost every public space, it’s okay for straight folks to express their sexuality, their love for their sweeties. Those days, in those places, my sexuality is not okay. There should be at least one day when mine is and theirs isn’t.
But even before I began dating a bi woman I began to understand that those straight looking couples that we were bitching about might not be so straight after all. At least one member of the couple might be queer – perhaps bisexual. And so I would stop my friends mid-rant and point this out to them. This was when I found out just how old school many of them are. None of them thought that this was a good enough reason to stop bitching, and some of them even felt okay making the classic biphobic comments – that there’s no such thing, that people just need to make up their minds, bi's are just greedy – you don’t need me to tell you what they are. I wasn’t exactly stunned at their response the first time it happened, but I was disappointed when it happened again the next year.
It seems that bitching about straight people at Pride is a tradition that just can’t be messed with. Like I said it’s a tradition I can understand and have enjoyed. But once I figured out that I couldn’t tell if that man holding that woman’s hand was really straight or not, I knew that bitching about straight people at Pride wasn’t quite so simple. Where does queer begin and where does it end? Can we tell ourselves apart from the straights? If bisexuals are going to be a part of Pride do they have to leave a part of themselves behind?
This has been the choice of one of my friends. When she’s dating a woman, she and her honey have a great time celebrating Pride together. But when, like this year, she’s dating a man she limits her Pride engagements, and lets him know that he isn’t welcome to attend those ones she does participate in. She said to me, it’s about her queer side and her het side. According to her, her queer side is no more interested in seeing straight folks at Pride than my Security Committee pals are. She wants her queer space to be kept purely queer.
But I know that this isn’t how bisexuality works for everyone. My sweetie was never straight, even when her primary partner of over 5 years was a man. And she’s not a lesbian now, with me as her main squeeze. She’s queer through and through – through her bisexuality. And from what I know about her boyfriend, I’d have to say it’s pretty much the same for him. But there they were, out on the Pride site somewhere, maybe even holding hands – and I was in a beer garden with my Security Committee pals when the inevitable bitch-fest began. “Look at those two in the beer line up! They shouldn’t even be here.”
Oh yes they should!!!
(c) Copryight 2005 Holly Baines
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