Funnily enough, the pansexual flag is my favorite LGBTQ+ flag, as the MYC color scheme is so pleasing to my eyes, but since I identify with both labels, I get to proudly wave both flags! Yay!

As a pansexual person, I also get people who constantly ask me questions where they assume that I give two shits or even one shit about gender. To give a NSFW example…

There is a common tendency to gender everything, especially the context of romantic and sexual relationships. I take so much solace in the fact that pansexuality, as a label, allows me to clarify that I do not gender any aspect of my romantic and sexual interactions because, as a non-binary person, I’d be the first to know how frustrated I am with how frequently things get gendered for the wrong reasons or no good reason at all.

It’s honestly the same energy as transmeds/enbyphobic trans people who say ambiguous shit like “Non-binary’ and ‘trans’ are different!”, but it’s in the opposite direction. Whereas the trans example tries to separate non-binary and trans people by using disingenuous phrasing equivalent to saying “Dogs and mammals are different!,” the “Pansexual and bisexual mean the same thing!” take does the same thing (invalidation) but with an opposite approach: conflating the labels for the sake of invalidating their differences as opposed to separating them for the sake of invalidating their similarities. I guess, in their case, the “Pansexual’ and ‘bisexual’ mean the same thing!” take would be analogous to saying “Golden retrievers and dogs are the same thing!”

However, in both instances, the words are very similar and fall under the same umbrella, but they have their own differences. Still, non-binary people are trans, just not binary trans, and still, pansexual people can have overlap with many bisexual people but, by definition, not all bisexual people fit being pansexual.

ngl that sounds like it could get enbyphobic real easily (this might be tinted by the fact that people I’ve met with that attraction model are often, but not always, enbyphobic).

do you think being bi means not being attracted to nonbinary people???!!

Honestly, that would be ideal because there would be much less foolishness if that were the case.

To give an example of what regarding gender as a bisexual person may manifest as, it can literally be as simple as something like “I prefer my men tall and my women short.” The difference is that, although into multiple genders, bisexual people who regard gender can have different manifestations of how they specifically find men attractive and how they specifically find women attractive. A pansexual person might not have this mentality, and if they were to convey a similar sentiment, they might say something like, “I like my masculine partners tall, and I like my feminine partners short.” Notice how there’s no emphasis on gender here, and not all bisexual people can relate to that kind of mentality, and that’s okay!

The thing is that labels are personal, and it’s up to the individual to describe for themselves how they interpret a label and its definitions. Some people literally pick whether they’re bi or pan based on flag alone, and that, once again, is totally valid.

I identify as both, and I see bisexuality and pansexuality a part of the same multisexual umbrella. Although I generally say “pansexual” as a single term if someone asks how I label my sexual orientation, I definitely wouldn’t hesitate to respond to a question that says something like, “Bisexual people, how did you explain bisexuality to your family?” to give an example.

Either way, we are in the same community. The oppressive structures that promote the notion that it’s only acceptable to find one gender attractive don’t care if you regard gender or not, but the infighting is still all pointless!

I didn’t know some folks identify as both bi and pan until you just explained it just now.

This is so awkward for me because a lot of panphobes will think that every pansexual person identifies as pansexual as a mutually exclusive label that’s entirely distinct from bisexuality, so when they try to invalidate my pansexuality by saying stuff like “LMAO, you’re bisexual!”, I can only respond with:

There isn’t a reason why people can’t identify as both bisexual and pansexual. The fact that this divide exists to begin with, in which we have to have debate over whether or not it’s okay for both labels to even exist (deeply unserious discourse), is the reason why some people do it. They want to signal that they don’t have to be at odds with each other which is, in a sense, why I identify with both, but it’s a tad bit more complicated than that.

I find that the ways I interpret either label are both applicable to my sense of sexual orientation. If you define bisexuality as “attraction to more than one gender” (which many people do) and you define pansexuality as “attraction without regard to gender” (which many people do), then by definition, I am both, and I’m okay with saying that I’m both. Furthermore, people often interpret bisexuality as a “umbrella” term that encompasses pansexuality. Sexual orientation labels are all made up arbitrarily and they’re neologisms that aren’t as tangibly and commonly understood as words like “dog,” “cat,” and “table,” so I make sure to reject the absurd standards that linguistic prescriptivists put out.

In other words, fuck it all, identify whatever way makes you comfy! Just respect other people’s identities in the process.

Honestly, back when I used to just say “I’m bisexual” just to simplify my sexuality for hets, there were so damn many of them who asked “What? How could you be non-binary AND bisexual?”, so I totally get this energy.