It looks like your post has disappeared, so I’m going to write this without referring to you, but I trust you’ll see it. (I love you, by the way.)
I TOtally see your point. And with regard to the loneliness and lack of support in being bi, hell-to-the-yes it is unfair as fuck. I hope you know that your situation is not at all what I think Mark is talking about here and I certainly would not have reblogged it if it was.
I think the relevant part about calling oneself “queer” in a public context is this bit from Mark’s post: I never got the choice to identify as being gay or queer. My reading of this is that Mark’s frustration is with people who identify as queer because of their behavior and not because of who they are. He’s talking about people who call themselves queer because of what they do in the bedroom. In a way, that’s exactly your point too, right? It isn’t what we do in the bedroom that makes us queer, it’s a part of our identity. Just because your behavior is “straight” doesn’t make you straight.
The part that’s more ambiguous in his post, and—I know—sounds hurtful, is how he seems to suggest that he has earned the right to reclaim the label queer by being bashed and abused. (Now, I really like Mark and I don’t think he’d say it that way, but I definitely think it can be read that way).
And this is where the hierarchy of oppressions really fucks us up, you know? I’m not less queer because no one ever spit in my face and neither are you. And the straight man who gets beat up because of being perceived as being gay isn’t queer at all! He is oppressed by homophobia in the same way Mark was in those violent incidents, even though he’s not queer. But he’s not oppressed by the state the way Mark is in not being able to legally marry a male partner.
There are a multitude of oppressions at work in our world and they are linked together in a way that make them difficult to fight individually with any success. This series of posts is a great example of just how that happens. I wish I could punch bi-phobia in the face for you for all of us. I totally would.
ETA: Please don’t shut the hell up. Your voice is way too important. You have every right to it and it benefits us all.
