Anna Paquin is sick of your sh*t

[gloeden2]

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A post shared by Anna Hélène Paquin (she/her) (@_annapaquin)

Earlier in the day, she also shared a screen grab on her Instagram Story of a user comment that read, in part, "I am getting tired of seeing 'bi' celebrities constantly advocate for it only to end up conventionally married to men with

Comments

[ishumy]

Sigh. I get it, it's annoying to have people forgetting you're not straight or assuming you're straight, but I don't think bi women with men as their SO lamenting not being "enough" is doing anything... Being "straight-passing" is a luxury in society, at the end of the day, no matter how much it sucks when seeing it from the inside.

[pikapika217]

that's not what she's saying tho??

[ohmylol]

mte, i mean, bi women are bi regardless of who they date but being seen as straight is a privilege, wether someone likes it or not, it is what it is.

[veggie]

it kind of sucks because on one level it is a privilege, but on another there's an intrinsic part of yourself that is constantly being erased or dismissed, that you are forced to repeatedly explain and justify and remind people of. like we (bi people who are perceived to be straight) are safer from homophobia but also forced to assert our identity SO MUCH

[ishumy]

But at the end of the day, having a privilege isn't about whether we ourselves enjoy it, it's about how society perceives us. I'm a very obviously brown woman, so I don't have first-hand experience, but I know many people who aren't white but have white-passing privilege hate it, because they have to hear all these racist opinions and deal with people being candid in their faces about their bigotry, and that's something I can relate with in my bisexuality.

I hate when people assume they can say homophobic things to my face or when they call me straight, and I correct them and fight them in their prejudice, but I'm also not going to feel comfortable acting like I can relate to the experiences of someone who's in a same sex relationship because I know it's not comparable.

[veggie]

my point was less that the privilege doesn't exist, because it obviously does, and every bi person i know is aware of it. but it also comes with a downside, in that being less visible (and being more likely to be presumed straight) also makes us less visible to our community and can leave us feeling sort of like outsiders. alienation can come at us from both sides, and it's really painful to feel separated (at best - at worst ostracized) from other people in the lgbt+ community

[ishumy]

Totally. And people claiming otherwise just baffle me. Yeah, it sucks to be thought of as straight and to hear people dismissing your sexuality, but I do roll my eyes at fellow bi women who always have to defend their relationship with men so passionately for the sake if "visibility." Like most of out bi women (at least in media, but lbh, also in normal life) aren't dating men? And that's not bad, it's literally statistically easier, but still.

[blahblahcakes64]

I've been seeing ~discourse~ lately about how all relationships with one queer person in them are automatically queer and I just...don't think I agree with that! I'm married to a cis bi man, and as a cis straight woman it feels insulting to queer people in visibly queer relationships who don't have the straight-passing privilege my relationship does.

All that being said, of course being bi doesn't change if you're in a different gender relationship-the "queer enough" narrative is stupid, period.

[sarahbear1]

totally. I'm Bi and I'm an ally, and married to a man. I support the community because like you said, I have straight passing privilege wherever we go.

My sister's first girlfriend (who is gay) gave my sister the SAME nonsense when they first started dating about her having to pick a side etc.

[blahblahcakes64]

Oh no @ your sister's gf! I hope the gf got over that, because yikes!

[sarahbear1]

Yeah she did!

[mzgrottesca]

I agree. I would feel extremely odd if I were dating a man and people called our relationship gay or bisexual when it's an opposite sex relationship lmao it doesn't make any sense to me.

[blahblahcakes64]

I talked about it with an acquaintance recently (a cis bi woman married to a cis straight man); we disagreed. Her take was that the relationship is inherently queer because it isn't "heteronormative." The implication that one queer party somehow transferred an ambiguous virtue onto a hetero relationship just by existing was...a strange one!

[chocobodork]

This is so weird to me. How does your sexuality negate heteronormativity? Especially if there is a straight man in the relationship? Bi people are not somehow immune to heteronormativity.

My partner and I are both bi, but we're in an opposite-sex relationship. Neither of us should have to prove to anyone that we're bi, being in a straight relationship does not make us any less bi, but to imply that our relationship is "queer" does a huge disservice to people in same sex couples.

I'm reminded of this article I read a few months ago by a bi woman in a relationship with a man who went on about how cutting her hair short brought ~queerness~ into her relationship and I just...idk can we not relentlessly reinforce gender norms to make ourselves look more queer?

[blahblahcakes64]

I read that article too!!! I was absolutely baffled by it. I feel for that person, honestly-her editor really set her up for the ire.

[ishumy]

I agree. I had this conversation sometime ago, because I don't think that being a bisexual woman means that my relationships are going to be "queer" just because I'm there. I was seeing a bi guy at the time and even so, anyone seeing us from the outside could have thought we were a straight couple. Do our sexualities matter for ~representation purposes if we are a gender confirming cis male/female couple at first glance? I personally think not, and the fact that I feel inconvenienced and hurt by people thinking I'm straight can't begin to compare to women who are in a relationship with another woman.