But Why AREN’T Pansexuals Bisexual, REALLY?
tier list of “bi vs. pan” definitions; response to SubstantialDominic
Bisexuals and pansexuals always agree on one thing and disagree on the other. They agree that bisexuals are different from pansexuals, and disagree on why and how.
This blog post was inspired by SubstantialDominic’s video rating “bi vs. pan” definitions by accuracy. ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: CONTAINS LIBERAL AND UNCENSORED USE OF THE Q-SLUR! ⚠️ Unfortunately for Dominic, I am a bisexual woman from a relatively sexually conservative country (specifically Japan), and he is pansexual and apparently from the part of the Anglosphere where it’s socially acceptable to call others q***r, so I drastically and frequently did not agree with his assessments of accuracy.
Hi, I’m Haley, a transsexual woman, slugging through the Japanese medical system to hopefully get HRT, and in this episode of Haley’s Musings, I talk about the other letter in “LGBT” that makes me LGBT.
Note for Dominic specifically: I do not consent to being called the Q-slur. If you make a response video or article to this, I do not consent to appearing in the same video or article as the Q-slur. It is as deeply invalidating and disrespectful as calling me a tr**ny, a jap, a futa, or a shemale.
Criteria
Like SubstantialDominic did, I rate these definitions of “bi vs. pan” by how well they reflect how I see them being used in real life, both by those who identify as bi and/or pan, and by those who don’t (like LGBT people/organizations). However, like he rated these definitions in terms of his lived experience as a pansexual, I rate these definitions in terms of my own lived experience as a bisexual trans woman (and a former pansexual enby, who in turn was a former femboy). Evidently, my “relationship with gender”, so to speak, differs from that of SubstantialDominic.
I will not list the definitions in the order that SubstantialDominic presented in his video, but rearrange them for flow.
Tier definitions
A tier: Perfectly matches my observations and lived experience. Has explanatory power of why someone might identify as one or the other, or even predictive power of whether a given either-bi-or-pan person identifies as bi or pan.
B tier: More accurate than inaccurate.
C tier: More inaccurate than accurate.
D tier: Actively contradicts my observations and lived experience.
Hell tier: Perpetuates biphobic discrimination. Actively harmful to assert or believe in.
Ratings
The denial
There is no such thing as a pansexual.
D tier — There are people who identify as pansexual and not bisexual, so clearly, for these people, there is such a thing as a pansexual.
The subcategorization
Pansexuals are a specific kind of bisexual.
C tier — While I myself partially believe in this definition, I admit (agreeing with Dominic) that almost all pansexuals do not identify as bisexual.
Some people who use “mspec microlabels” such as polysexual and omnisexual would also disagree, putting bisexual and pansexual under a “multisexual spectrum”; neither the umbrella term nor the microlabels are used much outside their little hugbox, so we can safely disregard them.
Dominic rated this an F tier, which I believe is a bit too harsh, but I respect that decision, given that he himself identifies as pan and not bi.
The etymological folly
Bisexuals are attracted to exactly two genders. Pansexuals are attracted to all genders.
Hell tier — Historically and currently, many bisexuals say that they are attracted to more than two genders. A prominent historical example is The Bisexual Manifesto.
Dominic neglected to present this definition, but I assume (and hope) that he agrees with me that this definition is harmful as well as ahistorical.
A perfect Kinsey 3, a.k.a. “no preference”
Bisexuals and pansexuals are attracted to both men and women, but pansexuals are attracted to both equally.
D tier — I have talked to self-identified pansexuals who would harp on and on about their very gender-related preferences in romantic partners.
Dominic put this in B tier, which I think is much too high, given that he mentioned that he, too, has met pansexuals with gendered attraction preferences.
Nonbinary exclusion
Pansexuals are attracted to nonbinary people too, unlike bisexuals.
D tier — Refer to “The etymological folly”. Besides, certain nonbinary people lean heavily towards a masculine or feminine gender expression, and it would hardly qualify, for example, a straight man to be bisexual or pansexual, just because he is attracted to the conventionally feminine gender expression of a nonbinary person.
This definition barely evades Hell tier just because sexuality labels in general get muddy and controversial when nonbinary people are involved.
Dominic also presented a form of this definition (with the caveat that bisexuals MAY be attracted to nonbinary people, but not necessarily) and rated it a D tier, which I believe would be appropriately low, if it weren’t for the next definition.
Trans exclusion
Pansexuals are attracted to trans people too, unlike bisexuals.
Hell tier — This simultaneously invalidates trans people by claiming that they are never desirable as their subconscious sex (which is Julia Serano’s more precise term for what is commonly called gender identity, but it’s more complicated than that), and invalidates bisexuals by imposing the label pansexual on them if they are attracted to trans men or women (whether the bisexual in question perceives the binary trans person in question as masculine, feminine, or “other”).
Dominic also presents a form of this definition (with the caveat that bisexuals MAY be attracted to trans and nonbinary people, but not necessarily) and rated it a D tier, which I believe deserves to be lower because of the transphobia against binary trans people.
Hearts, not parts
Pansexuals are attracted to “hearts, not parts” (implicitly: unlike bisexuals, who are conversely attracted to “parts, not hearts”).
Hell tier — Smears bisexuals as only capable of carnal desire. Also underplays that pansexuals also experience sexual attraction.
If you also believe in “the split attraction model” using words like biromantic and panromantic, then it’s doubly counterfactual, because this definition would define sexual orientation in terms of romantic orientation.
No difference, except vibes
Bisexual and pansexual are two different words for the same thing; the only thing that differs between them is their vibes or aesthetic.
B tier — While I myself partially believe in this definition, almost all pansexuals do not identify as bisexual, and vice versa, and would not consider these labels interchangeable. There is a palpable difference in vibes, aesthetics, culture, and philosophy.
Dominic also put this in B tier, and we agree that this is a half-truth in search of a more precise and accurate line in the sand—how and where these “vibes” differ.
Flags
The only difference between bisexual and pansexual is the flag.
C tier — While the aesthetic choices of the bisexual and pansexual pride flags are indeed dissimilar, I think that this difference is not only skin deep. I will elaborate later.
Dominic put this in A tier, with which I disagree; to his credit, he went on to attempt to refine the specific differences in “vibes”.
Cats and dogs living together
Bisexual has more cat-person vibes and pansexual has more dog-person vibes. (No joke, a definition that SubstantialDominic gave.)
C tier — While the pansexual flag’s color palette does scream “hyperactive”, I disbelieve in a correlation between someone’s temperament or preferred pet and their preferred sexuality label.
Dominic put this is S tier, with which I ardently disagree. While I agree in the muted vs. hyperactive aesthetic differences, I don’t agree that this difference is similar to that between cats and dogs.
Dominic’s final definition
The kind of attraction a bisexual person feels differs based on the other person’s gender expression, while a pan person’s attraction for others is largely the same kind of attraction. (Direct quote)
D tier for the same reason as “A perfect Kinsey 3”, which is that I have talked to self-identified pansexuals who would harp on and on about their very gender-related preferences in romantic partners.
And I don’t find that wrong or odd, because think about it: who in the right mind would feel “largely the same kind of attraction” towards a bearded muscular hunk and towards a lithe and graceful lady? Not only does sexual attraction often depend on the other person’s gender identity and gender expression, but also does it depend on your own gender identity and gender expression relative to theirs. “Do I want them to hold me or do I want to put them on my lap?”, for example.
Sure, you could hand-wave these differences away with the word largely, but then how “largely” are we talking about? If we go too largely, the definition loses precision and thus utility.
Dominic presented this definition at the very end of the video and cut to the credits after abruptly putting it in B tier, but I think this is much too high compared to my rating (which, again, was D tier).
Generation gap
Pansexual is Gen Z-speak for bisexual.
A tier — This may be controversial, but I think that the difference is based on age, generational cohort, and/or the amount of anti-LGBT hostility experienced during one’s formative years.
I find that younger sexual minorities are averse to saying the words bisexual and transsexual, or even just the bare LGBT with no additions (which irks me but that aside for now). On one of those “make your own which-character-are-you quiz” sites that I’m barely too old to have experienced unironically, I saw many quizzes with a question along the lines of “What’s your sexuality? Straight, gay, lesbian, or pansexual?”. And arguably, the impetus to replacing the label bisexual and the bisexual umbrella with multisexual and the multisexual spectrum (mspec for short) was in avoidance of the word bisexual itself among the “online and q***r” generation of sexual minorities.
Plus, as a bisexual, I can say that the color palette of the bi pride flag sucks; I always use my own recolored version when I have to represent bisexuality with an emblem, but then, I still keep it muted and primarily purplish. In contrast, the pansexual pride flag is a hypersaturated triadic color palette: much more aesthetically pleasing, and loud and attention-grabbing for children and teens, yet too garish for adults. This hyperactive and hyper-stimulating pride flag may contribute further to the generation gap surrounding the word bisexual.
I believe that this is more informative and predictive than Dominic’s “S-tier” cats-vs.-dogs definition.
You’re here, but I’m not
Pansexuals identify as q***r, while bisexuals do not.
B tier — Age, generational cohort, and the amount of anti-LGBT hostility experienced during one’s formative years highly correlate with whether one still recognizes the Q-slur as exclusionary, abnormalizing, and otherwise harmful. Personally, the Q-slur is one of the worst things that you could call me, a trans woman who is trying to outwardly become the woman that I inwardly already am, while being constantly othered and third-gendered at work by only being allowed to use the all-access bathroom. This kind of understanding is absent all over today’s sexual minority rights activism in general, but between bisexuals and pansexuals, I find that pansexuals like Dominic are less understanding of the Q-slur’s hurtful impact than bisexuals; for heaven’s sake, his YouTube bio starts with “I make videos about q***rness”.
Although, while I do believe that this definition is more true than false, I recognize that other bisexuals might identify as the Q-slur. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience place it in A tier.
Why can’t we agree?
The problem with defining bisexual and pansexual in a way that convinces both bisexuals and pansexuals is that we do not share the same understanding of what it means to be bisexual. Too often, when I hear or read a random pansexual define pansexual, it fits the template of “We pansexuals aren’t like those bisexuals who [biphobic stereotype]!”. Those are the definitions I’ve put in Hell tier. And even when their definitions aren’t overtly biphobic, it becomes amply clear that we do not share the same ontology.
Conclusion
Even though there was a time in which I identified as pansexual, I now believe that the label pansexual at best provides red herrings while figuring out one’s sexual orientation, and at worst perpetuates harmful biphobia.
There were two distinct reasons why I stopped identifying as pansexual. One was that I realized that I don’t like certain kinds of masculine or feminine features, or certain mixes of those features. The other was that I realized that the label pansexual itself often promotes acts of biphobia like bisexual erasure. ∎
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Author profile
I’m Haruki Wakamatsu, a.k.a. Haley Walker, a Japanese, bi, transsexual woman with so many opinions. On my blog, Haley’s Musings, I write about anything that comes across my AuDHD mind, including linguistics and technology, but mostly about LGBT issues. I do not consent to being called the Q-slur or a part of any Q-slur community.