Hey guys! I just came out to my dad earlier. Let’s just say he wasn’t very happy. So to all of you who’s parents don’t approve, keep your head up and live life just as you always did. If not, live it better!
Pride Flags on tanks. Sherman Firefly has the Pan Flag. M10 Wolverine has the Bi Flag. Enby Flag Sherman M4A3E8. LGBT Pride Flag and Trans Flag on the M3 Lee
friendly reminder that you don’t need to justify your sexual orientation to anybody, whether you’re homosexual, bisexual, pansexual or asexual!
friendly reminder that you don’t need to justify your romantic orientation to anybody, whether you’re homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic or aromantic!
friendly reminder that you don’t need to justify your gender identity to anybody, whether you’re binary, non binary or use mogai identities!
friendly reminder that you don’t need to justify your pronouns to anybody, whether you use commonly used ones, rarer pronouns or neopronouns!
friendly reminder that you don’t need to prove to people that you’re “one of the good ones”!
friendly reminder that you don’t need to justify your existence to anybody, whether they be a stranger or a friend!
you don’t exist to be an argument for or against a political cause, and you shouldn’t feel the obligation to prove to people that you have a right to exist as who you really are.
This Friday, a post I made was circulated a lot in battleaxe bi communities. Their comments and additions represent such a fundamental misunderstanding of the content of the post that it’s almost not worth addressing here. They seem to have skipped over most of the content of the post and instead zeroed in on the list of strawman arguments I provided, caricatures of our community which battleaxe bis invented and make posts about when they want to insult pan people while still maintaining plausible deniability. Having presumably skipped the part where I explain what a strawman is, they assumed these strawmen were views I held, and confidently began to lampast me for being queerphobic.
Panphobia can be illogical seeming. To better understand it, I’d like to go more in depth on the function a strawman serves. I’ll be talking about battleaxe bis in this editorial, but keep in mind these behaviors are exhibited by many groups dedicated to hating or excluding another. You are also not immune to creating your own strawmen. Be mindful of this type of thing in your own communities.
What battleaxe bis have created is a field of scarecrows. The scarecrows all say things like “fetishizes trans people” and “erases bi history”. Panphobes go out into the field, and look around, and believe they are seeing a snapshot of the actual pan community. Perhaps one of the scarecrows looks like someone a battleaxe bi knew once. Maybe they met a pan person who insisted to them that the term “bisexual” meant they had to be attracted to only two genders. So they built a scarecrow that looked like that person, and stuck it in the field for other battleaxe bis to see. That person was once real. They had reasons for thinking what they thought, and the potential to change and become more informed and thoughtful. But all any of the battleaxe bi’s friends see is a 2-dimensional facsimile of this person, with their worst trait written across their chest. As time passes, the scarecrow fades and the straw begins to fall out, making it even flatter and less human-like. But panphobes still point to it and say “Look! Look how awful pannies are! That’s what they look like. That’s what they believe.”
Some scarecrows are not based on real people. They are copies, and copies of copies. They are representations of pan people constructed by panphobes who have learned to hate not from single misinformed people who have had the misfortune of having their effigy erected forever in this field, but from the scarecrows themselves. They are caricatures of pan people created solely from other warped approximations, becoming uglier and more aggravating every iteration, and no longer resembling anything close to a real person. They have extrapolated a grotesque version of what they believe is the pansexual community, and they begin to discuss amongst themselves how ugly all these pansexual people they’ve created are, how harmful the content of the words across their chest is, how monstrous. They have taken the distorted beliefs of a few confused pan people and turned them into a monolith, a field littered with hundreds of thousands of scarecrows stretching from horizon to horizon.
This is why I believe that battleaxe bis assumed my post supported the arguments I listed. When they see a pan person clearly describing their scarecrows and calling them what they are, strawmen, it doesn’t compute. How can a pan person not believe these things? All of the pan “people” they’ve seen in the field do. So they cross their eyes, and ignore the content, and refuse to see anything but another scarecrow.
What can we as the true pan community do about this field? Not much. The scarecrows are flimsy and have no real substance, but the field is vast, and more are being built every day by dedicated panphobes. Each time we destroy a scarecrow, there’s another one for battleaxe bis to point to. The best we can hope for is to build our own community, far away from the field. We know we look nothing like the strawmen, so let’s have our own field, filled with wonderful, real pan people and our allies. Let’s enjoy our vibrance and diversity and life, while battleaxe bis throw rocks at their faded bundles of sticks and mud.
Tumblr is a wonderful place for marginalized people, including queer people, to find community and uplift each other. However, it has also become the breeding ground of queerphobic movements, among them trans exclusionism, aphobia, and battleaxe bis. While sometimes people in these movements are open about their bigotry, they can also post veiled messages, or “dogwhistles” containing subtly queerphobic sentiments and ideas. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of well meaning people, including pan people, reblogging these posts. Today I’d like to take a moment to go over common panphobic dogwhistles, and hopefully reduce the reach of these campaigns.
Veiled panphobia usually contains two major components:
1. Vague reference to a misinformed or hated group
To ensure allies and people in the targeted group reblog the message, it is intentionally vague about who it is talking about.
2. “Calling out” a straw man of a biphobic or otherwise bigoted person
A straw man is a logical fallacy where an incorrect caricature of the opponent’s argument is set up that can then be easily debunked.
Examples include:
Posts vaguing about people “erasing bi history”
Posts stressing that bi people can be attracted to all genders
Posts quoting an incomplete version of the bi manifesto (You can find the full version here)
Posts railing on the hearts not parts slogan
Posts talking about how all sexualities can include trans people or “calling out” transphobes who “reduce trans people to their genitals”
Posts talking about Freud’s idea of pansexualism (which is an outdated psychological theory not related to modern understanding of human sexuality)
Posts claiming pansexuality is a new identity. (It’s not)
If you see a post resembling any of these, think twice about reblogging it. Make sure to check the person’s profile. Look for phrases like “battleaxe bi” in their bio, and search their blog for posts tagged pansexual to see if they have posted panphobic stuff in the past. Even if their blog is clean, it’s best to play it safe. Don’t reblog a post that rubs you the wrong way or seems to include subtly panphobic messaging. Be safe out there everyone!
I remember the first time I knew what being gaywas. I was in 4th grade and a girl in my grade had asked me out and I said yes, cause it made my stomach feel fuzzy. But another girls told me that God wouldn’t like it, so not even two days later I broke it up with her. She told me it didn’t matter what God thought, but my family was always big on religion so I was scared. I regret that, because she was truly wonderful. That’s the day when I learned that being a lesbian, gay, was a thing. But I kissed a girl before that. I remember her because we were good friends and lived close. We were playing girlfriend and boyfriend but there was obviously no boyfriend. So I said I was going to be the boy because being a boy sounded so much fun! I kissed her, many times, little sweet kisses that only children can share. I wonder how she is right now. I wonder if she remembers it.
I knew I wasn’t straight. I dated boys but I always knew I wasn’t straight. Looking at girls made my heart flutter, so did looking at boys. But I also knew I wasn’t bisexual. That simply wasn’t it. That didn’t feel good enough to describe what I felt about the beautiful humans I was attracted to. So I remained unlabeled for a long time: then I was 14. I found out what being pan was, what it meant and everything made sense to me. Something clicked. I just, I liked so much, and loved so much, that I knew something like gender wouldn’t stop me. So I labeled myself as Pansexual. This year, I am 15, turned 15 on July. Earlier in January I came out as Pan in my favorite Discord server and so many people congratulated me on finding out who I am and told me to be happy, and that some of them, adults, were grateful I found out who I was so early. And I was happy, very much so.
Then I saw people going around, saying things about biromantic, and I realized romantic attractions also exist. I went around and just stuck with panromantic, because it felt so right. Then I learned about gender identity, and I didn’t know what to choose, because I didn’t mind the pronouns people used on me: maybe I’m cassgender as it feels more natural, but I’ve seen people saying negative people about being cassgender so I don’t tell much people. Then, I discovered I am polyamorous. And I am happy. I am so happy that journey is chapter closed. That journey was long and sweet and painful but I don’t regret a second of my exploration. A single second I spent searching for my identity. I feel safe with this.
I once had a kind-of crush (now I recognize it as alterous attraction) on my male best friend (I’m AFAB) and thought I MIGHT have a crush on my female friend as well. (Also alterous.) Well when I got a crush on a non-binary person that decided it. Especially after seeing a specific description of pan online, where it wasn’t just “all genders” but “regardless of gender”, which at the time I hadn’t heard much. Now I feel sexual attraction towards girls but I’m still panromantic and I love my pan community!
We are once again calling for submissions! We were able to almost fill the queue last week thanks to several submissions from our lovely followers, but it is once again empty. We’d like to encourage anyone who has not sent a submission in yet to send one in, and if you have already sent something in but wish to speak again on a different topic, you are more than welcome!
From now on, we will post a weekly prompt on Monday to give prospective submitters some ideas! You can find the full prompt list here (x). You don’t have to use the prompts, but they might help!
You can also send in a suggestion for a future prompt as an ask. Include “(Prompt)” at the beginning or end of the message so we know it is a prompt suggestion. Make it a public ask if you wish to be credited!
This Monday’s prompt: What kind of environment did you grow up in? Was it conservative? Progressive? How has that impacted your journey as a pan person?
This Monday I received a submission from a 15 year old named Rei, which got me thinking about what the phrase “regardless of gender” actually means. Rei struck me as a confident panromantic person not afraid to speak up about her romantic and sexual orientations, and I am proud that at 15 she is so sure of her identity and voice. In Rei’s post, she defends pan people with preferences and states that while she feels more comfortable interacting with girls and forming close relationships with them, once she is attracted to a person, it is not determined by their gender.
There are as many definitions of pansexuality and panromanticism as there are pan people. I have seen many pan people state that they are genderblind, and yet pan people who have preferences for certain genders are strong and vocal members of our community. It is obviously wrong to gatekeep people who are indeed attracted to all genders simply because they have preferences. The most commonly used definition of pansexuality, “regardless of gender”, says nothing about being genderblind or having no preferences: it simply states that gender does not decide if you are attracted to a given person or not. Another common definition “attraction not determined by gender” (the one I like to use), makes a similar statement.
Someone’s frequency of attraction to certain genders might differ for a multitude of reasons without gender itself determining their attraction. For example, Rei stated she felt more comfortable being around and talking to women. This is something I find a lot of women and fem-aligned people feel, no matter their sexual orientation. People socialized as women have been taught to be cautious around strange men, so it makes sense that some pan women would feel more comfortable dating other women. I am of course not sure why exactly Rei feels more comfortable with women, this is just a common scenario that many women face. It seems unfair to exclude people with similar experiences simply for not being “genderblind”.
The pan community is as diverse and varied as any other LGBTQ+ space. As I said earlier, there are as many definitions of pan as there are pan people. This was not an exaggeration. While many of us may have similar experiences with our sexuality, each person’s understanding of their own attraction is not quite the same as anyone else’s. If someone feels the label pan best describes their sexual or romantic orientation, it is not up to anyone else to deny them that freedom. It is their orientation. It is their label. They can have all the preferences they want.
for a limited time (until the end of this month), I will be taking requests for Pride Month chibis! I will not get to all of them, but I will get to as many as possible.
example:
send a character via reblog on this post and include gender, sexual orientation, romantic orientation, and either a detailed reference or a VERY detailed description. I’ll tag you if/when I’ve completed it.
