alizeh

there are a couple of snippets that i will post later (on a separate thread likely cause it will include a my own commentary) but as it stands, this is the end of this (very long) thread. i hope it was useful/helpful!

“days like bi visibility day is actually so, so important bc when we show up, we affirm that we exist and that directly combats bi erasure”

“using the word [bisexual] is a radical act for me”

alizeh on X: "on why confusion can be a good thing: https://t.co/zv8TUWv0GB" / X on why confusion can be a good thing: https://t.co/zv8TUWv0GB

on why confusion can be a good thing (linking the twt post here as well as video is >60s): x.com/bisexualarch...

and that’s just much more difficult so we set our sights on these very low bars and then what happens is these other identities get oppressed in the process.”

very normative, government standardised beneficial way.” to which jen replies: “there is an amazing word for that—homonormativity, which i love. because it rly is just like assimilation is not the goal, equality is not necessarily the goal, reinvention is actually the goal +

“…and i think it’s partially that monosexism you’re talking about we can see in the gay rights movement of making at the front of fight for rights, rights to marriage is very much rooted in ‘see! we’re just like you, we want to pick one person to share our life with in this +

“…because the fear of bisexuality is so tied up with the fear of non-monogamy, like they are on the same team, just as many oppressed identities are on the same team”

“and when i read that stat [which indicates that 89% of bi women are in monogamous relationships] i was like ‘oh that’s good that that’s out there to counteract the stereotype. at the same time i was like i’m part of that 11%, it’s almost kinda like a rebuttal like ‘here, see +

alizeh on X: "video recording the next relevant segment for ease of understanding bc it’s a question & an answer between host & guest: https://t.co/xQ2gaehNXH" / X video recording the next relevant segment for ease of understanding bc it’s a question & an answer between host & guest: https://t.co/xQ2gaehNXH

video recording the next relevant segment for ease of understanding bc it’s a question & an answer between host & guest (the video is >60s so i’m gna link my twt post): x.com/bisexualarch...

coming out scene in my life, like it’s unfortunately a part of the bisexual reality. & same for people who are non-binary with regards to gender bc you can’t see it visually. i identify as a woman but i also identify as non-binary but people don’t know that unless i tell them!”

that the writers used to shy away from it because it’s like ‘show, don’t tell!’ and you don’t wanna always have a cheesy coming out scene where you wanna just say how someone identifies, but the fact is like, if i wanna tell someone i’m bi in my life, i have to have a cheesy +

hooking up with multiple genders and not using the word ‘bisexual’. and that word was so important for me to just be able to put myself in it as like, that’s an identity that’s not a behaviour and those things are separate. i’m seeing more shows do that now and i get the feeling+

‘act on it’. and you’re so right that it is linked to this idea of it being a behaviour, which the media is the one responsible like entirely for that perception because even when they thought they were showing bisexual representation, they were often just showing someone +

“i have been asking on my instagram for bisexual people to share their stories, and i’ve asked if you are a bisexual person in a relationship that presents as straight, have you come out, are you out to people in your life, and so many people say no bc they’re not trying to +

lost my virginity yet with a woman so even though these feelings have always been there and they seem to be getting stronger, i’m not really bisexual!’”

continually diminishing my own bisexuality to myself where i felt like i don’t wanna be attention seeking by making a big deal of it, of coming out, and i think of how you said of like, we think bisexuality is a verb rather than an identity, so i was like ‘well i’m not–i haven’t+

you’re making it up’ you know, these kinds of things, all my internalised biphobia, and therefore also led to other women being far less interested in me bc of my track record of dating men.
not coming out had a lot to do with kind of hiding within straightness and also +

coming out, right? and then it created its own vicious cycle of the longer i put it off, examining or admitting this part of myself, even to myself, let alone coming out, the less confidence i had dating women, the more i was sort of gaslighting myself saying ‘oh it’s not real +

‘well shit, i don’t wanna be one of those people’. i was so clearly always surrounding myself with queer community but because i was dating men, diminishing that i belonged as anything but an ally. if i just kept dating men, whom i was also interested in, what was the point of +

“and for me it was often, a lot of my queer friends, i don’t think they ever meant harm intentionally, but why i diminished in myself [my bisexuality] because they would bemoan the confused women who were just experimenting on them and would drop them for men, i was like +

tbc :)

cares about. that was kind of why i felt like i had to be self aware in the intro of my book, to be like ‘i get it. u think everyone’s bi but that’s actually bad and it really made it so that i couldn’t come out for a while.”

“i really thought that ‘everyone knows this, whatever, everyone’s bisexual!’ and that’s a really common thing that people say, that everyone’s bi, and it has this effect of silencing you and making you think that if you talk about it, you’re talking about something that nobody +

and i think it is very similar with claiming a bisexual identity, and all of these things relate to ‘we don’t wanna seem like we’re asking for attention’.”

if you have more sex, something will just click into place, and you’ll get it. you’ll get yourself now. assault or other words used to describe sexual assault are hard to claim. the title of the roxane gay anthology ‘not that bad’, it feels like you always wanna downplay it, +

“i felt like i did put myself in those situations and it was because i cared about sexual exploration and also because i was just missing, something was missing, and i thought sex would help me figure it out. i think that was really the crux of it for me. i just felt like maybe +

assaulted a week later, but the chain of events was certainly linked, and i think that’s a hard thing to talk about (…)”

happen to you’, and it wasn’t until i was writing the memoir years later and was really digging into my still very much present internalised biphobia that i realised ‘wow, i am these statistics’ and its not this direct cause & effect that i had sex with a woman therefore i got +

and then afterwards i looked myself in the mirror and said ‘what did you expect? you’re attracted to men & women, you’re polyamorous, you’re kinky, what’d you expect you greedy slut?’ i had internalised that to the point where i was like, ‘that wasn’t assault, that didn’t even +