Thread by @MangoThey, #CriticalRoleOKAY, SO WE'RE DOING THIS.if you're hearing Caleb being confirmed as bi [...]

#CriticalRole

OKAY, SO WE'RE DOING THIS.

if you're hearing Caleb being confirmed as bi or pan and your immediate thought is "omg queerbaiting" or "he was leading ____ on" or "the hets win again" let me tell you why you're wrong and biphobic and why you should stop: A THREAD

1.) i cant believe that in the year 2020 some people still need to be reminded that gender is not binary and therefore bisexuality isnt either. we've been saying it forever. lo and behold, The Bisexual Manifesto as published in "Anything That Moves" all the way back in 1990.

2.) someone being bisexual doesnt automatically make them not attracted to a person of the same gender, especially if they've ALREADY MENTIONED THAT THEY ARE/WERE ATTRACTED TO SOMEONE OF THE SAME GENDER, i.e. Liam saying Caleb LITERALLY has/had an attraction to Essek. --

-- he LITERALLY SAID Caleb, a male, is/was attracted to Essek, also a male (as far as we know). how is ANYONE hearing /this/ and then immediately thinking "QUEERBAITING"???? it makes less sense than if it had been said when Liam said, also on Talks many moons ago, that Caleb --

-- was "in love with Jester" in a way, and EVEN THEN it wouldn't have been right to immediately call het on Caleb because by that episode Caleb/Essek was already A Thing in the fandom, but even if it wasn't, why must we assume het immediately??? why can't we leave room for bi --

-- bi+ identities??? and when i say "bi+" that includes pansexuality and the asexual spectrums. (Ace-spec ppl are queer, do not fite me on this, if you are not an ace person who doesnt personally identify as queer but you disagree, I wil not even give you the time of day.) --

3.) how TF is bisexuality supposed to be queerbaiting when IT IS A QUEER IDENTITY ITSELF?????

4.) any person who expresses interest in someone is not AUTOMATICALLY IN LOVE WITH THEM, so how tf is a bi person leading ANYONE on if they realize they are more in love with someone -

-- of a different sex or gender than someone of the same sex or gender as they are??? how come when a het person who isnt ready to commit is dating a couple of people at the same time, but a bi man comes out and says "i'm in love with a girl" and suddenly it's "leading the --

-- other man on?" COME ON. aren't people allowed to explore their feelings for different people REGARDLESS of their sexuality? AND HOW THE HELL IS IT LEADING ANYONE ON IF A BI MAN SAID HE WAS ATTRACTED TO ANOTHER MAN i still don't get that logic. --

5.) i'm gonna say it - the only actual leading on that has happened are your shipper goggles. I GET IT, okay. im a multi-shipper, and a lot of the time, shipping makes things more fun for me. shipping is and should be fun. but we can't let it cloud how we accept what is canon. --

-- just because your same-sex or -gender ship isnt the one that happened for your fave bi character, doesn't mean they were leading that other person on, or that they were pretending to be gay (BI PEOPLE ARE NOT BI TO PRETEND THAT WE'RE GAY, WE'RE JUST BI, PERIODT). --

-- we all have our OTPs and a lot of the times, they dont become canon, but that's still no justification to throw bisexuality under the bus, as if biphobic straights AND gays and lesbians dont already do that enough out in The Real World™. you can be invested in a same-sex or -

-- -gender non-canon ship and be disappointed when it doesnt become canon without shitting on identities that already get shit from both extreme ends of the identity spectrums.

6.) bi and bi+ people who date people of a sex or gender not their own are NOT in a "het" --

-- relationship, even if the other person is het. bi and bi+ people who date people of their own sex or gender are NOT in a "gay" or "lesbian" relationship. relationships arent gay or lesbian or het. they are just what happens between straight or queer people. it's that simple.

7.) don't get me started on the misogyny of calling bi men "queerbaiters" or "leading other men on" when they're in a relationship with women. like. HOLY SHIT. if that's what YOU think bi men in relationships with women are, then that says more about YOU.

CLOSING STATEMENTS: this is PURPORTED to be a supportive and inclusive fan community, but the years of its existence has proven that minorities like bi ppl and POC still get mistreated A LOT, and i am DONE with the "it's just a vocal minority, just ignore it" argument. --

-- some of the people who think this way about bi people are very much popular within the fandom and with the cast even. they have a platform. meanwhile the rest of us have been struggling FOR YEARS to be heard about these things, and yet this kind of thing STILL goes on. so --

-- it's not about how little or how many think this way - it's the fact that people STILL think this way and make a LOT of other fans feel unwelcome and sometimes even unsafe in a community that SAYS they're inclusive and empathetic and understanding. --

i don't care how loud or how soft it is. ignoring it doesn't stop it from existing. ignoring it so YOU don't hear it doesn't stop it from hurting someone else who DOES hear it. i'm also done with the "all fandoms suffer from this" insight because nothing should excuse or justify-

-- letting biphobia and bi erasure keep on happening. you can tell me im taking this too seriously, but im tired of seeing a character who identifies the same way i do be shat on by people who say they care about people like me. if that doesnt make you angry, you're heartless.

addendum coz i know "i'm not seeing those kinds of tweets" is coming: just coz you're not seeing it doesnt mean it's not happening. /I/ havent seen it, but bi Critters told me, without me directly asking, that it's happening, and i can believe it coz it's happened before.

Latest Threads Unrolled: