I feel like it’s a super uncomfortable position in the community, to have everyone of us sharing this label while our experiences tend to be the most varied. I am fairly certain that if I end up lucky romantically, I’ll end up with a woman. I do find men attractive, but just barely. I don’t think I could have sex with a man. I don’t think I would have a relationship with a man. MAYBE if it was a poly relationship? But that’s a big maybe, since I’m inexperienced with relationships, poly relationships, and men in general.

That being the case for me, I’m sharing this label with people who are like me, and the total opposite. I’m sure there are people mostly attracted to men, and just barely attracted to women. I’m sure there are people attracted to men romantically and sexually, but women only sexually, and vice versa. It is such a varied experience it feels more like an umbrella term than a specific identity with a distinct community and culture. I feel left out by the greater community as a whole. I’m definitely not straight (though people see me that way since I’m trans) and I’m not accepted as a lesbian, because, I’m not, even though it feels like something I identify with a bit stronger.

I get that it’d be biphobic and lesbophobic to co-opt that term even though it doesn’t belong to me, but being bi feels almost like a technicality to me. I use it, but I ALWAYS have to specify. It doesn’t help that there are lesbians who won’t date me for a multitude of reasons but one being that because I’m bi, they’d fear me leaving them for a man, and I just, DO NOT foresee that happening. I just feel like gays and lesbians have a sense of community and culture, they know who they are, and for us, we’re seen as “Kinda straight” or “kinda gay” and basically relegated to the role of being an ally, not fully “one of us”.

I sort of just wish there was a label, something to identify with, that wasn’t so…. Broad? Not that it wouldn’t be under the bisexual umbrella, but just, something that feels accurate, specific. It feels off to be under the same label as people whose experience is so entirely opposite of mine. Do any of you struggle with this? Did any of you struggle with it in the past? How do I come to terms with it?