Hello!

I am new here, and new to the LGBT community in general. Around 6-7 weeks ago I realized I was trans(htf do you make it to 30 and not realize?)

In talking to my therapist, they said they(belonging to the community themselves) like to use queer as shorthand since it includes everyone and isn’t an unending acronym that is constantly getting new letters. I also like that and would use it, but being new, I’m not sure how others who’ve been here longer feel.

Are they equivalent?

I don’t like how the acronym keeps changing and accidentally leaving out a letter could be taken as an intentional slight.

  • I'm A Different BirdEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Yeah, I have to confess that I don’t fully understand the difference between bi and pan. I’ve had some people tell me that pan is simply a more inclusive way of saying the same thing, and others tell me that there are distinct differences in how the two approach their sexuality, so the whole thing just leaves me a bit confused.

    • sapient [they/them]
      2•1 year ago

      The way I understand bi and pan is the following:

      • pansexual is attraction that is unaffected by the other person’s gender
      • bisexual is attraction to similar and different genders, but the attraction may be distinct (in terms of what is found attractive or the actual feeling of attraction) for different gender identities - and lots of bi people experience different amounts of attraction to different gendered people .

        • An important note is that the bisexual community has not historically been, and mostly is not currently, exclusionary of trans and nonbinary folks.

          A lot of people (including me, as a trans-nonbinary demi-ish+sorta-bi/ace person, not gonna write a whole essay, I just say queer usually) dislike when people claim bisexuality is trans-exclusionary and/or nonbinary-exclusionary :/

      These are of course personal labels, so some people use them differently and respecting people’s self labelling is important.

      Some people use bi to mean attraction to people of any two gender identities, or two-or-more gender identities.

      Pan probably has similar things but afaik it’s a less common label so I haven’t seen as much discussion on the different meanings people use, or maybe it’s less prone to that because the prefix “bi” means “two” which results in weird etymological nitpicking ;p