What is pansexual?

they are the same thing honestly, it's just that people might be more comfortable with one label over the other for personal reasons. some reasons i've seen people give for using the label pansexual is that they want to specify that they are ok with dating trans people, no matter if they have transitioned yet or not, nonbinary people, or that they feel more interested in the personality aspect rather than the physical when looking for a partner. obviously i don't know all of them since i'm not pansexual myself.

 

I agree, they are pretty much the same terms for me, I like people. The bisexual label has been around longer and is in the general list of letters in LGBTQ so I’m finding it easier to identify that way. I like the bi flag colors better too. Maybe there is a difference between bi and pan, for instance I read a lot on this forum and some folks who identify as pansexual talk about gender not mattering, or not seeing gender just the person. I notice gender, and something attractive about each gender and gender presentation, so maybe some pansexual folks here would say that is a difference. It also seems generational, I’m a middle-aged guy and bisexual is the more familiar term for me and my peers, and as I come out to folks they don’t start asking me to define the term.

 

Actually, this is a very common misconception that simply isn't true. Already in the 1990 Bisexual Manifesto, the definition of bisexuality does not concern itself with the gender binary alone: it merely means one is attracted to their own and other gender(s), which can very well include non-binary identities. The 'bi' does not mean 'two genders' (per se), but 'your own and other genders'. Some people may definitely use it to mean only the gender binary, but not nearly everyone who identifies as bi does and historically that's just not how bisexuality has been considered.

In practice, I'd say bisexuality and pansexuality generally mean more or less the same thing: you're attracted to more than one gender. People often separate the two by saying that you're bisexual if you like different genders (and gender plays a role), and pansexual as meaning you like people regardless of gender. Just how much that difference actually means something is very much up to the individual and both identities are used in a really wide range of ways, many of which overlap. A lot of people prefer one term over the other (often partially due to misconceptions, i.e. a lot of people identifying as pansexual don't like the word bisexuality because they worry it includes only binary genders) so whichever you use is really just a personal choice of which one you feel most comfortable with

Edit: from the bisexual manifesto:

 

I remember the pink triangle. It represented homosexuality.
I see the “biangle” history, where another triangle was added, slightly overlaid. That other triangle stood for heterosexual (which technically means “different” or “other”).

That is where the “bi” prefix comes in. The two sexualities overlaid. Same and other.

That was then.
I see Robin Ochs definition of bisexuality. I don’t see a male/female binary reinforced. That is now.

So... no gender binary need be reinforced by the term. Mostly I hear non-bisexual folks wanting to make it about two genders. That’s kind of like straight folks defining what “Gay” really means. Ouch.

 

you’re right - i was just using the bisexual manifesto as one example dating from years ago to show it’s already been used in a variety of ways for a while, not as an invention of the last few years. but that doesn’t mean it’s not widely accepted. many organisations use the “your own gender and other gender(s)” (that’s the two of “bi” definition) or the “two or more” definition (happy to provide you with examples later when i’m not on mobile) and a LOT of bisexuals do not restrict their attraction to only men and women, particularly when they’re actually aware/accepting of non-binary genders and don’t believe binary trans people are somehow not men or women. (though the transphobic version where trans people are excluded from the categories of man and woman is popular amongst certain circles). agree to disagree, sure, but what is commonly understood greatly depends on what circles you’re in, and i’ve seen more organisations (educational and activist alike) use the definition of bisexuality not limited to binary genders exclusively so i’m not eager to accept that the binary definition is necessarily “widely accepted”. the way labels are used in practice is not the same as the linguistic root or a dictionary definition.

and yeah, maybe that means there’s no need for the label pansexual separate from bi. but let’s not pretend we don’t have tons of words that mean the same thing but are still interpreted differently. labels are personal, constructed for a multitude of reasons including misunderstandings. in my own language, i can’t call myself “gay” without implying i’m male, yet in english that word is widely accepted as applying to women too. yet in english the word gay feels a lot more right for some women then lesbian, for a number of reasons, including things they (fairly or not) associate with lesbianism but may not relate to. there’s also plenty of ways to say you’re a lesbian using other labels that may feel more comfortable to some, such as gynosexual, a word that is used both as just being a lesbian or in a more transphobic sense as being only attracted to ciswomen and excluding trans women from the category of women. labels overlap. sometimes they mean the same to a lot of people but slightly different things to other stuff. they change well beyond their linguistic roots too (or else all of us gay folks would surely be happy?). and as this thread shows, people can use the same label to mean different things.

 

Never heard someone use bisexual as a way to say they are not into non-binary people in real life.
Pansexual puts an emphasis on being attracted to non-binary and trans individuals as well, but it's so niche that nobody heard of it.

 

that’s a wild interpretation of the argument i’m making, but i have no interest in engaging in that discussion of the word bisexuality any further, so have it, i guess. if you want to stick with a definition that’s not nearly as widely used as you think it is (and i’m not speaking of a small group of individuals or groupthink, i’m speaking of, you know, official instances that provide education, activism, health services, as well as gender and sexuality theorists, you name it) that’s cool. clearly we’re in different circles and value different things.

i just want to let people know who are deciding on what term to use that linguistic definitions =/= practical usage and that they’re free to use the term they’re most comfortable with, especially if that term is sometimes interpreted as meaning something else purely for linguistic reasons. and more so, i want bisexuals who do not use the word to imply a gender binary to know that there’s nothing wrong with how they identify, and for trans or non-binary people to know their identities are not invalidated because their partner is bi and chooses to be with them.

 

im sort of walking on eggshells here, but i never can understand why there needs to be a new sexuality just for people who like trans people. transgender is not a gender, and calling yourself "pansexual" just because you would date transpeople seems sort of... fetishizing or fetishistic to me. (same thing when people single out non binary people like that.) trans people are real men and women, sometimes with different genitals. that doesnt need a new sexuality in my mind.

i mean, i believe most people come from a good place when they call themselves pansexual, but i honestly believe it is not needed. trans people are still male or female depending on what gender they are transitioning to, so why does it need different terminology?

 

i thought this was a support forum, not a place to invalidate people's experiences, and to have an admin say something like this... i'm sorry, i'm going to ignore this thread.

sorry for derailing the thread a little, OP. Hope you managed to get a little bit of an answer you were looking for, anyway

 

Sounds like a fancy way to say bisexual, to me. But I suppose people will use whatever definitions feel suit them. I would certainly date a trans woman, though I don't necessarily have a preference for that. Does that make me pansexual? Eh, I really don't care and I think a lot of people can get really hung up in wanting to define themselves. I don't feel like a "man" or like a "woman" because I just feel like me. I like some masculine things, I like some feminine things. I like men and women. Whatever. I just don't really take a whole lot of time to think about defining myself; I'm just who I am.

 

In Belgium and Holland Robyn Ochs definition for bisexuality is used by the bi associations and as a result pansexuality is considered to be under the bisexuality umbrella. Using Robyn Ochs definition for bisexuality bisexuality and pansexuality are basically the same thing.

 

I would describe the difference like this:

Bisexual is attraction to more than one gender, and pansexual is where you are attracted to all genders. So I could be attracted to dudes and non-binary folk and I'd consider myself bi, but I call myself pan because basically it doesn't matter to me what gender someone is. I have preferences, but I don't think they enter into it.

 

didn't you just spend the whole thread defending the idea that bi must mean two, not "more than one"? we're never going to agree on 'most widely used definitions' (because the idea that there is one most accepted definition everywhere, as if words are not constructs that gain meaning depending on specific contexts they are used in and vary throughout time and place, is not one that you're going to be able to convince me off, but we're clearly coming from very different backgrounds where other theories regarding to what is considered valid and real are dominant) but if you can accept all of a sudden that bi can mean "more than one" I'm failing to see the point of the discussion?

by the way, it was the calling people - some of which are literally in this thread explaining how they describe their sexuality - "a small group of people who want to feel special" that i took offence with, not that there's a focus on evidence-based understanding. Hey, i fully agree things should be evidence-based, which is why I made sure my arguments were evidence based (even if i could not attach direct links because i was using mobile and said i was happy to provide them if necessary, but you really don't need to dive all that deep into the literature to find that the meaning of the word bisexual has been widely debated for a long time in many theorist circles - although maybe not in fields that use more fixed boxes for the sake of their research rather than acknowledging the constructive nature of language, such as psychology, but that by no means means language is inherently fixed). i'm not just yelling out stuff based on observations in my own tiny bubble, and while i by no means claim to know everything about the world or that i'm always right, i do know what i'm talking about. i take no interest in throwing around qualifications because i believe they mean truly nothing if you can't put them to practice, but i also take no interest in having someone dismiss me my saying my argument must be incorrect because you value evidence-based logic and therefore implying i'm just some pseudo-scientist who clearly doesn't understand the value of evidence-based research.
i really just want to stress again that i think it's unacceptable to be calling anyone "a small group of people who want to feel special", particularly if the group is not nearly as small as you make it out to be (but i'm tired of repeating that because you appear unwilling to even consider the possibility) but even more so if these people are right here, in this exact thread, on a forum that should be a safe space. Using a word, a label, in a certain way that is different from how you interpret it is not the same as providing unscientific, clearly false information. We need to recognise labels are, in the end, words, socially constructed, and not hard scientific truths. Saying "I use the label bisexuality in X way" is not the same as saying "I personally think homosexuality can be cured" or anything else that's clearly unscientific and has been proven to be false repeatedly. These are not people saying "i am unicorn-sexual", these are people saying "in my understanding, the word bisexuality best suits the way i feel, and the word is used in this manner often enough for it to be recognised as such, so it communicates ti others what i want it to communicate in a way that makes me feel best understood." Calling someone a person "who wants to feel special" for expressing their feelings in a certain way is highly unprofessional and it truly upsets me to see an admin use language like that on a forum like this. That's the issue. There's literally nothing constructive in writing people off like that. For the sake of this website, I hope you can at least try to see that.