I’m sorry if you’ve been asked this many times, but I have no one else to talk about this with. Why do radfems dislike bi women so much? I made the awful mistake out of curiosity visiting a radfem space on Reddit, and was taken aback on how many straight, lesbian, and even bis being negative towards bi girls. It was as if I walked into a far right community. It hurt the most reading other bi women saying stuff like “most bi girls are entitled/ignorant”. I’m newly out and this depressed me….

geekandmisandry:

hai-hai-sictir-deactivated20170:

Don’t apologize, anon! I’m always here to answer questions, even if they’ve also been answered before.  

In regard to radfems, it’s all about men. Or, rather, their blind hatred of men and anything they ‘touch.’ For example, you will see even radfems who don’t espouse TWERFy sentiments instead redirect them from trans women to trans men and some nonbinary people, on the ‘reasoning’ that ‘they’re men, that means they’re inherently misogynistic and I don’t have to give a single shit about them. What do you fucking mean ‘that’s not how intersectionality and intersectional oppression is supposed to work?’’

The way this affects bi women and all m-spec women, for that matter, is that the closer we seem to be to men, the ‘worse’ we are in the eyes of radfems. Lately, some of them and the young girls to whom they’re spreading their ideas in this place, have made a big show about how much they supposedly love sapphic women or WLW, but make no mistake – that love and that acceptance are purely conditional. And the condition, as far as radfems are concerned, is that we ‘prioritize women’ (translation: that we have relationships predominantly, if not always, with women). 

@autismserenity put it very well and I quote: 

Lots of assertions that bi “women loving women”, and trans lesbians, and lesbian asexuals, are precious cinnamon rolls who must be protected at all costs. That all “women loving women” are the best and must be protected at all costs. And at the same time, this constant insidious theme that the *reason* to protect them at all costs is because they are “women loving women”. That you are worthy of love and protection and adulation to the precise extent that you act and look like them – and no further.

And the nearer you get to guys, the faster they throw you out. I don’t know why it’s called radical feminism in the first place; it’s not about women as a group at all. Women who have anything to do with men get reviled to such an extent that even asexual women are labeled as “basically het”. (source)

I made a very bleak joke about this to a friend, a couple of months ago and it went something like this: I’m at an art event and I meet a fellow I like and who seems interested in me as well. He asks me if I want to go out sometime and instead of answering, I pull out a giant-ass Excel spreadsheet and say ‘wait, wait, I have to see exactly what ratio I’m at if I date you. Because, you see, there’s a whole bunch of people ready to start shouting ‘traitor’ and ‘bihet’ and ‘you’re not oppressed for sucking cock!’ at me unless I carefully monitor the number of different-gender people and particularly of cis men I choose to date.’ Sounds completely and utterly fucked-up? That’s how you end up feeling as an m-spec woman, due to the fact that radfem ideas permeate far too many LGBTQIAP+ communities. You end up feeling guilty for who you’re fucking attracted to, instead of it being a natural, normal thing that’s, frankly, no one else’s business but yours and your partner’s.

This is what I mean when I keep snapping that conditional acceptance (no matter the reason or situation) is complete fucking bollocks and should’ve died in a ditch a long time ago. 

‘It’s as if I walked into a far-right community’ is entirely correct. Radfems will deny this until the cows come home, but their politics are inherently reactionary, no matter how you slice it. This is one of the reasons why they’ve been natural allies to conservatives over anti-trans legislation and why, when you read one of their anti-kink screeds, for example, you sometimes struggle to figure out if the thing was written by a radfem or a religious fundamentalist (the funniest thing I ever saw on here was a bunch of anti-kink radfems liking and reblogging a post written by an ultra-conservative Catholic!) Their attitudes toward m-spec women are no less reactionary and exclusionary. 

Listen to me, anon. I know it’s often hard to see, particularly in this place, but there are people who constantly push back against radfem ideas in LGBTQIAP+ spaces , who fight against bigotry toward m-spec people or a-spec people (the two often go hand-in-hand – watch a radfem aphobe say that she loooooves m-spec women… only two posts later to deny the existence of biphobia!) and who work to make sure that individuals don’t end up in a situation where they’re shat on by Straight society and then they’re also shat on by what is supposed to be their community. You’ve always got people who love and support you without placing any conditions on their affection and support, remember that.  

This. I’ve seen radfems openly mocking posts about letting bi girls date men because they mistakenly believe that het society gives us a pass and thus they don’t even need to listen to what is being said. They believe we are protected when we are with men and any posts about us in that manner are superfluous.

I’ve been told, by these women that I “carry the taint of men” that they don’t trust women who are “sexually available” to men that I’m a “barely gay” or an “attention seeking straight” and the absolute refusal of some people to engage with what this lateral aggression can do is damaging.

You’re not edgy if you reply to a post about bisexuals in different gender relationships needing to be accepted with “ok, but who doesn’t?” and tagging it with “lol” and “people need a positivity post for anything these days”. All you are doing is ignoring the issues faced by bisexuals when we try to tell you what they are.

The broken notion that “society loves you so you don’t need love here” is SO giving damaging, because, NO… Society does NOT love us. We shouldn’t have to say that when rates of domestic and sexual violence against bisexuals are SO damn high. We don’t have passing privilege, we are viewed as sexual objects for abuse and objectification.

You don’t get to pretend you’re not a biphobe if you ONLY care about a part of our identity, if you ONLY care about us when we are with women.

If you don’t care about the whole then you don’t care at all.