Dear The Stranger,
I commend Governor Gregoire on her support of same sex marriage. At the same time, I would like to express my disappointment in the isolation that further separates bisexuals and transgendered individuals as a result of her announcement of support for same sex marriage. Why not support Marriage Equality instead? Why not frame the words in a way that does not make the LGBT marriage campaign strictly for gays and lesbians? I am a bisexual woman and I am proud of who I am. I am with a wonderful man who is my best friend and who I one day look forward to marrying. At the same time, I am still a bisexual individual and it could be that I marry a woman. But this would NOT make me a lesbian, this would not qualify me under her speech. There are also my transgendered friends, who do not fall under the premises of her speech, who would not be considered nor consider themselves “same sex” as her support explicitly states. The move for same sex marriage is not just for gays and lesbians. There are bisexuals and transgendered/intersexual persons who want to get married too; or who are married, who have lives and relationships; hopes and dreams. We deserve to be included. By leaving us out of her speech, she relegates us to an invisible darkness; to shame and isolation; to pain and suffering. We deserve to be included in this. And as much as I support and love my gay and lesbian friends, our brothers and sisters, I love myself too. Please support MARRIAGE EQUALITY and not just same sex marriage or marriage for gays and lesbians.
Sincerely, Shaunita Felder
Discuss.
God, shut UP! No one cares about your Gender Studies 101 class.
@7 Then http://youtu.be/umhuM3M_mfI
(NSFW-ish)
@46, doesn’t calling oneself “bisexual” reinforce the gender binary?
Is there some sort of check box on the WA marriage certificate to indicate the type of sex you will be having or what exactly will be going through your head while you’re having it? Otherwise it hardly matters what your orientation is. Nasty sex -check!
What an odd complaint. Supporting same-sex marriage IS supporting the end to marriage discrimination based on sex (cause opposite-sex marriage is already recognized everywhere). I support equal marriage too, but I’m not going to bitch about someone who was previously a marriage bigot finally seeing the light and saying that they no longer oppose same-sex marriage.
In 2003, Canada recognized the constitutional civil right of gay people to obtain marriage licenses, regardless of the sex of the person they wanted to legally marry…and all the gays and lesbians and transgendered folk who live here and wanted to get hitched didn’t get “same-sex married”, or “trans-married”, the just got MARRIED .
@20 and @25, agreed…in all the mire of her shitty writing, and self-importance, she inevitably stumbles on a good point. Marriage Equality should be easier to sell and sounds a hell of a lot better than Same Sex Marriage.
The rest of it…ZOMG. I feel dumber for reading it.
Do not give attention to the idiots. It only encourages them.
Ms. Felder has too much free time.
And I want to marry 2 women. It’s not a sarcasm, I really do. Why is nobody fighting for my rights?
@48: Got it at the convention. Don’t tell me you let your Amalgamated Oppressed Carpet Munchers and Sausage Swallowers Union membership lapse and missed the convention notifications! Surely you remember our motto, at least? “Help! Help! I’m being oppressed?”
Snort. Some deviant you are.
I’m (a heavily lesbian-leaning) bisexual. My fiancee’s bisexual. Our relationship would be classified – and our marriage is going to be classified – as a lesbian relationship/marriage. The last I checked, we’re both still bisexual. What the fucking fuck is this fuckery about bisexual invisibility? Jeez, complain much?
@54 – whaddya mean, NSFW-ish? Show tunes are ALWAYS fully-NSFW. Jeez, you trying to get a guy fired????
cant see the forest for the trees.
“is there a way we can make this more about me? that’s be great. thx.”
p.s. seattleseven, @50 – LOVE IT.
WTG Shaunita for voicing what so many bi folks feel when gay marriage is discussed! Our voices matter too even though it seems quite a few comments on this site have issue just being inclusive. Must be nice to be monosexual!
@66 – Gregoire didn’t say “gay marriage” once.
Please explain how the term “same-sex marriage” is not inclusive, and also say what term you’d prefer.
I’m not trying to be snarky here – I’m just bewildered that you find injury in this.
If you ever wonder why bisexuals get angry, read through these comments with an open mind
@46 What is a “barsexual”? A person who only has sex with people they pick up in bars? Or maybe they only have sex in bars? Does gender matter in barsexual relations, or is it an equal opportunity Happy Hour for all? Maybe I’ve not been going to the right bars . . .
I had no idea bisexuals were apparently their own gender as well. Letter writer, take note: this is why people don’t take you seriously.
@68 Where’s the problem here? When all the other bisexuals call out this one for being totally unreasonable and self-centered and nitpicking something that objectively increases rights because it isn’t perfect enough? Yeah, we’re so fucking mean. As a bisexual, I’m going to chime in with the advice to get the fuck over it.
Hmmm . . . interesting that a bi-identified person would not find language like “same-sex marriage” inclusive. Bi the way, just so you know, for the last few year bi activists like Sheela Lambert, founder of the Bi Writers Association, have been pushing for the media and public officials to get away from the language of “gay marriage” and use “same-sex marriage” instead, so that bisexuals would be more aptly included in the movement for marriage equality and not erased.
So I guess, Shaunita, that you can blame bisexual activists for the language that the governor uses. I suppose you think bi activists have not gone far enough? Frankly, the issue of bi visibility is fraught with all kinds of semantic pitfalls, sometimes without any conscious intent. In my opinion, “marriage equality” is a great statement–by implication, it includes gender variance more than “same-sex marriage”–but I still don’t think that in all cases it makes gender variant bisexuals significantly more visible. Something to work on.
What I don’t get about this, as a bisexual, is that “same-sex marriage” is precisely the term you use when you want to emphasize that not everybody in a same-sex relationship is necessarily gay. How on earth does it leave out bisexuals? Yes, we are also attracted to the opposite sex, but opposite-sex marriage is already legal! If she ends up marrying the guy she is currently with, her marriage won’t be affected at all by the legality of same-sex marriage in Washington. That kind of marriage is already recognized.
And this sort of confusion really doesn’t help bisexual activists at all. One big complaint that gays and lesbians have is that bisexuals don’t acknowledge how society privileges us when we’re in opposite-sex relationships. Even those of us in OS relationships who are very open about the fact that we’re bi, not straight, and fight against bi erasure, still get our relationships recognized and celebrated by the state and society in a way they wouldn’t be if they were same-sex. Acting like her opposite-sex marriage needs to be roped in with the same-sex marriage cause is the kind of myopia that rightly gets called out by LGs.
There is a good conversation to be had about how the use of GAY marriage and GAY rights excludes the bisexuals to whom it also applies. (One that particularly irks me is the tendency lately for anti-bullying activists to refer to “gay and transgender” or “gay, lesbian and transgender” students, as though specifically leaving out the B in LGBT.) But this isn’t that conversation.
Pretty much the only good point she makes is the one about transgender people (in that, in states that recognize transgender people it’s their gender, not their sex, that determines who they can marry – since two gay men where one is trans would technically be of opposite biological sexes, but the same gender).
I can’t help but think this letter was chosen (out of all the kazillion letters the Stranger gets) because it’s ridiculous and irrational, and paints people complaining about Bisexual invisibility as irrational, so us sloggers could take the piss out of the letter writer.
I’m guessing Dan would approve too, since he’s the one who pokes fun of us whenever we complain about invisibility.
@75: Well, I didn’t post the letter, but… in the final accounting… Dom’s choice to post it 1. made it possible for lots of reasonable, sane bisexuals — the overwhelming majority, in my experience, but underrepresented among the authors of letters claiming to speak on behalf of the bisexual community — to weigh in and make it clear that this sort of buttsore inanity does not, in fact, represent the bisexual community and 2. made it impossible for this letter writer to complain, in a subsequent letter, that the Stranger didn’t publish a letter she sent us once long ago about a bisexual issue of some import because the Stranger is committed to silencing the bisexual community, we do everything we can to make the problem of bisexual invisibility worse, blah blah Dan Savage is mean to us blah blah blah, etc.
I’d say publishing this letter was worth it just to read Whoop Di Do’s interesting and informed comment.
I like the phrase “marriage equality” because I think it also helps emphasize that both parties in the marriage are equal to each other.
Obviously far and away the most important thing about removing the sex/gender restriction on the parties to a marriage is the equality of access to marriage for all people including same-sex couples. But as a straight woman, I will admit to enjoying it from a feminist perspective – because I am convinced that some part of the cognitive dissonance the jesus freaks have about same-sex marriage boils down to, “But if two dudes get married, which one owns the other?!??” So in that sense, state-sanctioned same-sex marriage might indeed destroy their conception of what marriage is, by redefining it as a relationship of two equal partners.
Just a little bonus.
@tau >>> some part of the cognitive dissonance the jesus freaks have about same-sex marriage boils down to, “But if two dudes get married, which one owns the other?!??” >>>
This. Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely.
everybody read @77. tau’s onto something.
Wow, it’s no wonder so many conservative people are afraid of letting us have a political say – we can’t even have a basic discussion about terminology without ganging up on each other.
Seriously, just because you CAN post anonymous snarky witticisms doesn’t mean you should. It just makes us look like the same kind of immature bullies that target gay people for being self-centered enough to whine to the other 90% of the world about how unfair it is they can’t adopt or get married or whatever bullshit they think they deserve now.
…So yeah, sometimes it’s hard to comment respectfully about ideas you don’t believe, especially when you’re in the majority. But it’d be a hell of a lot more welcoming around here if people tried writing “I don’t have a problem with the semantics,” instead of ganging up on someone who feels strongly about an issue that doesn’t bother the rest of us.
Wow, it’s no wonder so many conservative people are afraid of letting us have a political say – we can’t even have a basic discussion about terminology without ganging up on each other.
Seriously, just because you CAN post anonymous snarky witticisms doesn’t mean you should. It just makes us look like the same kind of immature bullies that target gay people for being self-centered enough to whine to the other 90% of the world about how unfair it is they can’t adopt or get married or whatever bullshit they think they deserve now.
…So yeah, sometimes it’s hard to comment respectfully about ideas you don’t believe, especially when you’re in the majority. But it’d be a hell of a lot more welcoming around here if people tried writing “I don’t have a problem with the semantics,” instead of ganging up on someone who feels strongly about an issue that doesn’t bother the rest of us.
Yikes, the utter cluelessness and whiny, pissy, hostile, disgusting, pathetic, self-hating and biphobic (and polyphobic) nature of most of the comments on this thread is astounding. From my perspective, you can all eff off and die. Equal marriage or marriage equality has been the right term since day one, with declining levels of acceptability down to “gay marriage” which our effing pathetically non-inclusive national organizations still haven’t managed to get eradicated fom the lexicon of our “allies” because their asimilationist accomodationst agenda puts access to heteronormative privilege via marriage above everything else, while sissies, queens, butch dykes, transgendered folks and non-gender conforming people of all orientations continue to put their lives at risk just walking down the street and regularly get the holy living crap beaten out of them. Get over yourselves. Get over your biphobic hate for women who love women and men and happen to fall in love with a man (which is the real motivation for much of these comments). For the bi folk on this thread, grow a spine and develop some self-respect. Get this: not one bloody effing penny, not one, went to any bi-specific programming and services in 2008, 2009, 2010 from our “progressive” national GLbt orgs. The gay and lesbian establishment wants you (and every other “sexual minority” within the queer community) to STFU and not frighten the mundanes so they can grab the brass ring of heteronormative assimilation and deliver NOTHING in return to any of us. The *least* we can do is demand that we not be excluded from the discussion. Seriously: do the bi fols on here really not get that the most fundamental pre-requisite for tolerance and maybe acceptance is acknowlegement that we exist?
@82: Have you read any of the comments us “bi folk” have been making on this thread? I agree with you about the term “gay marriage” not being inclusive, but that’s not the case with “same-sex marriage,” which is what the LW is bitching about here. Reading comprehension – it helps!
Secondly, why do you assume that because we disagree with the LW, that we put up with people saying shit like “bisexual people don’t exist”? I call out biphobia all the time, and in fact, a big part of my beef with this letter is that it makes it so much harder for us to get real, genuine biphobia taken seriously when people see bis like this LW complaining about nothing and claiming to speak for the entire bi community when they do.
TL;DR – If you’re such a great bisexual activist, actually read what your fellow bis have to say and stop being so fucking condescending.