# Biphobia and the queer community **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594 "2003-08-21T03:43:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/21 "2003-08-22T15:51:14Z")
A heterosexual married man checking in with a question. Do lesbian/gay people generally believe it worse to be dumped by their partner for a person of the opposite sex than to be dumped for another lesbian/gay person? Hell, to me, being dumped is being dumped. It sucked royally and it didn’t matter if the new person in my ex’s life was a man or woman. Pain is pain! The rest of it wreaks of political bullshit! ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/22 "2003-08-22T16:39:12Z")
For me, getting dumped is being dumped. I dated a bisexual man whose wife left him for another woman a few years before we met. He was torn over it because she left him not because of who she left him for. I don’t think I would feel worse if I dated a closeted bisexual man dumped me for a woman. I would feel that he lied, suppressed, or hid things about himself but the end result is still the same. I think it would feel basically the same if he dumped me for someone else he was cheating on me with. ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/23 "2003-08-22T16:39:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BwanaBob \* > \*\*A heterosexual married man checking in with a question. > > Do lesbian/gay people generally believe it worse to be dumped by their partner for a person of the opposite sex than to be dumped for another lesbian/gay person? > > Hell, to me, being dumped is being dumped. It sucked royally and it didn’t matter if the new person in my ex’s life was a man or woman. Pain is pain! > > The rest of it wreaks of political bullshit! \*\* My own personal opinion is basically: ditto. I was dumped for someone else. Whether they have a penis or a vagina strikes me as the height of irrelevance. I do think in the community as a whole there are many who might be upset by the fact, but not for the same reason heterosexuals are. We, IME, don’t get the feeling that we “turned them off” to the same gender and thus drove them to heterosexuality. A certain number of lesbians do seem to get pissy, as mentioned above, about “traitors to the cause”. ---
**Author:** ![mojave66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mojave66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mojave66)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/24 "2003-08-22T21:38:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BwanaBob \* > \*\*A heterosexual married man checking in with a question. > > Do lesbian/gay people generally believe it worse to be dumped by their partner for a person of the opposite sex than to be dumped for another lesbian/gay person? > > Hell, to me, being dumped is being dumped. It sucked royally and it didn’t matter if the new person in my ex’s life was a man or woman. Pain is pain! > > The rest of it wreaks of political bullshit! \*\* I’ve been dumped for women and for men, and they both suck equally. In fairness I did have a friend whose girlfriend of a few years dumped her for a guy. After being treated like demon spawn by this woman’s family, her boyfriend of one month’s duration was instantly welcomed with open arms and treated like one of the family. Basically as far as they were concerned he saved their daughter from being some sort of lesbian freak. This kind of BS only adds to the hurt, believe me. ---
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/25 "2003-08-25T18:47:19Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by **DanielWithrow** _ > > I would loooove to see everyone stop second-guessing everyone else’s sexual identity. Does my uncle currently sleep with nobody, but used to sleep with men, and long ago used to sleep with women? Did my ex-girlfriend leave me for an older woman, stay with her four years through college, leave her for her male next-door neighbor, and is now married to a man? Did another ex-girlfriend sleep with two of her housemates (one male, one female), and get involved with me despite planning on having her next relationship with a woman? > > Whose business is it? If someone wants their own sexuality to be a political statement, more power to them – but they’ve got no right to tell my uncle or either of my exes that their own sexuality is a political statement. > > Some people have more fluid sexual preferences than others. It is obnoxious to deny that; it is obnoxious to criticize a person’s sexual preference, as long as it stays within the realm of Consenting Adults. Wow. That was really well said. I hope I can live up to that ideal someday. Good show. Esprix ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/26 "2003-08-25T21:12:35Z")
> [@](#): > > I was under the impression that LUG was only a term in use at Smith College. > > Is it used anywhere else? Definately in use at Agnes Scott College as well. I suppose it’s not surprising that womens’ colleges produce a lot of temporary lesbians, but I also see the grounds for resentment of fashionable young dilletantes by people whose orientation probably meant some amount of adolescent misery. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594/27 "2003-08-25T23:10:59Z")
When I was in Montreal, the LUG phenomenon was strong, and was a constant source of irritation to my lesbian friends. One of my lesbian friends saw exactly zero politics in her orientation, because she’d always felt that way and had never questioned it; at the other end of the spectrum, a different friend was a lesbian for purely political reasons, which struck most who knew her as somewhat inauthentic. The thing to remember about the queer community is that the politics of sexual orientation are much more present. While straight people never, or rarely, have to go through a ‘coming out’, most gays and lesbians do, and part of that is internalizing the community and their place in it, and the political concerns of it. The problem of bisexuality, as it’s been explained to me by those hostile to it, is that they’re politically dubious–bandwagon jumpers, experimenters, group-seekers–with no real emotional stake in it. They treat the very real political concerns of homosexuality as interesting cultural artifacts. Thus, those who are honestly, sincerely bisexual are discredited by their less-than-sincere, badge-wearing brethren. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biphobia-and-the-queer-community/196594.md?page=1)