A Little (Bi)t of Reflection

You bis, I’ve been thinking. (Ha, see what I did there?)

See, I have a lot of thoughts and I’ve been thinking these thoughts throughout the days, especially now that it’s Bi Week. I have read so many bi stories and there are many more I have yet to read (curses, you endless TBR!) but something I have gleefully noticed is how not all of these bi stories speak to me. Meaning that they don’t all reflect my experience. And that’s awesome!

I love that there are enough stories out there to get a varied spectrum of what it means and feels to be bi. I’m glad that this selection exists and I’m even more delighted by how this demonstrates the fact that belonging to one label or group or community does not mean those stories should be identical. In fact, it means quite the opposite.

There is no one way to be bi. That’s a wonderful fact and luckily it’s now available for readers to see. However, there are still a lot of people who struggle to understand or accept this. Reviews for books about this ID tend to get judged upon a monolithic experience of what being bi must mean. People outside the bi-party especially seem to rely too much on a limited definition of what bisexuality actually means in their reading and reviewing of our content. Which can be discouraging, but I hope that the continued variety reinforces to them and others how even under the queer umbrella there are multitudes of experiences.

Sometimes our shared label means different things to each of us. Sometimes our romantic attractions are the same but our sexual attractions are different. Or vice versa. Sometimes we are more than just one minority, sometimes we are many. The span of potential new bi stories is so exciting!

What’s more is how everything I’ve said applies to many other minority experiences and in some cases, exponentially more so. As readers we need to take a step back and reflect on each written experience as an individual story – exactly how it is meant to be seen – not as a representation of a group or people as a whole. These gems, that show us the uniqueness of life and how special we all are, play an integral role in advancing societies beliefs about accepting differences. Those are our strengths, after all.

Hopefully more stories from varied perspectives are published for other communities as they have been for the bi community. I hope for people of all walks of life to be able to surf through different stories, see themselves on a larger scale, and more importantly on a smaller, more personalized one. In order to get there, it is up to us as writers, as readers, and as members of these better represented communities to help support the spread of variety as we have experienced.

As more bi stories are told, from new and interesting perspectives, across genres and categories, let’s be the ally we needed for others. Support other stories as we have so ardently supported our own.