Bisexual

Bisexual Flag

Bisexual is a term referring to a sexual orientation on the multisexual spectrum describing someone who is attracted to two or more genders.

The most common idea of bisexuality contains the attraction to both men and women, but it can be more broadly defined as attraction to all genders as gender is not binary.

## History & Coining

Bisexual is a term originally used in 1792 to describe plants that contained more than one sex organ, the first known use of it being used as a term referring to a sexual orientation was in 1886 by a man named Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In the 1970's Bisexual was also a term used to describe an androgynous clothing style and was popular among musicians such as Elton John and David Bowie.

Despite many new definitions of Bisexual focusing on the "Bi" part of the term, the phrase (since being used as a term referring to a sexual orientation) has historically always been defined by Bisexuals as "loving people for who they are regardless of gender".

Biphobia is a large yet somehow seemingly invisible problem to other members of the LGBT community, with a lot of people claiming bisexuality is in some way the "problematic" or "outdated" sexuality due to the term pansexual being more widely used after 2010, the creation of which being confusing due to the small, yet still important to some, differences in definition. Despite discourse within this time period, bisexual and pansexual exist as individual labels, both being used widely across the queer community.

## Flags & Symbols

The bisexual flag was designed by a team led by LGBT activist Michael Page in 1998. The flag was created in order to give the bisexual community its own symbol. Page took the colors from the biangles, another symbol for the bisexual community with unclear origins. Pink represents same sex attraction, blue represents attraction to the opposite sex, and the colors overlap to create purple, representing both sexes. These colors are often misinterpreted to represent attraction to women, attraction to men, and attraction to non-binary individuals.

Other symbols for the bisexual community include the bisexual crescent and an infinity symbol featuring the Venus and Mars symbols as well as a blank circle for the genders and attractions between.

## Etymology

The prefix *bi-* means "two, "twice" and "on both sides."

## Resources

https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Bisexual

1. ↑ A "Memoir of Observations on the Plants denominated *Cryptogamick*", read February 17 1792 and published in the 1793 *Transactions of the American Philosophical Society*, page 211, says "It appears that the urn is a bi-sexual flower, containing a capsule more or less pedunculated, according to the length of the tube.
2. ↑ Besides Krafft-Ebing's and Chaddock's works, e.g. the 1906 English translation of Otto Weininger's 1903 *Geschlecht und Charakter* (*Sex and Character*) says certain people have "from the beginning an inclination to both sexes; they are, in fact, bisexual."
3. ↑ Time magazine, Monday, Aug. 04, 1980
4. ↑ Elissa M., “Bi Conference,” *Bi Women* (1985)
5. ↑ Pansexual pride hex color codes 2010-10-08, archived from the original on 2011-08-24
6. ↑ Sali, “Bi or Pan?”, *Bi Community News* (2015)
7. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010801185547/http://biflag.com/Activism.asp
8. ↑ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bi