Confessions of a Bi-Pan-Omni Maltese Expat

By Fiona Petras

For many years, I identified as bi for the wrong reasons. Now, you might be thinking, "There are wrong reasons to identify as bi?" The short answer is: very rarely, but yes. Initially, I thought I was only attracted to the two binary genders, and since I had not been attracted to non-binary people yet to my knowledge, I thought this meant I was strictly bi which was completely separate from poly and pan.

This was because I had no reliable resources to turn to and so mostly looked to youtubers and social media for “expertise” on bisexuality and non-binary genders. While some were very good sources and I continue to follow them as an adult, it was often a hit or miss. This left me with incorrect misconceptions about what being non-binary really means, and just how many people who are attracted to non-binary people still prefer to identify as bi. My fluidity added another level of confusion and made me feel like an imposter, until I opened up to my straight friends who told me that this was a very common feeling among their other bi friends. (I remember thinking, who are these other bi friends, and why haven’t you introduced me seeing how alone, scared and confused I feel?)

My limiting misconceptions also unfortunately came from straight people talking about their other bi+/mspec friends. I believe it was Lewis Oakley from the UK podcast 'Bisexual Brunch' who said “I often find myself at the mercy of gay and straight advice.” While this in and of itself is not a bad thing, non-bi+ people and especially straight ones are not likely to have the correct answers to everything. This particular friend told me how her classmate first identified as bi and then found herself attracted to a trans woman, so she began to identify as pan. It was not until quite a few months later, trolling the internet, that I found convincing arguments as to why this definition of pansexuality is so problematic. Moreover, I still had negative preconceived notions of transness, and so was unsure whether I could be attracted to a trans person. Today I know that this is a transphobic statement. Seven years later, I found myself still explaining to the same straight friend how trans women are women, and separating them into a different gender means you are not acknowledging their gender identity. She finally caught on, but it took her seven years - and only because I brought it up, since she’d never had to think about it, being cis and also not bi or pan.

I found myself having to explain gender and sexuality to others while I myself was still trudging through muddy waters, trying to parse the good information out through osmosis.

I eventually resorted to online communities such as Facebook groups, but like a good therapist, even this took some time to find. I remember having a panic attack once when, having just discovered that bi “always meant more than two genders”, I asked whether that was the case or whether we had simply adapted our definition based on new information. It was an innocent enough question, coming from a bi-identified person looking for support. By this point, I did define bisexuality as attraction to two or more genders or to more than one gender, and had for a long time, since I was part of the Tumblr generation of bi self-discovery. However I did not yet know the history of the bi community itself and was looking for answers. (It’s funny today to see the same generation of teenage tumblr users grow into adults who are finally publishing their own work and thoughts on bisexuality where there was almost none available outside of tumblr before - it’s like a bi literature renaissance!)

Little did I know that unfortunately I had found a group of “Battleaxe Bisexuals”, more appropriately termed mspec exclusionists, who insisted that bisexuality could never be questioned or scrutinised and other identities such as pan were “born of biphobia”. Hence, in their eyes, anyone who is attracted to more than one gender must identify as bi, end of. I was mercilessly spammed with cruel messages until I finally had to delete my original comment. Apparently this was against their community guidelines, and I was booted out right at the same time as I was about to leave the group anyway. I remember feeling so hopeless and dejected.

This was the first time I realised that rejection while being bi could come not only from gay and straight communities, but from certain bi communities as well. It can also come, I later learned, from the opposite extreme: non-bi mspec communities who insist on a binary definition of bisexuality and who want to force you to identify as another “more open-minded” label. It felt as if everywhere you turn as a bi person, there is rejection on every corner.

While I eventually did get there, it took me years to finally piece together the correct information to reach what I know now about the complexities of gender and sexuality. I now know that there is no one way to be non-binary and/or trans, and therefore anyone of any sexual orientation could in theory be attracted to someone who is not cis or binary. Since then, a number of celebrities I found extremely attractive have come out as non-binary, and as I moved abroad I had more opportunities to meet people of various gender identities and to listen to trans people’s perspectives on trans issues. While I love Malta, I found the opportunities were extremely limiting when I was a teenager. Where I live now, it is so much more common to introduce oneself with one’s pronouns (whether cis and binary or not). Because starting on a blank slate in a larger country is so much less stifling, it is that much easier to let people know that you are bi without it feeling like a whole coming out thing. And I’ve noticed less people have assumed that I am straight and monosexual upon meeting me.

As an adult Maltese expat, I have access to a slew of information and bi+ literature which I can borrow for free from the local city library. I wish I had been aware of these resources and reliable bi+ organisations when I was still figuring things out. It would have made things so much simpler. Today, I still identify as bi based on Robyn Ochs’ definition:

"I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.”

Basically, there are only two things you need to ask yourself in order to be bisexual, the first being "Am I attracted to more than one gender?" and the second "Do I identify with the word bisexual?" That's it. That's really all there is to it. The problem is when a person identifies as bisexual because they take the bi- prefix to literally mean that only two genders exist. I will not delve into this, as there are several other blog posts where we will be digging deeper into etymology. Mind you, if an individual just so happens to be attracted to only two genders (while acknowledging that there are more out there), this is a perfectly valid way to experience bisexuality; however, it is by no means the only way.

Based on my new knowledge of gender, I know that I could theoretically identify as pan, or more accurately, omnisexual. However I prefer to identify as bi because the label has a special place in my heart, being the first term that showed me there was actually nothing wrong with me and there were others like me. The term also exposed me to communities and resources which I would not have found otherwise (or would have come to them much later) had I searched using other terms. As someone who is diagnosed with anxiety, have a family history of OCD, and who has a tendency to overthink and spiral, the open-ended definition of bisexuality Ochs provided allowed me to simply say I am bi without overthinking too much about which label is the most accurate (and “least problematic”).

That said, if someone were to refer to me as pan, I would not correct them. I feel an affinity with all three identities to some extent (bi, pan and omni). I like the idea that, if at a pride event in my city all the bi flags were sold out (and believe me I was surprised how many were being purchased!), I could just as comfortably opt for one of the other two and still feel represented.

I would just like to add that there are so many other options for how you can identify, as we at CUBIN tried to demonstrate during Bi Visibility Month. A person who is attracted to more than two genders may absolutely still identify as bi if they so wish (and this is definitely supported by Robyn Ochs’ definition), but it is important to know of other options i.e. that you can also identify as poly, pan or omni depending on the number of genders and type of attraction.

I started writing on bi issues, particularly under a pen name with the Boston publication Bi Women Quarterly, because I wanted to make it easier for other bi, pan, poly, omni and other mspec people to figure things out. My involvement with this page was born out of exasperation at not having had any bi-specific resources in Malta to turn to growing up. I recall that even the Department of Gender and Sexuality at UOM had nothing on bisexuality and pansexuality. And finally, I wanted a platform on which to share reliable information and the endless publications and bi-queer feminist theory there is out there.

I hope that this generation of Maltese bi/pan+ folk find it that much easier, and know better than I did not to let anyone guilt you or tell you how you should or should not identify.