Scarleteen

Why do people keep saying that bisexual is gay I never understood that. They don’t even know what that means. Being bisexual means you’re attracted to both genders not your own gender that’s what gay means you being attracted to your own gender and not being attracted to the opposite gender. I don’t know how people get that mix up. Can anybody explain that to me?

Hi SilverFalcon,

I can’t know why the specific people you noticed saying that did so, but the thing is both of these terms, and especially gay, have been around for a while and their meaning has been evolving with time, usage and the people using them. What originally began as a synonym to "cheerful", was later used to describe men being attracted to men, which expanded to people of any gender being attracted to people of same or similar gender. And I have also seen it used as an umbrella term for any sexual orientation that is not heterosexual, including bisexual people. But because sexualities and identities are very individual and complex, the words we use to describe them will always be a simplification rather than exact descriptions and it varies from person to person what they prefer to use.

Does what I am saying make sense to you? Were there any specific interactions with people that made you worry about this?

Hey again, SilverFalcon.

I want to add that while you haven't said who "people" is in this case, in my experience this is the kind of thing most often* said by straight people who only want to date/partner with other straight people, whose opinions about non-straight identities we obviously shouldn't put a lot of stock in, if any, since this usually has nothing to do with them. By and large, this notion comes from people's biphobia, and the false belief that a bisexual person will always eventually leave someone of a different gender than them for someone of the same or similar gender as them.

* That isn't to say, sadly, that ignorance about bisexuality or other queerness is limited to straight people. There was a good while there back in the day -- an attitude that still shows up sometimes now -- where biphobia was pretty rife in some of the gay community, particularly the gay male community, with some folks insisting that bi men (and only men, so you can perhaps also see the sexism inherent in this) were all secretly gay. But even that notion was mostly coming down from straight folks.

P.S. There are way, way, way more than two genders (and more than two sexes, to boot) -- and no such thing as an "opposite" gender -- so rather than thinking about "both" genders, we always want to think about "all" genders, and rather than thinking about gender as being the same or opposite, it is much more accurate and inclusive to think and talk about it as being similar or different. None of this is binary in reality, which is some of why some of us don't use the term bisexual anymore, but use terms like pansexual or queer instead, because that "bi" suggests an antiquated binary that in 2026, many of us both know isn't accurate, and which also can tend to leave out those of us whose gender is different than man or woman.