Deconstructing Biphobia

Abstract

The authors deconstructs and analyzes ‘biphobia,’ understood as the structural oppression bisexual persons experience. The author's account is based on the belief that a traditional emphasis on ‘discrimination,’ rather than ‘oppression,’ when referring to nonheterosexual sexual orientations, has failed to shine light on some core problems related to the asymmetric relations between privileged and non-privileged groups. To introduce the concept of oppression the author takes as a point of departure the five faces of oppression described by Iris Marion Young in her book Justice and the Politics of Difference. To these faces the author adds three more faces he found meaningful in relation to the points presented in this text. To illustrate the theories presented, the author takes as a point of departure his experiences as activist in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) networks. This text is to be understood within the tradition of critical theory and postmodernism. Because it has a postpositivist ontology and epistemology, it takes distance from essentialized assumptions about sexualities, sexual orientations, sexes, genders and gender identities.

KEYWORDS:

• critical theory
• postpositivism
• postmodernism
• heterosexism
• homonormativity
• Iris Marion Young
• oppression
• discrimination
• LGBT organizations
• biphobia

Acknowledgments

The author's heartfelt thanks go to Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio for her effort in editing and proofreading this text.

Miguel Obradors-Campos is a bisexual activist based in Copenhagen, Den- mark. He has a Masters degree in Political Sciences/European Studies, in which he has focused on questions related to strategies of empowerment of oppressed minorities and civil society. Miguel was one of the initiators of Pangea– Copenhagen International LGBTIQ Network– which is a network for LGBTIQ foreigners living in Denmark where actions are targeted worldwide. Miguel has published a number of articles on bisexuality and biphobia both in grassroots movements and in more institutionalized contexts. He has also facilitated workshops related to bisexuality in different LGBT/Queer Conferences/festivals such as Copenhagen Queer Festival, WorldOutgames 2009, BiReCon, BiCon 2010, The Danish LGBT Student Union (BLUS) and in the first Spanish Conference on Bisexuality “marcando precedente,” in September 2010. Miguel has volunteered in proofreading the Spanish translations of the book Getting Bi– voices of bisexuals around the world, and in finding the Spanish publishing house “Egales” as the future publisher of the book.

Notes

1. As Furlong and Marsh argue (2002).

2. For a greater input about this constructed relationship between the ‘self’ and the ‘other,’ I refer to Paul Ricoeur's (1992) Oneself as Another.

3. For an inspiring angle of vision about a new politics of love I refer to Anderlini-D’Onofrio (2009).

4. For more depth on this topic I refer to Pierre Bourdieu (1998/2002).

5. True or false, as it might be, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all. It is seen only with an effort. When seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and lord of light in the visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual world. The idea of good is also seen as the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life, must have his eye fixed. From “Allegory of the Cave” in Plato's Republic (n.d., Book 7)

6. The Scale of Storm uses an x (homoeroticism) and y (heteroticism) axis which comprehends all the spectrum within bisexuality but excludes asexuality. http://www.uwlax.edu/pridecenter/images/101/Eval%20of%20Models%20of%20Sexual%20Orientation.pdf.

7. Described by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder in his Plinius Naturalis Historia XXXI (n.d.)

8. Heteronomy will be introduced after alienation.

9. As Kant (1785/2010) explained, “The moral law is valid for us not because it interests us (for this is heteronomy and the dependence of practical reason on sensibility, viz. an underlying feeling whereby reason could never be morally legislative); but, rather, the moral law interests us because it is valid for us men, since it has sprung from our will as intelligence and hence from our proper self” (p. 461).

10. Conversation of the author with Eric Anderson through Facebook chat on February 26, 2011 (10:47 am to 12:18 am).