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During the last live show, people brought up a number of questions about pansexuality
and what it means as an orientation. I quickly realized that I didn't know very much about
pansexuality, and neither did many other people. The most common understanding is that pansexuals
have the potential to be attracted to anyone, without gender identity or physical sex characteristics
posing an obstacle. Yet in practice, bisexuality is often used to denote that same openness
to any gender or anatomical configuration. It occurred to me that I could possibly be
considered bi or pan, so I decided to look into this further. Is there any difference
between bisexuality and pansexuality? I asked around, and many bisexuals and pansexuals
were willing to explain their view of what these orientations mean. It soon became clear
that there are a variety of opinions about what bisexuality and pansexuality are, and
there is no one definition that can determine who is or isn't bi or pan. Beyond designating
that a person can be attracted to more than one gender, these words appear to mean whatever
people use them to mean. The easiest and most respectful position would be to recognize
that bisexuals are people who identify as bisexual, and pansexuals are people who identify
as pansexual. As such, I won't attempt to make any definitive statements about what
bisexuality or pansexuality actually are. Instead, I'll simply go over some of the major
themes in the responses I received. One of the most common explanations was that pansexuality
encompasses attraction to non-binary genders beyond men and women, including people of
other genders, fluctuating gender, more than one gender, or no gender at all. They're willing
to consider bigender, third-gender or agender people as potential partners, in addition
to binary-identified men and women. In contrast, bisexuality was perceived as implying attraction
to men and women only, as suggested by the "bi-" prefix. While some bisexuals said they
identify as bi because they're only interested in binary-identified men and women, others
said that their attractions are actually a great deal broader than that, overlapping
with this definition of pansexuality. Some claimed that they identify as bi for the sake
of convenience, since fewer people understand what it means to be pansexual. Another widespread
view was that pansexuality is a kind of "body-blindness", focusing on attraction based on emotion and
personality, while disregarding physical sex characteristics. This was commonly phrased
as loving someone for who they are, rather than what they are. Some people characterized
bisexuality as being based on physical attraction, whereas pansexuality is not. However, other
pansexuals made it clear that someone's physical sex, gender, and gender expression are indeed
a significant part of what makes them attractive. Finally, many people claimed that pansexuality
is meant as an explicit statement of inclusion beyond the gender binary, serving to highlight
the binary implications of bisexuality, in etymology if not in practice. One person suggested
that while bisexuality focuses on *** identity, pansexuality is focused on the acceptance
of gender identities. These are just some of the most prominent aspects of pansexuality
that people have described, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that every person experiences
their sexuality in their own unique way. Even the same label won't have the exact same meaning
for everyone. However, certain definitions of bisexuality and pansexuality can come with
troubling implications. For instance, some pansexuals, or people talking about pansexuals,
have described pansexuality as the attraction to men, women, and transgender people. This
phrasing depicts all trans people as a gender other than male or female, when in fact many
of them identify as men or women. Trans men are already men, and trans women are already
women. It also suggests that bisexuality, or other sexualities, do not include binary-identified
trans people. This is incorrect, because bisexuality, homosexuality and heterosexuality do not specify
the exclusion of trans people as potential partners. They say nothing about any possible
preference for cis people or trans people. It's not as though straight people cease to
be straight if they're open to having a partner who's trans - except in the minds of homophobes
and transphobes. If anything, this seems to be either an artifact of ignorance, or a poor
choice of words, and given their awareness of diverse gender identities, most pansexuals
probably don't mean to imply that trans people are a completely separate gender. All in all,
the meanings of bisexuality and pansexuality are still in flux, and they may never be corralled
into a single definition. There will most likely always be details and exceptions and
individual understandings. Ultimately, bisexuality and pansexuality are as diverse as bisexuals
and pansexuals themselves.